The Last Murder at the End of the World

Niema sits in a rowboat with a group of children at the barrier of the island. Niema shows the children the carcasses of dead fish and tells them that the fog on the other side of the barrier kills anything it touches and that it covers the earth beyond the island.

Magdalene sits on the pier watching the boats with the children. Her son, Sherko, is on one of the boats and she worries about him. Magdalene finds Emory with her grandfather, Matis, in the exercise yard that the villagers have transformed into a park. Matis is 60 years old, the oldest man in the village, and everyone knows that he will die the next day.

Unlike the other two elders, Hephaestus and Thea, Niema spends time with the villagers. Niema asks Emory about her new occupation of carpentry, which Emory says is going badly. Every villager pursues an occupation to help the village, but Emory cannot find a job that matches her skills. Niema gives Emory a murder mystery novel. Niema allows Emory to read murder mysteries because it satisfies her curiosity.

Adil watches Emory and Niema through his binoculars. Adil is the island’s only criminal, and Niema exiled him five years earlier when he tried to kill her. Abi tells Adil that nothing will come from vengeance, but Adil wants to kill all the elders.

Matis’s funeral makes Emory think of her mother, Judith, who died when Emory was little. At the pier, Seth asks about Emory’s daughter, Clara, who became one of Thea’s apprentices. Seth tells her that she should be happy for Clara, but Emory reminds Seth that her husband, Jack, who was also Thea’s apprentice, drowned because Thea made him row into a storm. Emory was once an apprentice, but she quit before Jack died. Thea lets her apprentices do the dangerous work while she watches. Seth tells Emory to be respectful of the elders because they are the final link to the old world.

Emory thinks about the history of the world’s end: 90 years earlier, sinkholes released a fog of insects that devoured everything. As society crumbled, humanity resorted to violence, and Niema called survivors to her Greek island to escape. Niema was the head scientist of a lab called Blackheath Institute, which built a barrier around the island to protect it from the fog. The villagers are the offspring of the humans who made it to the island. Thea, Hephaestus, and Niema are the only scientists left at Blackheath. Emory does not understand why the elders do not teach them survival techniques in school, and she does not think that Thea and Hephaestus should be above the rules that the villagers must follow.

At dusk, the curfew bell rings, which means that the villagers have 15 minutes before they must be in bed. Emory sees Matis and notices the gem around his neck. In their last moments, Abi collects their memories within the gem so that the relatives can remember their loved ones. Matis tells Emory that Niema said “five five” to him, but he does not know what that means. Emory tells Matis that she loves the village, but that some things about their life do not make sense to her. When Emory was younger, Niema told her that at night, the elders wake the villagers to help them with tasks while they sleep, but they do not remember it.

Emory sees Niema and Hephaestus arguing. Niema tells her son that they must make sacrifices to protect people, but Hephaestus tells her that what she is doing is murder. Niema says that she knows her experiment will fix violence in the future. Hephaestus gives in and tells Niema that he needs 24 hours to choose a subject with the best chance of survival. After Hephaestus leaves, Emory confronts Niema about what she overheard. Niema tells her that it is necessary to make a better world, but Emory says that they do not kill people. The curfew bell stops ringing, and Emory falls asleep along with the other villagers.

Abi wakes everyone up at 7:00 a.m. every morning. Three generations of villagers have lived on the island, but this is the first generation that knows that they work through the night, because of Emory.

Emory feels determined to talk Niema out of the experiment. Abi says that Matis’s memory gem fell into the sea the night before, but Emory knows that no one has ever lost their memory gem, and she finds it suspicious. Yet, when she tells Seth, he gets angry at her questioning.

Sherko asks Magdalene why Niema exiled Adil, and Magdalene remembers how Adil was one of Thea’s apprentices who survived the crash that killed Jack. After the accident, Adil did not respond to curfew. A month after the crash, Adil attacked Niema with a scalpel.

Clara’s best friend, Hui, wakes Clara with her violin practice. Clara remembers how the night before, Thea told them that Blackheath was buried under the island, sealed off because the fog got through the island’s bedrock. Thea tells them that they need to travel to the cauldron of the volcano. Thea tells Clara that Matis died the night before and that they need to retrieve a child to deliver to the village to take Matis’s place. Clara feels excited because no one knows where children come from, and she cannot wait to learn.

Seth finds Niema in the middle of her lesson with the children. The children ask questions about why people were fighting before they fled to the island. Niema explains that she had not created Abi yet to be in people’s thoughts, so she could not control people’s urges. Afterward, Niema asks Seth to row her to the lighthouse, and he agrees.

Abi tells Adil that Niema is going to be at the lighthouse at night. Adil does not understand why Abi would tell him this, but Abi says that Niema created her to protect humanity against any threat, even if that threat is Niema.

At the top of the volcano, they enter a lush forest within the volcano, which Thea calls the cauldron garden. Thea tells them that the scientists created the garden to preserve plants, insects, and animals from around the world. Thea tells them that she is going to get the child and that she will meet them at the cable car station. Hui wanders off into the forest by herself. Clara hears Hui scream, and Clara rushes through the forest to find her. Hephaestus runs into Clara, wearing a large contraption on his back. Thea appears, leading a young boy in white robes. Hui emerges from the forest, holding a metal box. Clara asks her if she is okay, but Hui does not respond, and Thea tells Clara that she must have imagined the scream.

As they walk to the cable car, Hephaestus tells Thea that Niema asked him to check the dome of the cauldron for cracks with the machine on his back. Hui avoids looking at Clara. Then, they reach the suspended cable car that takes them down the volcano. When they arrive at the village, the boy meets his parents and tells them that his name is Ben. Thea gives Clara a vial of Ben’s blood to examine in the lab.

Hephaestus tells Niema that he has a candidate for the experiment that will ensure Niema cleanses humanity of its flaws. Later, Niema finds Thea in her lab. Niema apologizes to Thea about not getting Thea’s sister Ellie out of Blackheath, but Thea says that she tries not to think about Ellie. Thea asks Niema what Hui saw in the garden, but Niema refuses to tell. Niema says that she plans to tell the villagers the truth that evening.

Abi rings the bell for curfew, so Emory goes to the barracks. Abi thinks about how people will die that evening, but she knows that it is necessary for humanity to survive.

Seth rows Niema out to the lighthouse. Niema asks Seth about Judith. As they dock, Abi tells Niema that Adil is waiting for her ahead. Niema does not want to speak with Adil, but Abi says that Adil is necessary for her plan to succeed. Niema gets angry with Abi keeping things from her, as if she is a villager. However, Abi controls the island’s movements without Niema knowing it because Abi cannot trust humans to act against their emotions.