The End of Days, Part 1

David sat on his couch as his phone displayed a seemingly endless stream of trivia, jokes, funny pictures, and news. He tended to skip over the news parts these days. They were almost all politically charged rants about the new North American Trade and Agricultural Assistance treaty or depressing stories about the effects of the growing food shortages around the world. Things were getting tight everywhere but Canada hadn’t been hit as hard as much of the rest of the planet.

The young man put his phone down and made his way over to the coffee maker. As the machine gargled and sputtered he looked out his kitchen window. The sun was shining brightly and leaves were beginning to bud on the trees in his backyard. Spring was finally here in full and David hoped that winter wouldn’t make another comeback as it had done so many times this year. He briefly considered getting his running shoes out of the closet and going for a jog but knew that he’d almost certainly spend the day inside. His wife was visiting her mother this weekend along with their two kids. Work had cancelled his extra shift so he was going to make the most of having an entire day to himself to play games and read without distraction. He had a rather shameful backlog of games he’d bought on sales but never got around to playing, all he had to do today was pick one and try to make as much progress as he could.

The sound of the national alert system broke him from his daydreaming. “Probably just another missing child.” He thought to himself. David wandered over to his phone and unlocked it in case the alert was for his area.
“Massive Explosion In Toronto” it read. David couldn’t believe his eyes. Was this a mistake? Some kind of prank sent out by hackers? He typed the phrase into his search bar and the results pulled up immediately, news headlines posted within the last couple of minutes. All were variations of the same theme: A large explosion has devastated much of downtown Toronto, the epicenter appearing to be near where the Presidents of Mexico, the United States, and the Canadian Prime Minister were announcing the signing of the new treaty. David brought up live coverage of the area and his jaw dropped at what he saw. A cloud of dust hung thick in the heart of the city, a ring of skyscrapers surrounding what looked like a pit of fog. He watched in horror as a building with the walls facing the edge of the dust cloud collapsed and disappeared beneath the grey cloud.

David returned to his living room and turned his TV on to the news. He left the footage streaming in the background as he used his phone to search for any information online that the TV news wasn’t reporting. Theories were already flying across the internet as to what happened. Terrorist attack, nuclear strike by a hostile nation, natural gas leak, satellite-based energy cannon. The latter seemed to be growing in popularity online as commenters pointed out that none of the buildings outside the dust cloud seemed damaged in anyway, what kind of conventional explosion could vaporize everything in a two kilometer circle but leave structures a few feet away unscathed? Footage from news helicopters was not showing that the glass of buildings outside the initial radius of devastation wasn’t even broken.

The dust cloud was settling quickly. Police from all over the city could be seen racing through the streets, blocking off the edges of the circle. The rear half of a city bus could be seen now as dust covers passengers crawled out the hole where the front half used to be. Before long every road leading up to the disaster zone was blocked off by police cruisers with lights flashing. The news anchors and reporters were talking in the background but David wasn’t paying attention to them. All he could do is sit and stare at the scene in front of him.
“The dust… has settled now. It appears that every structure above ground has been destroyed.” A reporter stated, his voice cracking. “You can see… holes? Where basements and underground structures have been exposed. No… no sign of rubble covering them. Over here you can…” the reporter choked back a sob. “Over here you can see fire hydrants spouting into the air. And here there’s… wait? Is that a person?”

David looked up at the screen. The camera was zooming in at a small, white shape seemingly moving along a street near the center of the circle. “We’ll try to get closer.” The reporter stated and the helicopter he was in shifted and began flying over the now barren streets. The camera did its best to stay focused on the shape as the pilot got closer. A police cruiser broke off from the perimeter and drove at high speed through the abandoned streets towards the figure. There was little to impede it as it kicked up a cloud of thick dust behind it. The streets, which were normally packed bumper to bumper with traffic, were empty. There was nothing in the streets, not even wreckage clogging the streets.

The helicopter made quick progress towards the figure, which grew more and more human-like in its appearance and now it was clearly walking away from the direction the police were approaching. David walked closer to his TV as if that would bring the camera closer to the figure, trying to make out more details. After what seemed like hours but was really only a few minutes, the figure’s details could be made out plainly. It was a man with tanned skin, a dark beard, and dazzling white robes. The man looked up into the camera and smiled.

x