July 28, 2024.
This was the day reality itself was bent into ways humans never thought possible. It was a day rife with storms. The unceasing rain on this day foretold of the fate awaiting Earth. When dusk neared in the west, a horrible earthquake shook around the world. This was no normal earthquake, however. So shook the entire world not just the plates, and after a mere few minutes, all was still. A Planetary mass, disastrously close to Earth, had appeared in the sky next to their moon. That was not the worst of it, however. Humans did not know now, but soon they would come to realize that time itself has ceased proper function. The earth no longer rotated so if it was day when the mass appeared, it was now day permanently. The same with night. This would have drastic long-term effects on vegetation, as well as temperatures in regions that could not have either day or night. This phenomenon of the suspension of the movements of all mass in the solar system would be later named the "Collapse of the 4th Dimension", as it had seemed as though time itself had stopped. The rain was never-ceasing.
July 29, 2024; Dawn of the New World
Ray was a 29-year-old who hated his job. It was incredibly boring and he felt that he didn't get paid enough for all the work he had to put in. When he woke up he was in a horrible mood. He had been in his room playing a game when the collapse happened, the power had gone down and still was not on from yesterday.
Most houses had survived the earthquake, but the power grid was not so lucky. It seemed like technicians couldn't get out to fix the problem as the storm had worsened and the rain still flooded the streets. The government was still pretending that they had the situation under control, however Ray figured otherwise. The endless rain poured on and on and the flooding got worse and worse.
Soon people would have to boat anywhere they wanted to go. Not to mention the worst of the problems, the giant planet that had appeared in the sky. The government has no way to solve this problem, they don't even know what caused it! Ray thought to himself that he needed to prepare, and tried to make light of the situation. At least I don't have to go in to work anymore, he thought.
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He immediately started preparing a means of travel, as he assumed the situation would only get worse. For now the flooding was not up to his house, but it would get there eventually, and if he wasn't prepared for it then it would all be over. He figured he would go cook himself a nice meal, while he still could. The ingredients would go bad soon and he would probably be forced out of his house when the water level got higher. Ray made 2 burgers for himself and after eating he quickly drove to the hardware store. He grabbed a bunch of planks, ropes, a few plastic buckets, and rubber adhesive.
Ray made a flat raft out of all of these things and tied it together with some rope. After layering some adhesive on he let it dry and attached a triple-layered trash bag to the back and put in as many cans of food as he could without it breaking. The raft had taken him the better part of the day, and by this time people were starting to realize that the government was wrong and things were not going to be okay. People were rushing to get supplies at this point, luckily Ray wasn't that worried, as he had already started. He drove to a supermarket, which was closed as there was no power. He decided that he would have to steal the supplies he needed and deal with it later if he had to.
He grabbed 3 hiking backpacks, 4 rain ponchos, a firestarter, and some camping pots. He needed to make however long he needed to be on the boat comfortable. He also grabbed a bunch of granola bars as they were lightweight and gave energy. He got water bottles to fill the last bag with so that when he wasn't able to make fire he could still have clean water. He grabbed two tarps, as he wanted to try and make a roof on his raft so he didn't have to be wet all the time.
If he had more time to prepare or more funds he could've been a little more thorough, but what can you do? He got home and made a sort of makeshift tent roof on top of the raft so that he wouldn't get super wet when riding on it. After finishing up the raft, he piled his supplies on and decided to sleep for the night.