Prologue

The Draco galaxy was consumed by a relentless war between two godly beings, their powers colliding and destroying everything in their path. This war had been raging for eons, with no end in sight. The reason for their conflict was lost to time, but the only thing they knew for certain was that one of them had to be victorious.

As their battle reached its climax, the two beings unleashed a final blast of power that was like a thousand supernovas exploding at once. The resulting destruction was catastrophic, obliterating most of the Draco galaxy and reducing the two celestial entities to mere fragments.

These fragments, bonded into one powerful nuclei, hurtled through space for billions of years. And then, as if guided by some unseen force, it made its way towards the Milky Way galaxy, specifically towards a small blue planet called Earth.

The approaching meteor was several square miles in size, making it a world-ending meteor.

***

Every channel I turned to had the same news playing.

“A large meteor is headed for Earth and shows no signs of stopping…”

“Some experts say we have no way of avoiding this catastrophe…”

“The president faced the nation today, and once again assured the people that our missiles will destroy the meteor and any debris well before it gets too close to Earth…”

I finally settled on one that sounded a little interesting. A specialist of some sort was being interviewed.

“Don’t listen to the government, everything will NOT be ok. The meteor that took out the dinosaurs was only slightly larger than this one. So, what makes us think this won’t be an extinction-level event?”

“But doctor, all of the powerful nations on Earth have assured the people that they will be able to intercept the main body with large missiles, and the scattered smaller pieces with adjusted missile defense systems.”

“And that may be true. However, what exactly do you think will happen to all of that debris? Do you think it will simply turn to dust? A massive amount of smaller meteorites will still fall onto the planet. That will cause all types of havoc on its own, not to mention the effect something that size will cause on the magnetic field of Earth once it's within range! …”

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“In other words, we’re screwed. What else is new?” I said to myself in a monotone voice.

***

Two days later, the world trembled as the large missiles hit the meteor and failed to destroy or even deter it. Not a peep was heard from the white house, or any government officials for that matter. ‘Figures.’ I thought. Those bastards were probably way underground in their own super-safe shelters days ago.

I had climbed up onto the roof of my house and set up a lounge chair to watch the end of the world. I scrolled through my phone watching all the live coverage worldwide. Meanwhile, I was smoking a cigar with a side of whiskey.

Life was never great for me; I was an outsider, in my family, school, neighborhood, pretty much everywhere. My quiet and stoic demeanor always seemed to pretty much put me at odds with most people around me, or at least that is what it felt like. In truth not only was I quiet and stoic, but when I did speak I saw no reason in lying to others. This often made me seem heartless, rude, and egotistical even, and also I could be quite preachy and philosophical when I was in the mood to speak. It made for a lonely existence, not that I had a big problem with that, I was an introvert for the most part. Given the choice between hanging with people or by myself, I would rather be alone.

But, we all need at least one person to share life with and I currently had no such person. Plus, I seemed to always be at the end of the bell curve. ‘Shit, “Murphy’s law” follows me like I owe it money,’ I scoffed cynically. I mean just a few days before the meteor was mentioned my car broke down on the way to work. My supervisor, who was a slime-ball, was just looking for any excuse to let me go, so he was happy when I called to tell him I’d be late. “Don’t bother coming in,” he said while laughing, “We’ll deposit your last check on Friday.” That same day I missed my art final due to my Uber getting stuck in heavy traffic.

The day before all of that, I found out the girl I had been seeing for the last few months was playing me, with one of my older brothers no less. But I was used to this kind of shit happening to me by now, anytime it seemed like I was climbing that cliff we call life something came along and threw me back off. Anyway, life sucked, so I welcomed the end like an old friend when the meteor was first mentioned.

Not long after the missiles failed emergency messages went out worldwide telling everyone to seek shelter. But by this time most people had already begun to crowd large areas seeking shelter, while others tried driving to “safer grounds” as if being in the mountains or deep underground somewhere would save them. It was pandemonium, nowhere was safe and that was before the meteor even entered the atmosphere.

By the time the meteor did enter the atmosphere, it was hell on earth. Large structures were overcrowded with people seeking safety, the highways were full of bumper-to-bumper traffic anywhere you looked. People were rioting, murdering, and pillaging, crime was rampant in the streets.

Not that it was very different from the way things usually were in my neighborhood. I lived in the bad parts of Philadelphia where gunshots, stabbings, and drug turf wars were the norm. In the last couple of days, things were like that everywhere, just cranked up to ten.

***

Despite the impending doom, the Earth itself seemed surprisingly calm, there were no signs of the natural disasters that should have accompanied such a large object entering our magnetic field.

But as the meteor entered our mesosphere, something incredible and terrifying happened. It transformed into a dazzling display of colors, before becoming one solid golden light, splitting into four parts, and hurtling towards the four cardinal directions. As these four smaller meteors reached the four axes, they burst into radiant showers of light that enveloped the entire world.

The golden lights rained down on us. One of these lights touched me and my world went dark and silent as if someone had turned out the lights and hit mute on life itself. But no pain accompanied the silent darkness, in fact, it was kind of peaceful and comforting.