Chapter Text
“...yes, they’re saying that it was, in fact, a fire that erupted inside the external tank of the ship... massive explosion killing all twelve crew members....our last and only hope...the final mission to save mankind has failed...I repeat, the seventy mile wide asteroid commonly known as Alexander is set to collide with earth in exactly three weeks time....bringing you full coverage of the minute by minute countdown to the end of days...this is Y102.2 coming at you live from downtown New York.”
May 25th, 21 Days Before Impact
Jasper DeWinter never expected he would make it past 17. Looked like his prediction was coming true.
“They say the damage to the tower has rendered all cellular telephones useless. No word yet on how long water and power will be shut off altogether, but we’ll be bringing you all the information you need, as long as we keep getting updated.”
An asteroid. Of all things, an asteroid; like the one that took out the dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago, except bigger, hotter, more destructive. What a way to go out.
Celia always said he’d been one with a flair for drama. How fitting that he would die in the most dramatic way possible.
“They have yet to make an official statement regarding rumors of a classified space launch for high ranking government officials, religious figure heads, and important contributors to athletics and entertainment. It is said that the government is keeping this information classified in order to avoid causing more panic....”
Mother and Father didn’t take the news well, but when had they ever taken anything well? When Janice told them she was pregnant with twins at 16 they disowned her and cut her out of the family will. She no longer had access to the DeWinter inheritance. Although, he supposed that didn’t matter anymore, considering material things like money and social standing would no longer exist in three weeks.
“At least we’re together,” Jasper had said, in a poor attempt to lighten the mood, but Mother was gazing at him thoughtfully, the table gripped tightly enough in her slender fingers to turn her knuckles white. Father wasn’t even looking at him at all.
And then the next morning, 21 days before the end of the world, his parents were gone.
“They were always shitty parents,” his older sister Janice said, chopping onions with a renewed vigor. “At least they left you gas money. Although how that would matter nowadays is beyond me.”
Her house was a ten minute drive from the apartment, located in the sort-of-not suburbs on the outskirts of the city. It was a nice house. It had a pool. The kids had been practically living there ever since the announcement.
“I have a friend. Do you remember Annie? The blond one? I bet I could hook you guys up.” He didn’t say anything. “Come on, I’m sure there’s plenty of girls for you to meet before the end.”
“I don’t want to meet anyone,” he told her.
In the next room, Janice’s stupid kids were screaming and carrying on the way little kids do, blissfully unaware of the impending doom that sat on everyone else’s shoulders; those who were old enough to understand. It left a bad taste in his mouth.
“You’re going to die alone,” his sister said, putting down the cutlery. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
Jasper wanted to yell at her. He wanted to scream that he wasn’t going to die alone; he was going to die with everyone else, at the same time, in a huge, fiery explosion that would turn their planet back into the steaming hunk of rock it started out as and obliterate all signs of life.
But he didn’t. Instead, he just shrugged.
You would think that life would seem different to him now, knowing that he was going to die before his 18th birthday, but it didn’t. He didn’t feel distraught, angry, scared, or panicked like everyone else. He didn’t feel the urgency to make something of his life before it ultimately ended. He felt nothing. He felt numb. He hadn’t really felt anything close to emotion for a long time. Why start now?
The days bled together. Jasper got up at the alarm, ate breakfast, drove to school, sat in the empty classroom while his teachers either didn’t show up or only showed up to bawl their eyes out, then drove home. Rinse and repeat. Reverse and relearn. Time ticked closer and closer to the end.
May 31st, 14 Days Before Impact
“Jasper,” said Mr. Rufus, looking at him tiredly. “You know you don’t have to come in anymore, right?”
The school was empty now, had been getting emptier and emptier as time ran out, but Jasper still came. He was the only one who still came at this point. Not even the teachers wanted to spend their last days here.
Many people took this opportunity to do the things they never got around to doing. He heard all the beaches were backed up with families hoping to get one last day of fun in. Others were taking planes to visit loved ones in various countries. Jasper had family in Vietnam, but he wasn’t close with them. He wondered if that’s where his parents had run off to.
“Why don’t you go home?,” Mr. Rufus pressed. He was an older man with dark skin and tired eyes that reflected the same feeling of hopelessness everyone seemed to have these days. “I’m sure you have something better to do than waste your time here.”
(That was the problem. He didn’t.)
On the way home he passed a fence with advertisements and opportunities pasted onto it with varying degrees of seriousness. Some of them had already run out of tear-aways. Most of them were already defaced with graffiti.
Tired of Waiting For The End? Hire An Assassin, only $5.99
Fuck A Virgin, Call Me! xoxo
Seeking A Friend For The End of The World (see attached number for details)
He threw his jacket onto the couch. His lavish apartment, a beacon of pride and a symbol of wealth for him and his family before, now just an empty husk of a building, cold and unforgiving. I am going to die here , he thought suddenly as he took in the diamond chandelier, the expensive paintings that depicted all of his dead relatives, their blank faces almost mocking in their perch above the fireplace. I am going to die here with no friends and nothing to be proud of.
He flopped onto the couch. Ran fingers through his expensive haircut. Opened up the closet and took down his memory box. Dozens of pictures looked back up at him.
Pictures of his family from Before. His sister, him, and his eldest brother, enlisted in the army at 18 and killed on the front lines of Afghanistan, leaving behind a grieving family and a little brother with the same initials but not the same glory.
Pictures of Celia, his first and only girlfriend, who broke up with him immediately after rumors of the meteor started circulating. If I’m going to die, she’d said to him outside of the school doors, then I don’t want to spend my last days with you. Sorry.
That was fine. He had a feeling she wasn’t really in love with him the way he was in love with her, anyway. At least now he knew for sure.
June 1st, 2:00 am, 13 Days Before Impact
A great man once asked, “What is the meaning of life?”
To have sex and then die, Jasper thought morosely. He didn’t believe in the beauty of life, he didn’t believe in true love. The world was a cold, callous place and humans were just the by-product of evolution gone wrong. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered.
If Celia were here, she’d say something about him slipping into his old emo habits again. She blamed it on the hair. Jasper blamed it on the years of neglect from his parents.
The TV was the only source of light in the apartment. Jasper was barely paying attention to whatever useless drivel was playing. It looked like some sort of soap opera. A Spanish soap opera. He wondered if Celia would like it, if she were here.
Stop thinking about her, his mind hissed to him. She’s never coming back. Just let it go.
Just let it go. She’s gone. Just let it--
Jasper turned his head when his eye caught a shadow moving outside his window. He frowned and squinted when the form took shape of a person crouched on the fire escape.
A burglar? , he thought briefly, surprisingly calm despite the situation. The figure didn’t seem all too daunting, kind of small in stature and making no moves to force their way into the apartment through the window. Whoever it was also had on a garish pink and yellow bomber jacket instead of all-black attire and was probably visible to everyone in the city for three miles.
He placed his book down and cautiously approached the window. As he got closer, he could see that the other person was a boy, around his age, with wild black hair and tan skin and was, in fact, sobbing his eyes out like a maniac on the fire escape.
He tapped on the window. No reaction.
“Hey,” he called, but the other boy didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Irritated, Jasper opened the window and yelled, “Hey!”
The boy screamed and would have nearly fallen off the fire escape and become mosquito splatter on the sidewalk if it hadn’t been for Jasper grabbing ahold of that nightmare of a jacket and pulling him back to safety. The poor kid looked absolutely terrified out of his mind and the tear-tracks on his cheeks only made the situation all that more dramatic.
“What the fuck,” Jasper spat, confused and annoyed. “Why are you crying outside my window?”
But instead of responding the boy took one look at Jasper’s face and immediately threw his arms around his neck, buried his face in his T-shirt, and burst into horrible, ugly sobs. Jasper froze with his hands hovering awkwardly in the air.
“I-I’m so stupid,” the boy wailed with heaving, convulsing gasps that Jasper felt against his chest. “I’m never going to see my dad again. I missed the flight. I missed all the flights. All of them. Now I’ll never be able to get to him in time and it’s all my fault and we’re going to die.”
He continued crying. The tips of his wild curly hair tickled Jasper’s nose.
“Um. There, there,” he attempted. An awkward, barely-making-contact pat on the boy’s heaving back. He didn’t say it was going to be okay, because that would be a straight up lie and not even he was so awful as to make false promises to a dying boy.
“I mean, w-what did I expect? That they would keep the airlines open until the very last day? I’m such a dumbass, I should’ve gone with him instead of staying home, but now I’m stuck here and he’s in California and I can’t even call him to tell him that I...I-”
A fresh wave of tears. Jasper’s shirt was getting thoroughly soaked.
He sighed. Gently pushed the boy away and crouched down to get eye-level with him. He noticed that the stranger had some really pretty gray eyes. Like the stars.
“Do you...want to come inside?,” he offered, stilted, and the shorter boy didn’t hesitate pushing him aside and climbing through the window into his apartment. Now inside, Jasper could see that he was shivering and had on ratty Lego pajamas underneath the jacket. Also he kind of smelled like a wet dog, which was...odd.
The ended up sitting on the couch.
The boy had stopped crying at this point and was awkwardly perched on the very edge of Jasper’s sofa and glaring at him suspiciously like he half-expected him to turn into a murderous clown, which, honestly, was just plain rude. He was the one who climbed in the window. If Jasper did turn out to be a serial killer, that was all on him.
Jasper wordlessly handed him a cup of coffee. The boy mumbled his thanks and knocked it back in one go without cooling it first. He barely even flinched.
“Nice place you got here,” he commented idly, looking around.
Jasper just stared at him, astounded that he was attempting small talk at a time like this, like they did this all the time. He was almost impressed.
“Why do you have all the lights off? It’s too dark in here.”
“It’s 2 am,” he pointed out, flat.
He flinched, but then scowled as he went on the defensive. “Yeah, but you’re awake.”
“That’s because I have insomnia,” he snapped. “What’s your excuse?”
After a moment of intense glaring between the two, the fire left the shorter boy's eyes. He deflated against the couch cushion. Played absent-mindedly with the fabric of his pants. “I don’t know. I sleep like the dead normally, but I couldn’t sleep tonight. I can’t stop thinking about my dad. And the asteroid. A-And," He inhaled shakily. "Havoc isn’t doing so well either.”
Jasper blinked. “What the hell is a ‘Havoc’?”
Almost immediately, tears began welling up in his eyes. Jasper mentally cursed himself.
“Don’t start crying again,” he commanded/begged. “Please.”
He sniffed. Snot was running down his chin and it was quite possibly the grossest thing Jasper had ever seen in his life, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he handed the boy an embroidered handkerchief and watched in partial dismay as the expensive sliver of cloth was soiled beyond recognition.
“My dog,” he choked out once he was finished. “H-He’s back in my apartment. He’s been throwing up a lot. I tried to take him to the vet but they told me there was no point trying to help him since...you know.”
Jasper nodded. It was only logical. He had no idea why this boy was getting so worked up over his dog when all of humanity was going to be wiped out in just a few days, but to each their own.
The boy continued, “I know it’s dumb, but I don’t know what I’ll do if Havoc dies before me. He’s all I have left now. I don’t have any other family besides my dad and he’s on the other side of the country.”
Jasper was understandably very concerned. “So you’ve been by yourself this whole time? How old are you?”
Another sniff. “Sixteen.”
So a year younger than him, then. Still too young to be by himself.
“My name’s Call, by the way,” he said into the silence. “Callum Hunt. But most people call me Call.”
He nodded awkwardly. “Jasper DeWinter.”
Call stared deeply into his coffee like it held all the secrets of the universe. He cleared his throat. "So, uh, Jasper DeWinter, where are your parents at?"
Hopefully dead somewhere. "I don't know."
"You're by yourself too? You can't be much older than me. Fifteen? Fourteen?"
"Seventeen," he half-snarled. "Almost eighteen."
"Really?" He gave him a once over that left him bristling. "You're kind of short for seventeen."
Jasper spluttered, "You're shorter than me!"
"Yeah, but I'm younger, so I still have more growing to do." Jasper highly doubted that. Unless the kid suddenly fell into a vat of toxic waste and became Ant-Man, he wasn't getting any bigger.
Call’s eyes fell to the table, where the memory box was still open. He leaned forward and plucked the picture of Celia out, while Jasper cringed at the thought of him wrinkling it.
“Who’s this?,” he asked curiously. “Girlfriend? Looks like it. She’s pretty. Good on you, dude.”
He said snippily, “You’re nosy," and plucked the photo out of his grubby little fingers, placing it gently back in the box. “And she’s my ex. We ended things already.”
A sympathetic noise, but Jasper had a feeling it wasn’t genuine, since he suddenly looked a lot more animated than he did a couple minutes ago. “I feel like there’s a story behind that. You break up with her or she break up with you?”
He paused. “She...broke up with me,” he admitted, cautiously.
"Oooh," he said childishly. “That sucks. What are you gonna do?"
"Do? There's nothing to do. She broke it off and we're done. End of story."
"But you don't want it to be the end of the story, do you?" He leaned back and fixed Jasper with a smug look. "What do we have, like, two weeks to go? Try and win her back!"
Jasper remembered Celia’s face the last time he saw her, the utter blankness in her expression as she told him, more or less, to get out of her life forever. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Call shrugged. "That's too bad. Love sucks though. I've never personally experienced it, but I watch enough made-for-TV movies to know that it's better just not to fall in love at all. That way you don't get your heart broken.” And with that positive note, he pretty much collapsed into the sofa, coffee sloshing dangerously. “So like...you got Netflix or what?”
Two hours later, Jasper had a strange boy sleeping on his couch.
An hour after that, he fell asleep as well.
June 2nd, 12 Days Before Impact
A hand was shaking his shoulder the next morning. He woke up to find silvery eyes staring down at him, bleary and exhausted.
“I’m hungry,” he announced, loud in the empty apartment. Jasper stared at him and questioned all of his life’s choices that would bring him to this point.
“There’s food in the fridge. Help your damn self,” he grumbled, then tried to roll over on the uncomfortable sofa, but Call shook his shoulder again.
"I'm your guest. You're supposed to serve your guest. Don't be a bad host, man."
"You're really annoying, did you know that?" Jasper peeked up at him with one eye to find Call glaring at him with a ferocity that was frankly unnecessary so early in the morning. "What, are your arms broken or something?"
A pause. “I don’t know how to cook,” came the dejected admission, and Jasper found himself making vegetarian pancakes at nine in the morning, 12 days before the apocalypse.
“I think it’s weird that we’ve lived so close to each other for so long, but we’ve never met,” Call said around a mouthful of pancakes. “I mean, if I’d have known a kid my age was living above me, I would’ve made it my mission in life to at least get to know you."
And I would’ve made it my mission in life to get as far away from you as possible, he thought vehemently as he watched the other boy chew with his mouth open in utter disgust.
He dropped Call off at his apartment not even a half-hour later. The younger boy looked perfectly sated and groggy from having such a hearty breakfast, and Jasper was glad, but he also kind of never wanted to see this kid ever again.
“So what are you going to do with the rest of your life?,” Call asked, leaning against the doorway. The distant sound of barking from deep within the apartment grated on Jasper’s ears.
“I don’t know. Whatever.” He shrugged helplessly. “Maybe redecorate. Move around some chairs.”
“You are literally the most boring person I have ever met,” Call told him sincerely. They stared at each other for a good thirty seconds in complete silence. “Well, thanks for the food. Bye.”
He slammed the door in his face.
Of all the ungrateful- Jasper sighed. Passed a hand over his face as he walked back up the stairs to his own apartment.
He spent the day just kind of...doing things. Rearranging the bookshelf, dusting off the antiques, washing the two plates in the sink, going on the computer and catching up on all the end of the world memes. At this point he was just going through the motions of a living person, without really living.
He went to the corner store around the block. Bought a Kids Cuisine. Tried to hand the cashier money before remembering that there wasn’t anyone manning the stores anymore. Debated on stealing it. Decided to put it back on the shelf.
Walking home, the streets had a different feel to them. Garbage and turned over shopping carts and car parts littered the roads. No cars were driving. People were running around yelling at each other and knocking things over. Someone was even attempting to break into a car with a crowbar in broad daylight, but no one did anything to stop it.
Not even Jasper. He just went home.
Later that night he found himself in front of the TV again, a cup of coffee and a bowl of pho that he’d made following his mother’s recipe. The atmosphere was strangely stagnant, like none of this was real. Like Jasper wasn’t real. He briefly wondered if he’d somehow already died, but he just didn’t know it, because his life had already been a living hell when he was alive-
A brick came sailing through the window and all sense of calm shattered.
He reacted appropriately, yelping and shooting to his feet in an instant. Screams and sirens and various explosions sounded from the streets below and when he ran to the window all he could see was chaos. Men with their faces covered in masks were setting things on fire, shooting at random, and throwing homemade bombs around like it was the freaking purge. One person in particular threw a molotov cocktail towards the parking garage and the entire thing went up like a candle. He could practically feel the heat from the explosion where he stood at the window, gaping.
“My car!,” Jasper screeched. The masked men looked up at his exclamation and he quickly darted back inside before they could start shooting at him or something. This was bad. He needed to get out of there, fast.
But Call, a voice hissed in his mind, and he skittered to an abrupt halt. What about Call?
Jasper was about 67% sure the other boy was fine, probably already in the next town over if he knew what was good for him, but the other 33% of him, convinced that Call was dead or dying in a pile of his own burning shit, made him jump out the window, run down the fire escape, and start banging like a maniac on the window below his apartment.
No one came to the window, besides a large and admittedly terrifying-looking dog (wolf?) thing with yellow eyes and razor sharp teeth.
“Hey! You! Dog!” He wasn’t sure if the thing could hear him through the wall, but he could try, dammit. “Go get Call! Tell him that he needs to get out of here!”
The dog whined, but didn’t make an effort to move. Jasper cursed. He tried the window, and was surprised to see that it slid open without worry. The dumbass left it unlocked.
He quickly climbed in. Thankfully, the dog seemed to realize he was there to help and not murder his master, and didn’t maul him to death. Instead, it nudged his hand and started running, which Jasper took as a cue to follow.
He ran into the apartment, following the dog as it took him to another room deeper inside, frantically barking the entire time. He pushed open the door and there Call was, sprawled out on his bed, snoring and dead asleep in the midst of a deadly free-for-all.
Of course. Of fucking course.
“Are you serious- get up!” He shook the younger boy violently, but the most he did was mumble in his sleep and turn over, burrowing deeper into the blankets.
There wasn’t enough time in the world for this. He slapped him hard across the face. “Get up you useless idiot!”
Call shot up from the bed, hair mussed up from sleep, blinking blearily. “Whass goin’ on.”
The general noise from outside reached a new crescendo. Jasper grabbed Call by the arm and started dragging him out of the door. “We’re leaving. Now. Pack your shit and let’s go!”
That seemed to snap him out of it. While he ran around the apartment packing a bag full of whatever the hell, Jasper anxiously tapped his foot by the door. Outside, he could see the orange glow of a deadly inferno making its way down main street. Jasper hadn’t felt more terrified in his life.
Finally, Call seemed to have gotten all his shit together and met Jasper at the door. Before they could, leave, however, Call swiveled back around to face the apartment.
“Wait!,” he yelled. “Havoc! Here boy!” He whistled, and the giant wolf-dog came bounding out of the dark. Jasper didn’t waste any time getting to the stairs.
“Do you have a car?”
“Yeah. It’s parked outside.” He was breathing pretty hard and seemed to favor his left leg over his right. Jasper made a mental note to ask about that later.
They ran out into the brisk night. The streets were filled with rioters holding flaming torches and other various weapons like something straight out of a survivalist movie, but none of them seemed to have noticed them yet, thank God. Call scoured the area surrounding the apartment complex and then quickly exclaimed, “There!”
An old 1970’s groove machine was parked in front of the building. It was practically wedged in between two other cars and looked horrendously out of place with its chipped red paint job and rusted metal.
“That’s your car? It’s falling apart!”
“Yeah, well, not everyone’s a rich bitch like you, DeWinter.” He unlocked it. The lights flashed pathetically. “Get in!”
Jasper strapped himself in. Call fumbled his way into the driver’s seat.
“You have your license, right?,” he asked as the car lurched forward.
“Uh...no. But don’t worry. I have a learner’s permit.” The van abruptly reversed into the car behind it and Jasper clutched the seat for dear life.
“That is not the same thing!”
“Well excuse me for not having enough time to pass my driver’s test before the world fucking ended!”
The van lurched again, this time ramming the car in front of them. Some of the anarchists noticed they were trying to escape and started running towards the car, torches raised.
“Oh my God, just let me do it!,” he hissed, attempting to grab the wheel, but Call bat his hands away.
“No! There’s no time!”
“You’re going to get us killed before the asteroid does- “
Havoc barked, interrupting their bickering. In the rearview mirror Jasper could see the masked men advancing. They were almost at the car.
Call hissed between his teeth. “Fuck - hold on!” Then turned the wheel, put the car in drive, and gassed it.
They clipped the backlight and the bumper off the car in front of them, but somehow managed to squeeze out and make it onto the street. Jasper let out a very manly squeal of terror as they tore down the road into the black abyss of night, no destination in mind and no idea where they were headed to.