I'd like to say that I shot out my hand like a hero and snatched the grocery cart before the toddler sailed off the cliff that now marked the new end of the world, yet I'm sorry to report that not a single person in that parking lot even made the attempt. The little tot just grinned, gleefully insulted me, and careened off the edge.

The mother's scream shakes me out of my trance. She shoulders past me and flees across the lot, making a kind of keening wail that I didn't even realize humans could make. I don't think. Nothing in my head is working. But I find myself chasing after her because my lizard brain apparently doesn't trigger for children but heartily believes women shouldn't be flinging themselves off of cliffs.

Just before she makes it to the edge, I grab her arm and wrench her back. Interestingly, I'm still cradling the ice cream because my lizard brain also feels protective of desserts.

In that moment, I glance down. As it turns out, the world isn't actually gone. Not completely. Hundreds of feet down, there's a big expanse of brown earth with countless holes carved into it, like someone has taken a galactic ice cream scoop, balled up a few chunks, and set them free, gravity be damned. The Payless and all the other stores are floating on their own little rock somewhere off to the left. I can actually see my apartment, though it's getting farther away by the second.

It’s weird. I should be panicking. But when met with the inconceivable, your brain does this thing. Or maybe it’s just my brain. Who knows. Either way, the mind has a way of just compartmentalizing. We smother the cognitive dissonance of two contradicting factors and just pretend it’s normal by living equally in two worlds: one where life carries on as usual, and one where the world just so happens to be a cadre of floating rocks, drifting away like a loose bouquet of balloons.

So I’m standing there, staring at the new Chicago bluffs, having stoically watched a toddler Dukes of Hazard it over the edge, and I’m wondering: is my ice cream melting?

I know, I know, I should be horrified. But it doesn’t make sense. So I’m not. I’m really, very concerned about my ice cream.

"My baby, my baby," the mother cries. I can't keep a hold on her. And I almost let go. I can’t seem to remember why I’m holding her in the first place.

Then, a miracle. There's a pop, like ears popping on an airplane, and her child materializes out of thin air. She stands just a few feet from where she plunged. She seems shocked, her pigtails a little windblown, but otherwise she’s perfectly fine.

The mother envelopes the toddler in a hug so strong that she nearly tackles her to the ground. “Oh my god, Rachel? Oh my sweetheart, my baby.”

“Mr. Bunny!” the little girl whines. It seems her stuffed animal didn’t make it.

The mother sobs. Just big hacking heaves with snot and everything. The shock of the little girl’s vacation to the afterlife hasn’t worn off yet, so I have no idea how to react. It’s getting awkward. I’m really not a fan of the mushy stuff, and kids are nothing if not mush-factories. Honestly, one day, I hope to want kids. Or more accurately, I want to be the type of person who wants kids. Someone stable, less selfish, cherishes emotion. You know, parent material. But maybe that’s over. My pool’s a little limited now, I guess.

I peek down at the rest of the world again. The chunk of land with my apartment on it continues to drift. There are other pieces too. I spot the silver shimmer of what must be Lake Michigan on a couple of floating islands just beyond. The water spills over the broken edges, pouring onto the churned up dirt below.

Bye fishies.

And then the weird factor turns up to 11. I’m about to return to the crowd gathering in front of the grocery store, thinking that maybe someone has some idea of what’s going on. Maybe someone’s got a cell phone, and Twitter (or X or whatever the hell it is now) is like “oh yeah we predicted this” with that “Everything is Fine” house-on-fire-sipping-coffee meme. But I’m only just turning around when a voice emanates from, well, I think inside my head.

Greetings to the people of planet “Earth”. We regret to inform you that, due to your negligence, your world has reached the point of infestation. As a result, we have divided your world into 14,850,000 quarantine zones. Each zone averages 25 square kilometers, though sizes may vary. We see that there are “five” ocean biomes which have been removed as a courtesy.

In approximately twenty of your “Earth” hours, each quarantine zone will be reconstituted. If you wish to avoid reconstitution, please report to a portal station. There is one station per zone. As a complementary service, we offer instant revival to all underaged humans. Be aware that this service is not offered to others. Death is permanent. Life is ephemeral.

You will now be accorded a series of statistics based on your physical, mental, and emotional attributes. Be advised that these starting numbers may be improved with experience. As you progress, you may also earn skills. All other features will be withheld until reconstitution.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Have a wonderful “Earth” day.

A countdown appears: 19:59. For a split second, it doesn’t show up as a number. It’s a mess of unrecognizable characters. Then, before I can even register it as foreign, it morphs into a readable countdown. It's smack in the center of my vision before it shrinks and moves to the upper right corner of my eye. I’m already feeling the onset of an ocular headache, so I look away and it disappears. When I look up and right again, it pops back up.

Then more alien symbols appear. Again, they instantly morph into the standard English alphabet before shrinking and moving to the bottom right. I shift my eyes to the bottom right, and the list returns.

Strength: 4

Fortitude: 3

Dexterity: 5

Wits: 7

Resolve: 6

Charm: 5 (-2 hygiene)

Available Attribute Points: 0

These must be the stats they mentioned. So what they’re saying is I’m smart, physically weak, and potentially charming if I managed to shower like a regular person. I have to laugh at the "resolve" though. Resolve to what exactly? Other than that, it’s painfully accurate.

I flick off the unseen forces that did this. Aliens. It has to be aliens, right? My first guess would have been filthy rich people, but not a single one of them is creative enough to tear up the world into their own live action game. Plus, if one of them is responsible, they absolutely would have signed their name at the end. I wonder what Elon Musk is thinking right about now. I bet he just fired someone.

Which brings me back to aliens. What did they say again?

Just like that, a transcript of the androgynous voice appears. I scroll through it. With my eyes. This is so weird. Okay, focus. Let’s see. World’s been infested. Sounds great. We’re on a floating island about 25 square kilometers. That’s almost 10 square miles, so we must be standing right on the eastern edge of that. We have twenty hours to find a portal which I guess will take us somewhere else? We can earn skills. Super vague. Thanks, voice. And finally, if we die, we die. Unless we’re a Thelma and Louise lovin’ toddler. Sadly I’m in my 20s, so no cliff-diving for me.

What’s infested mean? Despite the wording, the voice sounded rather bored with the whole ordeal, but - and I could be projecting here - I felt it had a bit of a sardonic edge to it. Like when a backstabbing friend starts dating an evil ex, and you tell them how happy you are they’re together because the inevitable emotional explosion will be epic. You know, hypothetically.

So I have to assume an infestation is a bad thing. Did they infest us or did that just happen naturally and they decided to make a game of it? Is this a game? I’m only assuming because of the stats. I’ve played my fair share of role-playing games - the video game kind, not pen and paper. I’m not that cool. Either way, the concept’s familiar for the average gamer.

As for everyone else? Who knows. My cousins still call my Xbox the “Nintendo cube” so they’re probably confused as hell. They’re lawyers. I went to law school too, for a time. Doesn’t matter now, does it. Suck it, lawyers.

When I turn back around, everything has changed. The supermarket is complete pandemonium. I can see through the windows. All of the cool, calm, judgy citizens of yesterday are now indiscriminately swiping entire arm loads of food off the shelves and into their carts.

A pair of older women wield their baskets like cudgels against the deli counter man before diving over and stealing a ham. Some guy’s got a goddamned birthday cake under one arm. Most of the employees have joined the chaos. Others are hiding under their stations, frantically fiddling with their cell phones like the world still works.

I don’t know what I expected. I suppose if you’d put “people riot” on the multichoice test, it’s what I would have chosen, but it didn’t pop into my mind as an option. Of course, I can’t hear much through the windows, and it’s pretty windy given the lack of everything, so this is all being acted out like a silent film. It’s like an anarchist interpretative dance.

Anyway, enough observation. I realize that if I’m going to make a multi-mile hike in search of some alien portal, I’m going to need supplies too. I don’t mind paying for it, although that doesn’t quite seem like an option anymore. Despite all the violence, there’s really no rush. I need, what, a couple bottles of water, a few premade sandwiches, maybe some bandaids and gauze in case things go south.

Man, look at me. Look how calm I am. My therapist would be proud. Or horrified. Yeah, probably horrified.

I saunter inside. The sound of the developing riot explodes in a cacophony of screaming and smashing with an underlayer of what I think is Motown’s You Can’t Hurry Love warbling from the grocery store’s speakers. I station myself next to the firewood by the window to take it all in, figure out my best options. Now that I’m clinically aware of my low strength and fortitude, it seems like I should wait for the chaos to die down a bit.

I peel the lid off my ice cream as I observe the crowd. Looks like I got chocolate chip. Not bad. I’ll probably have to lick it like a… Wait a minute. There’s a wooden spoon sticking halfway out of my pocket. I can’t believe my luck.

With my comically oversized wooden spoon, I scrape off a lopsided shaving of ice cream. Yummy.

And this is it. This is the moment it strikes me. I’m standing there, in a bathrobe and crud-caked slippers, with a wooden cooking spoon I got from who knows where, scooping up chunks of fatty chocolate chip, watching a Black Friday revival with the world broken off behind me. After all that desperation to flee the store, I just voluntarily walked back inside. I didn’t even think about it.

And it hits me that I’m not anxious. I’m not sad or ashamed. Not even a little. It’s like everything that was building in my head that led to me going on this ill-advised dessert-based mission is manifesting itself in front of me. Finally, the world matches up with my mind, and it’s perfectly in sync. Like an orchestra all tuning to the right pitch.

I’m not the crazy lady anymore. We’re all the crazy lady.

It’s so beautiful.