The world as I knew it ended on a Tuesday in late September 2023. I was just sitting at my cramped home computer, virtually on Zoop, Math 107: Math in Society. I was internally screeching about compound interest when the screen suddenly warped, flickered and then all the power went out. The house was suddenly very quiet as the electricity running the fridge and the fan suddenly stopped. All the electric hums were gone. My cat, a black sphynx named Harry, chirped his concern about the outage. I picked him up and walked to look out the front window. We lived in Renton, a suburb southeast of Seattle, the weather had been a standard of this time of year, gray and cloudy but not quite raining. I noticed that the sky looked weird, like it was slowly turning a greenish hue. I slid on my worn out combat boots over my fuzzy socks and hoodie over my black t-shirt and yoga pants. I put Harry’s harness and leash on him. He always gets excited when I reach for the leash on the back of the door. I grabbed my Pac-Man Coach Messenger bag, from the outlet, and walked out to the front yard Harry walking in front of me, he was like a dog on his leash. I started leash training him as soon as I got him, 4 years ago. He was my emotional support cat. I know, you think I am one of those people who just want to take my “fur baby” everywhere. I am not. I actually got recommended to get a pet from my therapist, who is also my psychiatrist. He really is my best friend. My husband, Justin, says Harry and I are “inappropriately close”. It’s definitely not like that, it's just that he can read my body language and know what I want him to do. He was really strong willed while training, high energy and fearless. I coincidentally got Harry in December 2019. Of course 2020 brought the plague and I was home all the time then. I barely left the house for more reasons than just Covid but Seattle got hit with it hard and fast, one of the earliest places in the country. So it was just me and Harry. There were times that I thought I made a huge mistake and this cat would be the death of me. Somehow he became my inseparable shadow.
The sky was now noticeably green now; the sick pale green of sour apple cotton candy. I had my phone out, about to call Justin. My phone had no service. I watched the clouds churn like I have never seen in the PNW. They reminded me of the 3 hurricanes I lived through in Florida. I knew this was dangerous weather, flying objects alone can kill in this sort of wind. The world began to quake at this point and I fell on my ass and Harry ran into my arms. Harry was clinging to my stomach with his every claw. I held on to him and buried my face in his hairless, velvety skin. We stayed balled up while the shaking grew more violent and a light mist rain began to come down. I looked up to see the pea soup clouds were right on top of us. There was a green fog blocking my vision save for a couple inches around us. The wind was suddenly howling and blew me from a sitting position back to a fetal ball wrapped around Harry, who was all screaming howls and claws. I could feel the burn of several bleeding scratches, but I clung on to him. What felt like an eternity passed and my mind was full of Dorthy riding a house into Oz, except we were being freight trained by a Emerald Tornado. The wind slowed enough for me to half crawl a dozen feet to where my house should be, but I could not find it. Through wet gusts I slowly creeped around finding no manmade shelter. With no other options, I crawled into a sewer drainage hole in our neighbor’s hill. Harry crawled under my hoodie, shaking and cold. We were both soaked and cold.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
All I could think about was which disaster was happening? Did WW3 finally start? Did China, Russia or North Korea join forces and toss a nuclear warhead at the Pacific Northwest? Did one of the five major active volcanoes in Washington: Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams, and Glacier Peak decide today was the day to pop off? Last year, the US government with NASA told us UAP, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena are real and so aliens are probably real too. My brain screamed endless possibilities and no way to know while huddled in the cold and wet hole in the ground.
Eventually the wind and rain stopped enough that we crawled out and began to search the neighborhood. We stumbled into nothing but trees and bushes, these areas had less of the thick misty fog. The fog was weird, it was so dense in some areas that it felt like soap suds. Like that thick tiny bubble texture. But the green spaces were just regular thick fog. My small 1950’s neighborhood had tiny lots with houses right on top of each other, cars lining the zig zag streets because garages were never used for cars. They were usually converted into rental spaces. All the houses, cars and fences were just gone. Everything that was inside too as far as I could tell. I started to full out panic and briefly wondered if I had died and this was my personal hell? I found my purse near the empty dirt where our front porch should have been and took a quick inventory of what items I had:
1. Keys, house and car
2. Make-up bag with mascara, cherry chapstick and pink eye shadow stick.
3. 7 pieces of mint gum
4. Small tin with 3 bandages and ½ tube ointment
5. Wallet with various cards and $17
6. Pocket knife (Christmas present from Justin 3 years ago)
7. Weed Vape pen - Choco Loco flavor
8. Non-working cell phone
With the immensely thick green foam in the air, I couldn't make out anything two arm lengths in front of me, forget about landmarks. I did know I was near the top of the hill and hoped that heading in the downward slope was North. I wanted to get to Seattle where Justin worked. If I survived whatever the hell just happened, maybe he did too.