Part 3: Fragmentation

John rode the bike down the now-desolate roads. Behind him, Chiquita City burned.

Civilization broke down so quickly when no one cared about living anymore. People just did whatever they wanted, flailing around as the world slowly came apart.

The entire world. The physical, and social worlds. People were splitting, going crazy and becoming nihilists. Some prayed to God for a miracle that would never come. Some didn’t pray, and decided to meet with God more personally.

John just pedaled his stolen bike.

Soon, he found the place he was looking for. He took the bike off the road and into the nearby forest, where a hidden pathway revealed itself among the roots, leaves, and shrubbery.

The path was followed for at least a kilometer before it opened into a vast clearing on a cliff, overlooking the vast Southwest-Texas wastelands. The sky was slowly getting brighter, and orange-green plateaus loomed on the horizon.

John got off the bike and sat down at the ledge. Out here, there were no sounds of screaming, laughing, or burning buildings. There was no smell of smoke and burning flesh. There was no fractured civilization in view. No corpses to look away from.

Instead, he saw a marred landscape. The planet’s upheaval became obvious, when seen from so high up.

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Giant jagged lines rent across the land, widening a little more with each quake of the earth. He couldn’t see where they stopped or ended, but they were numerous and they were prominent. At least half a kilometer wide.

And they hadn’t been there last month.

They were the preview of the world’s end. The cracks that inevitably appeared just before the whole thing broke apart.

The quaking became more and more intense. Wind buffeted John’s face.

A great sense of defeat crashed down on him, weighing down his shoulders and hunching his spine.

This was it. It was over. Civilization was gone and the planet itself would soon follow.

He was attacked in his home by a maniac with a crowbar and beaten black-and-blue. Arsonists set fire to his apartment, burning it to the ground, laughing all the way.

He traveled out to the suburbs for food and only found corpses. While leaving, he fought and killed a man who wanted to kill him for his bike.

He stopped by the hospital on his way to the forest and met the doctor, Caleb, who no longer had anything left to live for. A man who only survived thus far because nothing had tried to kill him yet.

And then he’d come out here, and seen what the Earthquakes were doing to the world. The mile-wide, incomprehensibly-long cracks on the planet’s surface. The prelude to the End.

He contemplated ending it right there and then. He had a gun. He had a bullet. He had nothing left to do that mattered.

It would be so simple and easy.

But he didn’t. His hands didn’t reach for the cold steel.

Why not?

A sense of responsibility? A desire to live as long as possible? Curiosity as to what the End looked like?

He didn’t know, and at this point, he didn’t care either. But he’d decided.

He tossed the gun off the cliff and observed with a heavy heart as it made the long drop to the bottom.

Despair. Resolve. Grim understanding.

He sat at the edge of the cliff and watched as chunks of the Earth began tearing themselves from the ground and floating into the sky.

It was over.