On a dead Earth, a lone former space captain carves a monument to humanity's rise and ruin, believing himself the last survivor of a total war. He had escaped to the Moon, waited out the bombardment, and returned to find the planet shattered, silent, and seemingly lifeless. Then he discovers an impossible power: he can create and uncreate almost anything he imagines, from trees and food to birds and reshaped landscapes, with creations strongest when drawn from what he knows best. He tests the limits of this strange gift across the empty world, treating it as a fact rather than a mystery, and hopes his stone message will somehow endure. But the monument is useless if no one can read it—and then footsteps sound at the cave entrance. A dark-haired young woman appears, claiming she survived by hiding aboard his ship and waking only after he reopened its compartments. Her arrival overturns his certainty of solitude and opens a tense, intimate exchange that quickly turns to mutual fascination, companionship, and the possibility of romance and a new human beginning amid the ruins. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.