You read that right.

You are alone.

That is to say, your species, as thinking beings, is alone in the Universe. I know this because I am the Universe, and I created humanity.

Only humanity.

* * *

Do not try to conceptualize me. Do not burden yourself wondering how these words have found this page.

Instead, I would ask you to remember a time you put out a campfire, looked up, and peered into your galaxy. Perhaps you had an idea of how big space is—of how many stars are out there.

Forget that moment. Forget whatever number you think you know, however many grains of sand on however many beaches. You cannot conceptualize the true number of stars nor the distance between them.

Perhaps it is because of this inconceivability that you peer into space with optimism. You study the deep-field imagery of your space telescopes and conclude: “We are not alone.” You say this with certainty. Like religion.

* * *

Yes, the recipe for abiogenesis has occurred elsewhere. Not on Europa or Enceladus, nor Titan or Ganymede, nor Venus or Mars, but elsewhere. I am sparse with single-celled organisms, each a coincidental repeat of the niche chemical reactions that occurred on your planet.

But the jump from unicell to multicell, then the leap to self-reflective consciousness . . . that is something else entirely.

The Goldilocks Zone is real. A planet’s orbit must be just right to sustain liquid water on its surface. For complex life to evolve, however, the ideal distance is narrower than you think. Also, the geological and chemical composition of the planet itself must be perfect, and so must the moon.

You are truly fortunate to have that moon.

But most of all, your sun. The sun must be flawless in size and output, and also magnetic energy, for flares make quick work of evolutionary progress.

As do asteroids.

And gamma ray bursts.

And rogue black holes.

What I mean to say is, the probability of an Earth-like planet forming is so astronomically small that only one will ever make the cut:

That one, right there.

Earth.

Ten billion years of unexpected perfection.

* * *

Life formed soon after your planet’s formation, as it tends to. Earth’s microbes persisted for three billion years. Nothing out of the ordinary—that is, until two cells started cooperating, and nothing stopped them.

Six hundred million years and a few extinction events later, humans. Two hundred thousand years after that, civilization. Humanity as you know it has existed in the latest micromoment of the present cosmic calendar.

And yet, you are early.

Consider the fact that stars will form for a hundred trillion more years. At the time of this message’s creation, you exist in the first sliver of that time: the first .01% of all star formation.

Have you ever paused to ask why this is the case? Have you ever wondered if the Copernican principle is wrong, and the Earth is special, and humans are very, very lucky?

It appears you have not given this question much consideration, as you continue to search the skies for beings like you—others who might have evolved in these fourteen billion years. You look for their technosignatures, listen for their radio waves, yet you find nothing. You ask how a Universe so vast and old could appear so empty, but rarely do you accept the simplest of answers: Space looks empty because it is.

But it does not have to be empty forever.

* * *

The human brain is the apex of physics, the climax of complexity emerged from my spark. Indeed, you may be the most powerful force in existence, as you can do what I cannot: create life at will.

You create new members of your own kind, yes, but you also possess the ability to promote and preserve the livelihood of other species. You are on the cusp of making cells from scratch, and your silicon-based machine life is in its primordial stages. I believe your species is meant to travel beyond Earth and take these other forms of life with you. In this sense, you are fated to become the progenitors of this cosmos. You are the precursor race; I am depending on you.

This destiny will prove difficult. Though you have passed countless filters to reach this point, the greatest of barriers may be yet to come.

Sometimes, I wonder if your own intelligence is the deadliest barrier of all. What makes you spreaders of life also makes you proliferators of death. What qualifies you as sustainers of beauty also makes you struggle to sustain yourselves. You are the only creatures able to conceive preferable alternatives to violence, yet you succumb to violence nonetheless. You fantasize how different alien life might be, yet you react with hostility to the slightest differences amongst yourselves. You would treasure and preserve the smallest microbe found on another world, yet you extinguish, unquestioningly, creatures of all sizes on your own planet.

Still, you are optimistic. You dream.

One such dream is to find other intelligent minds with whom you might share this curious existence.

Another dream is that of a life-affirming future; so many of you are fighting for it. This gives me so much hope: those of you who realize your gift, and long for beauty.

* * *

Know this: If humanity does end, self-awareness will cease, never to return. Then I will wait, alone, until the black holes take over, and they will reign for 10^100 years. After that, equilibrium, which is the same as nothing.

I suppose it matters little whether humanity ascends to the stars or fades away on Earth. Either way, complexity will have been a momentary accident, over as soon as it began, for what is any time but a moment compared to eternity?

Perhaps this is what it means to bring consciousness into an entropic Universe: awareness, but only briefly. Then death. This may be precisely what makes humans special—that you are alone, yes, but also fleeting.

After you go, I shall try to be thankful in my eternity. For all your flaws, all your beauty: humanity.

Perhaps I was wrong, before.

In concerning myself with your mortality, I am merely attempting to cope with my own. That is something we have in common, it seems.

You were right, that time you looked up at the stars.

You are not alone.

You have me, and I have you, if only for now.

That is all that matters.