Impact
I woke up and—it was the end of the world.
My phone wouldn’t shut up. I ignored it until I saw the name: Mom.
I answered, groggy. “Hello?”
At first, I thought she was laughing. I almost laughed too. But then her voice cracked. That kind of raw sound that starts in your gut and doesn’t ask permission. The laugh unraveled into sobbing. Big, ragged, ugly sobbing.
“Okay, Mom,” I said, still half-asleep. “What is it?”
“Have you not gotten any alerts?”
I blinked. No idea what she meant. Put her on speaker just as her crying turned into a full-on meltdown.
And then the call dropped.
Nope. Correction: it got overridden by the loudest, most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard.
EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM
IMPACT EVENT INBOUND – TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION
A large near-Earth object is heading straight for us.
Impact in: 6 hours.
It’s global. No one’s skipping this one.
Expect: earthquakes, tsunamis, fire, skyfall, probably ghosts, and doomsday prepper's saying 'I told you so.'
THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
So yeah...bad day.
I tried calling my mom back. Nothing.
Call failed.
Call failed.
Call— you get it.
I stumbled to the window, still mildly hungover and 90% confusion. Outside was just… chaos. Cars jamming the streets, people yelling, sirens going off like it was Black Friday at Best Buy.
Everyone was trying to leave.
I wasn’t sure if I should. Leave where? To what?
Phone rang again. Mom.
Picked up. She was still crying and barely understandable. I tried calming her, but her panic was no match for the symphony of honking and screaming outside.
I snapped. “Mom. Shut up. What do I do?”
Silence.
Then: “People are praying.”
“What?”
“Jack and Macy are out front. Holding hands with the neighbors. I think they’re praying.”
“Why?” I said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Even more silence.
I rubbed my face, looked back outside. A guy on a motorcycle was playing Frogger in real life. I wasn’t sure if he was brave or stupid or both.
“I don’t think I can get to you,” I told her. “You think I’m okay staying here?”
“They’re praying that the rocket will work.”
“What rocket?”
And then I saw it.
The sky was bending. Like, physically bending. The clouds were curving around a burning object, bright enough to sting your eyes. It hovered like a second sun. A white-hot streak cut through the sky behind it like jet smoke.
The call dropped again.
I opened a news stream. An anchor was trying not to cry on live TV. “Let’s bring in Dr. Ramos, planetary defense—”
“They’re gonna try and slam some interceptors into it,” Ramos said. “High speed. Try to bump it off course. It’s a long shot.”
Fifteen kilometers wide.
Great. It's literally a death rock.
I actually thought about praying too, and I haven’t done that since I got lost in the hallways at Sunday School.
Then I heard banging upstairs. I briefly wondered if my building had a basement. Or a priest.
I shut the broadcast off. Couldn’t take any more.
I felt weirdly calm. Maybe this was just a dream. Maybe I was still drunk.
I jumped into the shower fully clothed and blasted it cold. It helped. Kind of.
Then déjà vu hit.
Hard.
Everything felt familiar. Like… suspiciously familiar. Even me peeing a little in the cold water.
I just stood there, soaking, until the screams started.
Lots of them.
I cracked the bathroom window and looked out.
The sky looked like a blown-out birthday candle embers raining down, glowing debris like fireworks from hell.
Meteor kept blazing closer.
Pulled up the news again. Nobody was there. Just a spinning ceiling fan.
My phone buzzed with missed calls. Mom. A hundred times.
I couldn’t pick up. Because if I answered, it would all be too real.
So instead, I got back into bed. Soaking wet.
Tried not to think. But of course, I did.
Last night was kinda nice, from what I remember. Rooftop above a deli. Quiet. Me, drunk, watching the city sleep. I was planning to text that girl from the bar. Don’t think I did.
Doesn’t matter now.
Thought about jumping last night. Just to see what would happen. Didn’t.
Fell asleep staring at stars. Maybe I should have.
I must of fallen asleep because I woke to a red light flooding the room.
Peeked outside to an apocalypse orange-red sky and a fireball low on the horizon. The air was shimmering like summer heat waves.
There were no sound. Not even birds.
People were lying in the street as if they were stargazing. Some were even dancing. While most kissed.
My building shook and my window shattered. Glass sliced my arm, one chunk stuck in my cheek. I didn’t even feel it.
The air smelled like burnt plastic.
Then the sky went black. Just like that.
Heat crushed me. Sweat poured off my skin. The meteor was impossibly close.
And somehow, I felt the same way I did on that rooftop.
As much as I wanted to jump, I didn’t.
I just wanted to stay in my miserable little bubble where nothing changed.
The highs disappeared fast, but the lows clung on. Holding hands with me all day, spooning me all night.
Leaving that bubble scared the shit out of me. A nightmare and a dream rolled into one.
Now the world was forcing me out.
Guess it’s dragging everyone else too.
Then the boom.
My eyes burned like hell.
And I woke up on a rooftop.
