A sound woke me. I sat up slowly, sleep clouding my brain, and reached for my phone to stop the noise. The time on the phone was 6:18 am, but it wasn't making a sound. The sound was gradually getting louder, an all encompassing droning sound that I could gradually feel with my entire body. As the sound continued it was starting to get painful, a light throb at first that reached a crescendo making me grip my head and scream. My vision wavered, my mind spun. Just before I lost conciousness, a glance at my phone showed the time ticking over to 6:19am September 2nd 2017 and then darkness.

A bright light woke me. I struggled to sit up and wished I hadn't as my vision swam and I almost vomitted. Getting control of my stomach I looked around me. My house was gone. I was still in my sleeping bag but my house had dissapeared. My belongins were gone, and I was surrounded by grass.

My phone dropped to the ground as I slowly stood up, wiggling a little to get out of the sleeping bag. Looking around I could see poeple slowly standing up, confusion on their faces. A scream rang out, I whipped my head around in the direction of the scream, almost throwing up again. A woman stood not far from me looking at the ground, screaming.

Reaching down to pick up my phone, I tried to check the time, but my phone was off. I hit the button to turn it on but nothing happened. I thought that it may have been damaged in the fall when I stood up, but there wasn't a scratch on it.

Looking around again, I noticed people walking toward the screaming woman. I too started walking towards her, stumbling a little, and as I got closer I could see what appaeared to be a man on the ground, laying on his back. The woman was now gripping the mans clothes, a keening sound coming from her mouth.

As I got closer my brain finally figured out what I was seeing. The man was dead. I could see a rock sticking out from under is head, red liquid spread around it.

 People slowly gathered around the woman. One couple moving closer, the female toward the woman, the male to the man on the ground. The female wrapped her arms around the sobbing woman, making comforting noises, as the male checked for a pulse.

Shaking his head, he looked around at the people gathered. "He's gone." said the male.

I glanced at the people around me, some were crying, some had horrified looks on their faces. My mind was racing. All I could think is "What the fuck is going on?"

The female managed to get the woman to let go of the mans clothes, pulling her into a hug. As if this was a cue conversation started around me.

"Where are we?"

"What the hell is going on?"

"Mummy i'm scared. Why is that man on the ground?"

The people with children turned them away, walking off a few meters. There they sat, comforting their children and probably themselves.

As the talking got louder, almost shouting, an older gentleman raised his voice above the din.

"Everyone be quiet!" he shouted. And surpisingly they did.

"Thank you." he said in a normal tone. "Now, if we could all move away a bit, give Judith some space, we can try and figure out what's going on."

People began moving away in groups, murmring amongst themselves. I decided to follow the older gentleman.

We stood or sat around in a circle and begun trying to figure things out.

The older gentleman looked at me "Hello" he said "I know or recognize everyone here, but not you."

My mind was finally starting to work again.

"Wait a second" I said "Everyone here knows eachother?"

Nods and yeses all around. Okay then, time to kick the brain into gear. Next question.

"I take it you all live nearby each other?" I asked, nods and yeses again.

" Most of us live on the same street, some the same block." said the older gentleman. More nods and yeses.

"Okay then, does anyone recognize any of the landmarks around here?" I asked.

People started glancing around. I could tell they recognized the surrounding landmarks. That means we haven't moved, everything else has. There were no houses, no roads nothing man made as far as the eye could see.

"What does this mean? What has happened to everything? My name is George by the way, what's yours?" asked the Older Gentleman.

"My name is Jack, I moved into number 54 yesterday evening. As for what this means, either this is all a mass hallucination, I'm dreaming, we're in an alternate dimension, we're all dead and this is the afterlife or..." I explained.

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"Or what?" asked George.

"Or this is our Earth, the same place we went to sleep last night, and something or someone has managed to erase all man made objects." I continued.

Everyone started talking at once but my mind was still going. What about our clothes, I'm still wearing my pajamas. Then there's my sleeping bag and phone. Maybe whatever caused this couldn't distinguish between the sleeping bag and my clothes, and I think when I lost conciousness this morning I was holding my phone.

"Does anyone have anything with them besides the clothes they are wearing?" I asked. Some people dressed in work and casual clothes starting pulling items from their pockets. Cellphones, car keys, wallets, cigarretes all manner of things one might have in their pockets.

Okay, I thought, I was holding my phone when the sound happened, maybe because the sleeping bag was zipped up it was seen as clothing.That means anything we had on us when the sound occured this morning must have been safe from whatever did this.

That's when I noticed that despite everything that was going on I was completely calm, almost excited. Nobody was panicking and I think if any situation was to induce panic, it would be this one. "Does anyone feel scared or emotional?" I asked.

The people around me stopped talking. One woman said that she felt nothing but a sense of excitement and maybe expectation and everyone agreed. I could feel what she meant, and it seemed to be getting stronger.

Everyone lapsed into silence as they contimplated what this could mean. Obviously whatever did this had also done something to our minds. Under normal circumstances atleast a handful of people should be gibbering messes right now but the only person showing any kind of emotion is Judith the crying woman.

George spoke up "Maybe we should search the area and see if we can find anything at all." Everyone agreed and started moving off in family groups or solo like myself.

I went back to my sleeping bag and picked it up. If this is actually happening, I thought, this is going to come in handy. Too bad I hadn't been wearing shoes. I rolled it up as best as I could and carefully made my way to the nearest hill.

Cresting the top of the hill I could see people everywhere, most sitting or standing in groups. Turning around it was the same everywhere except the mountains to the East. I couldn't see anything else so turned around and started heading back down the hill.

I got back to where we had been and sat down on my sleeping bag. People slowly started trickling back. When everyone had gathered George asked "Did anybody find anything?"

"Just more people." I said. Others stated the same. Nobody had found anything.

"Well what I didn't find was Lake Wendouree. It's gone." Said George.

"Wasn't Lake Wendouree an artifical lake?" I asked George to which he nodded. "Well that somewhat narrows down the possibilities. If this is our earth then whatever happened to the buildings and roads would have happened to it. Alternatively this could be a parralel universe where humans never evolved or were wiped out and never built it."

"I think we should start gathering people and moving somewhere safer, we're in the open here." Said George. "We should head to those trees to the East."

I looked to where george indicated. The copse of trees was maybe a kilometer away, a few minutes walk if I had my shoes. Others were in the same predicament having been asleep like me.

Everyone agreed and started heading that way but I stayed sitting on my sleeping bag thinking. I was going over the possibilities in my head again. George asked me if I was coming and I said I would join them shortly, that I needed a minute to think.

What could cause something like this? God? A rip in spacetime? I'm certain this isn't a dream or hallucination, whatever is going on, this still feels like reality. The lack of emotion points toward an entity capable of altering a persons mind or some type of mind altering substance.

Okay, let's go through the options.

God. Being an atheist I've never believed in God or any Higher Power, but this certainly fits under the Act of God category. Only question is, Why? What would motivate God into basically deleting all man made objects? Perhaps instead of a flood he just wiped out everything, reset to 0, the end result will most likely be the same. Billions will die. From starvation, exposure, dehydration. I was already thirsty and hungry.

Option 2, Alternate reality. To my thinking this one is more likely than an act of God. The Multiverse theory has been around for decades. Maybe a rogue black hole appeared and warped the fabric of space. But then why would it be so selective? A black hole can't tell the difference between things.

This is looking more and more like option one. Perhaps not God but a Godlike Entity? The Universe is vast, there has to be something out there somewhere.

Standing up and dusting off my sleeping back, I tucked it under my arm and started heading towards the trees. I had to walk carefully the closer I got, sticks were jabbing my feet through my socks. I really wish I had my shoes.

As I was trudging along I started hearing the same sound that I heard this morning. I stoppped walking immediately. The sound was slowly building up like last time but stopped before becoming painful. I could feel something moving through my body, starting from my brain and ending in my toes. When the energy reached my toes, my body locked up and started to vibrate. It wasn't painful, it actually felt quite good.

Suddenly the vibrating stopped and my ears popped, though I still couldn't move. The energy in my body seemed to shiver and I felt a burning sensation in my hands. Again the sensation wasn't painful, but it didn't feel good either. I put all my effort into moving my right hand but it wouldn't budge.

I must have stood like that for a good ten minutes, I could see people directly in front of me in the same situation. My eyes and mouth were both dry from being unable to close them.

I was starting to get dizzy when a bright flash of blue light enveloped everything. When my vision cleard a rectangular blue box appeared before my eyes.

With that the blue rectangle dissapeard. The ground started shaking and suddenly I could move again. But before I could move the ground shifted. A hole opened.

I fell into darkness.