On the day that dimensions converged and worlds collided, Mike had just finished fighting a pigeon.

Well… fighting was perhaps just a bit of an over-exaggeration. It was more accurate to say that he had hopelessly chased one with a broom until it found an open window to fly out of and escape. Granted, Mike would say that his attempt at violence against the flying rat had been justified. After all, it’d been the one to declare war first by somehow breaking into his apartment at some point last night and then took a crap directly onto his computer.

And, of course, the damned thing had done so with the ungodly level of precision necessary to have its excrement seep into the components and fry his PC. Some would say that only happened because he had the bad habit of leaving his computer running 24/7, but Mike would tell those people to save it for when their PCs got wrecked by a pigeon with diarrhea. Because yes, the thing most definitely had a case of the runs. As made evident by the fact that not only was his computer the biggest victim of its night of terror, but that a large chunk of his floor and walls had also received an unwelcome paint job.

After waking up to this disaster and having the misfortune of stepping barefoot onto a patch of wet floor, Mike had been understandably upset. So he did what anyone would have done, and chased the evil bird with a bloody vengeance. Yet the pigeon would prove itself impossible to hit, and as if things weren’t bad enough, launched its own counterattack by proving to Mike that its diarrhea was indeed still going strong.

Desperate to just get the cursed creature out at that point, Mike opened a window and then chased it out. As the window was closed and the bird hopefully flew back to the infernal pits it’d come from; it was then that he took the time to inspect the damage. That he went to his PC after only then catching a metallic burning smell, and truly despaired. After realizing that the computer wouldn’t turn on, no matter what he did or cleaned, Mike could only hope that his hard drive hadn’t also been borked. That if he just took it out, the precious files inside would be safe and sound. In his heart of hearts, however, the doubt that he would be so lucky was already there.

“Man… could today get any fucking worse?” Mike asked himself as he slumped against the wall by his desk. He would have sat in the close by desk chair, but that too had fallen victim to the cruel and terrible pigeon.

“I still have to get ready for work too… as soon as I get all this cleaned up. Ugggghhh.” Mike rubbed his face into his hands. Bird crap would be hard enough to clean up as it was, but there was no way that he had enough cleaning supplies on-hand to do it. Maybe he would have stocked more, had he somehow known that his apartment would turn into a declaration of war against mankind by the dark empire of birds as they sent a bioweapon as the first strike.

He had already burnt through his sick days, so that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t like he could just call his manager and say something like: “Hey Todd, a pigeon broke into my place and literally crapped everywhere! It also toasted my computer and maybe everything I’ve ever saved on it, so could I just have today off to cope with that fact and curl up into a crying ball? Also, my report for this Friday is still looking good, chow!”

Yet even if Todd did accept that very valid excuse not to come in today, he couldn’t do it. This was one very simple and depressingly unavoidable reason. Money. While his sick days were paid, Mike’s living situation was one that could only be afforded with frequent overtime hours. A week where he only put 40 hours on the clock was considered a bad one. For him, 50 was the minimum expectation, though that was just the lowest he could really afford. As far an idea average, 60+ hours per week was where it was at for him.

Now, even more than that could only be reached during the extra busy holiday season. But rather than spend that extra cash, it had to be saved for the slower season that came afterward, when he usually got fewer overtime hours.

Most of the reason for those extra hours was for rent. As far as apartments in the city he lived in went, Mike’s was certainly on the nicer and more spacious side of things. Despite the fact that he lived alone, it had everything one would need to fit a married couple and a few kids. And while the fact that he could always move and downsize to a smaller one that was he wouldn’t have to work so hard to afford, Mike could never do it. No, he would hold onto this place until the day that the rent was raised so high that it became physically impossible for him to keep paying for it.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Mike stood up and brushed himself off. His eyes drifted over to the wall of the living room where his TV was mounted. Underneath it was the large wooden cabinet. On the surface was just a single item, one that had luckily been spared by the pigeon. Maybe just by pure luck, maybe because even that evil bird might still have at least a shred of mercy in its dark heart.

His gaze lingered on the picture frame that was thankfully still clean. Even considering the PC, the picture inside it was what he would consider the most valuable thing he owned. Because it was the only one he had that had both himself and his parents. Neither of them had really been ones for taking pictures and videos. So sadly, this was the only one he had that was a picture of the three of them, before their passing.

He looked around at the furniture and the parts of the floor and wall that hadn’t been so lucky. So many years of being careful not to even leave a ketchup stain on the couch, and then that damned pigeon had to go and ruin it. Who knew if he would be able to fully get it out, no matter how much cleaning he did.

Maaaaan. The PC is whatever if I can save its storage. I’ll have to save up and wait for a sale on a lower-spec one, but that’s fine. But if I have to actually repaint or replace anything else… Just the thought of it was depressing. When everything about this place represented something they had left behind, to replace even one part of that was like removing a piece of them.

Before getting ready for work, Mike launched an investigation. He checked that the door and windows were all fully closed. When they each seemed to be secure, he then looked around for any other bird-sized vulnerabilities. And then that’s where he saw it.

The fireplace had a glass sliding door in front of it. Yet, as something that Mike rarely used, it wasn’t something he really paid attention to. However, the glass slider was currently ajar by a bit. And considering the fact that the chimney actually did lead outside…

“Oh damn it. Really, it actually climbed all the way down?” Mike cursed to himself. Without any other obvious entry points though, it was the only thing that made sense. He roughly slammed the thing closed, now frustrated at himself for not somehow thinking of this possibility earlier.

As he stepped away, his bare foot stepped onto the light grey rug on the floor. And of course, hidden within the similar color of its fibers, was some fresh, still-warm excrement.

“God… damn it,” Mike cursed. Having avoided the wet landmines until now, his already awful morning had now just managed to become a full degree worse.

He awkwardly shuffled toward the kitchen, walking only on the toes of the stained foot so as not to spread the filth on it against the floor. Then, grabbing a paper towel, he spent the next minute trying to clean his foot until it felt as rubbed off as it could get. Though even as it was visibly all gone, a part of his brain swore that it could still be felt.

Can today get any worse? Mike asked himself as he squatted down to open a lower cabinet. Inside it was a small assortment of rarely used cleaning supplies. Though compared to the absolute devastation around the apartment, he could already tell that this much wouldn't be nearly enough to get the job done.

As he reached out to grab one to at least get started on cleaning, Mike’s eyes closed for a blink. Half a second later, they remained closed as his body suddenly went limp.

In just an instant that happened far faster than he could even have processed, the young man fell forward. His head smacked into the open door of the cabinet as his outstretched arm crashed into the things inside it and knocked a few of them over. Just like that, he was utterly unconscious.

Was this a case of Mike’s brain spontaneously imploding from the stress of this morning, leading him to a sudden and early grave? For better or worse, no. In fact, this unexplained occurrence did not happen just to him, but to all of humanity as a collective in that exact moment.

Across the world, every human being alive simultaneously fell unconscious. Cars cruising down the freeway veered off the road as their drivers slumped forward into their steering wheels. A scalpel hit the ground as doctors in the middle of a brain surgery also fell right after it. Even those few humans orbiting the planet in a space station remained floating around in zero gravity as they, too, blacked out. Yet there was something else of note that none could no now, but would be discovered later.

Cars crashed into each other. Planes fell out of the sky. Even mundane tasks like bench pressing at the gym led to hundreds of pounds of weight falling onto the lifter’s chest. The logical conclusion to all these incidents should have been the immediate deaths of tens of thousands, if not even more. But somehow, the result of humanity’s collective blackout was even stranger than the blackout itself.

Despite what common sense would have dictated as the obvious consequence, one impossible fact remained true as if to spite that belief. Because no matter what happened and how fatal something should have been… not a single person died as a direct result of suddenly falling unconscious.