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___ 72 hours ___
The world watched and waited for the inevitable to happen, but Tori just waited for the world to end in hellfire and horror. Without humans to rule the Earth, maybe the damage they had done would be forgiven by time. Time would have to forgive humans for what they had done, right?
The lights inside of Tori’s room flickered, they had been doing that a lot lately, too many people using power all at once is what the man on the news said. But Tori thought it was total bullshit. Rumors spread like wildfire that the rich folks were going to be able to escape it all. Makes sense that the rich leave us plebs to fend for ourselves against the world ending.
People outside the walls of her room yelled and shouted, they had been doing that a lot lately too. Everybody is loud, everybody is screaming. Nobody is reacting normally, nobody except Tori. She was the only person in her family who was even being rational. They were all going to die in a matter of days, fried to pieces and left to be char, turning into dirt for the plants that survive to take over. It was a nice thought, at least to Tori. She hated people, she couldn’t wait for it all to be over.
She could hear her brother through the paper-thin walls, he had been panicking for the last 48 hours since they announced on the news that we were all fucked. He thinks we can all survive if we just go north, but who the hell wants to survive a world-ending event? Just to bear witness to human suffering on a mass level? Yeah, no thanks, Tori would rather be turned to barbeque instantly. And don’t even get Tori started on the way her mother was reacting, she was downstairs doing the laundry as if any of that would matter in the next 3 days. Why did they need clean clothes for the next week, when there won’t even be a next week for them to have? Call her cynical, but it all seemed a bit pointless to Tori.
___ 48 hours ___
Time seemed to be speeding up, it was as if the Earth herself couldn’t wait for humans to be gone. The power had been out for around five hours now. The sun is the only light left in the city before nightfall overtakes. At night we can see death in the face, of the meteor. It shines like the brightest star ever seen, and it is coming to an end for everybody. Tori pondered as the last beams of sunlight bled through her window. She was still in the clothes from yesterday, what is the point in changing when everything is coming to an end so soon?
She’d mostly just been lying in bed, the cell phone towers stopped working around two hours ago, and the internet had gone out too. Was it from the meteor or from a billion people making their goodbyes? Nobody would ever know. Tori hasn’t even spoken today. What’s the point in speaking, what is there to speak about? Talk about the weather or the TV show she’d watched last week that she will never know the conclusion of.
She’d much rather lay in bed and think about nothing. Her brother was screaming in his room, which did put a damper on her plans to lie and succumb to the end of the world.
If it was any other time she would have gotten up and yelled, asked why the fuck he was yelling. But what’s the point now, the end is so close, she just wants to be left alone in her room with her trinkets and at peace in her bed.
___ 36 hours ___
Tori opened her eyes against her will, her brother standing next to her sleeping body, a flashlight shining in her eyes. “What the fuck is your problem?” Her voice was hoarse after not speaking to a single soul for 24 hours. “We’re leaving; get your shit you want to take.” He replied back frantically. That was the thing about Charlie, he could never just relax for a moment. “Where are we going,” Tori replied still laying snug under her blankets. “We’re going north, Mum and Dad finally listened to me.” Tori pulled herself out of her bed against her better judgment. She glanced out the window, the burning star even brighter now. “What time is it even?” The sky was still pitch black, except where the meteor shined. “Around 2 am, we’re leaving now because there should be fewer people driving now,” Charlie said as he stumbled over the suitcase he threw out of Tori’s closet at hyper speed. “Okay, okay, give me a moment to get dressed and pack shit and I’ll be right down.” The vision of the meteor in the sky struck fear into Tori’s body for the first time since she even heard about the meteor mere days ago.
___ 32 hours ___
There were more people in this car than legally allowed, but something told Tori that nothing like that mattered anymore. The panic had started to set into everybody it seemed. Charlie was right, there was almost nobody anywhere for the first two hours of driving, and she had never seen her father drive so quickly. Their 5-person car now home to eight people and two dogs, Charlie had insisted upon taking his boyfriend's family and their dogs. Not that Tori could complain, she was at least cuddling a cute pug while they ran for their lives north.
It seemed like other people had the same idea as them, going north was their best shot at living, and what came after was something for future them to figure out.
___ 28 hours ___
The car ran out of gas around 2 hours ago, Tori was shocked they had even made it as far as they did. They have all been walking since then, it felt like they had walked 30 miles when it was only around 7 at this point. All of their bags long abandoned on the side of the road around 3 miles ago. Only what they could keep on their backs is what came along. There were only a few other people around, all walking. The meteor shined bright in the daytime. It was rivaling that of the sun. None of them had eaten anything yet, but in the last 30 minutes, they had come across an exit with a supermarket abandoned so being the good citizens they are they broke in and stole some of the food off the shelves. It’s not like anybody else was going to eat it now, were they?
They only had to make it another 5 miles before they would be where they had been heading, Tori chuckled to herself about the likelihood they would run out of gas only 13 miles from their destination.
The boys were walking together in front of Tori, hands held tightly together. Tori had always wanted to fall in love, but it just wasn’t in the cards for her now. Now she had to focus, she wanted to live.
___ 24 hours ___
Dusk fell over the cabins; it was a mystery to Tori how her father even knew this place existed. But once they arrived, the group was greeted by a hidden key and a layer of dust covering every surface. But after walking 13 miles, nobody seemed to care about laying bunched up together on a dusty old bed. There were only three beds for 8 people, so sharing was in order. Tori found herself squashed together with her brother and his boyfriend, Nick. She pretended to sleep as they spoke quietly to each other, expressing their sympathies at how this was how it was all going to end. Eventually, Tori fell asleep, her muscles and bones weary from the long journey.
___ 18 hours ___
The meteor was now the brightest object in the sky, it almost made the sun look small. Tori helped to prepare the canned food they had stolen yesterday, she could see out the window as her father and Nick rounded up everything they could to block the doors and windows, so much so that they broke into other cabins and stole anything they could. The hallway had become a makeshift shelter. The mattresses moved out to form an arch of shelter from the roof, and the wood of the bedframes had been taken apart to be made into an extra wall to cover their one exterior wall. For a moment, Tori felt hope, maybe they would all survive and be safe here in this dust-infested house.
___ 12 hours ___
Night fell faster today, but the meteor in the sky provided enough light for them to see. They had gathered enough firewood to burn for the next sixty years. The fireplace roared in front of them, boiling their stolen canned goods from the cabin next to them. There was nobody else near them, they hadn’t seen anybody else in the last 24 hours. Just these two little families, united by love. Tori would think it was sweet if it wasn’t so sad.
___ 6 hours ___
The sun rose slowly, there was a very weird haze in the air. The shadows looked weird because it was as if there were two suns in the sky, the animals had stopped making noises. It was silent in the worst kind of way. Everybody gathered outside, it might be the last time they all got to enjoy the fresh air.
___ 3 hours ___
Small pieces of rock began pelting the ground and roof, Tori’s mother was crying as it happened. The boys had all run to the neighboring cabin and dragged their sofa across the 300 yards back to the house they were hiding out in. Everything started to feel extremely real as they took all the furniture they could get to make a better shelter in the hallway.
The dogs hid under their upside-down sofa, it was enough to at least keep any of the smaller rocks that came through the roof from hitting them. Nobody had taken into account this house was full of rot from sitting unoccupied for God knows how long.
___ 2 hours ___
The rocks got worse. This wasn’t even the grand finale, just a taster. The wind made offputting noises outside and it was as if outside was burning around them. The cover of trees did help to slow the rocks as they fell from the sky, but when Tori ran to the sliding glass door to peak at their future, she could only gasp at what she saw.
The sky was burning red as if it was lit on fire. There was not an ounce of blue left, only burning red. Charlie joined her at the door, perhaps the only moment left where they could exist with each other.
___ 1 hour ___
Everything that could be moved, was moved into their fort, along with everybody. Eight people and two dogs cowered under a mess of furniture and mattresses hoping it would keep them alive. They had their collection of canned foods shoved in a backpack near the back of the fort. Tori pondered how the 12 cans in there could keep them all alive if they survived this. She pondered back to her original thought; did she want to survive this?
___ 30 Minutes ___
The sounds coming from outside were scaring everybody. It was dark and so bright all at once. Everybody had huddled together closer, not speaking but just wanting to be close to one another in case this was the last moment where they would get to be one big mess of humans.
___ 1 Minute ___
Tori looked around in this dark, she could barely make out the faces of all the people around her, but she knew in this moment that she wanted to live. She wanted to go on to another day with all of these people.
Then it was bright.