Have you ever wondered what would happen if half of everything just dies? The birds, the bees, the fish, even the little bunnies that always trample your flower garden. Half the whales you never think about and one in two of the kangaroos you’ve never seen gone, just disappeared one day after some purple jackass decided it would save the world.
Mostly you wouldn’t care, I mean the ecosystems will be messed up for the foreseeable future but other than that who cares, right? Wrong, because among all those disappearing bunnies and kangaroos are your friends, your family and everyone you’ve ever met. Every person you passed on the street, every idiot that cut you off and every boss you cussed out could be gone. Maybe it’s the barista that never gets your name right or the asshole who always steals your favorite parking spot, or maybe it’s the doorman who always greets you with a warm smile or that helpful store clerk from Costco who’d helped you find the pickles that one time. Whoever they are, they’re gone, half of everything just gone.
What would you do? What would be the first thing that pops into your head? Would you scramble to call a loved one or would you be left clutching your stomach as your fingers begin to dissipate? Could you even imagine this? Do you even want to?
Well sadly I don’t have a choice. I don’t get to choose if I want to think about this or not because this is my life now. The apocalypse is ni my friends, and it turned out just as well as you would imagine.
At first it’s chaos, the government is crippled, the working class crumbles. Riots, pillaging and crime run rampant as people simply try to survive, to eat. The world’s systems crashed, development in every country halted and those who were left, were left broken. Children, parents, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives all gone, all disappeared without a trace. Some were lucky only losing a few but me, I lost everything even the fucking family dog.
Everyone has a story, the day that it happened. It’s like 9/11 everyone remembers where they were when it happened, The Snap. I was just getting out of school, riding the train home when people started disappearing. There was shoulder to shoulder traffic as was to be expected during rush hour. My friend and I had been “aggressively discussing” the latest Star Wars movie and whether or not the series was getting worse or if it had already reached rock bottom. I’d just finished my explanation of why this last one was leagues worse than the one before when the air seemed to shift. An eerie silence filled the train car as if everyone had felt it.
It started slow, one person dropped their bag clutching their stomach. I, like the good person that I am, stood up to help them. My friend followed, curious as to what was happening. It barely took any time at all, only about thirty seconds for the first person to turn to dust. Soon after the crowd that had been overflowing from the train car thinned, leaving only the lucky ones. It left no lucky ones. Beside me my friend grabbed my arm, her eyes going wide as she stared at her other hand. My eyes followed hers before my heart stopped. Around us people were screaming, begging and crying, dropping onto their knees but all I could see, all I could hear was her. My best friend in the whole world was slipping away. Time seemed to slow as our eyes met, she seemed like she was trying to say something. There was desperation in her gaze and something else, something I still can’t define, even today.
I felt something drip onto my hands as they grasped helplessly at nothing. It took me a while to realise it was the tears dripping down from my face as I stared at the empty space in front of me.