January 5, 2025
~64 Days until the The Synchronization~
With a startled jerk, Wyatt woke up to the sound of sirens. The wailing echoed throughout the city intermixed with the occasional scream. He was sitting upward, slumped on the wall of the counter.
His back hurt like hell. Apparently, sitting upwards on the hardwood floor wasn’t a way to get a good night's rest. Raising his hand, he lightly brushed off the dust and debris that stayed on his shoulders and head. Groaning, he managed to get to his feet and take a look at his surroundings.
Yup. Just as he remembered it last night. Like shit.
His wall was basically gone, his couch broken, and his condo a mess.
Well shit… What was that huge quake though? I’m pretty sure that ain’t normal, even for California. Definitely. Okay okay, I should probably check the news.
Oh wait I don’t have a tv…
With a half cry half chuckle, Wyatt went to the horrendously small room that he called a bathroom and took a quick shower. If running water over your body for a minute counts as shower…
Butt naked, he walked over to his dirty clothing pile in a corner of the room and picked the best shirt and pants from the pile. Everything in it was dirty and smelly, but he couldn’t wear his clothes from yesterday. Spilled beer, vomit, muddy water, with a sprinkle of dust and dirt from his ceiling, walls, and just general surroundings. To put it lightly, his clothes were a mess beyond redeemable.
He picked a simple dark green shirt and navy blue jeans from the pile, they had smelled the best compared to the others. The lack of stains also helped.
Now fully clothes in decently acceptable clothes, he went to check out the collapsed wall.
Yup. It was a goner. The wall that is.
He never had any backyard so it pretty much opened to an alleyway that separated the neighboring apartment complex. It was any other alleyway, dusty and smelly, nothing of note.
Damn, imagine if I lived in a large and expensive penthouse several stories in the air. I could have had a whole building collapse on me. Yikkeeesss.
Wyatt lived in a very run down part of LA. The builds were old and almost all residents had a family of rats behind the walls. He also had a large number of leaks in the apartment, along with unknown smells. The only good thing was that the neighbors were usually quiet, everyone kept to themselves. Only occasionally would a scream or two be heard. Sometimes a gunshot, but those were relatively rare. Nonetheless, it was still normal to have these things.
His only saving grace was that his apartment complex only had two stories. Thank God he was on the first floor. Being relatively close to the ground actually saved his life. Kinda scary to think about actually…
Shivers went down Wyatt’s spine as his mind began thinking of some truly disturbing intrusive thoughts.
Taking a deep breath, Wyatt gathered his thoughts and stepped into the ally.
***
At 11pm on January 5th, 2025 large cracks opened in the sky.
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They largely varied in size. Some were small and only appeared to be a line, having little to no width. Others were so large that they cast shadows onto the ground, blocking the sun and tearing through clouds.
Large earthquakes plagued the Earth for a few days following the ‘Introduction’. Skyscrapers toppled and millions of homes were damaged, New York and other large cities suffered the most damage. Some places, especially islands like England and Japan, had tsunamis that caused millions of dollars in damage.
A couple volcanoes across the world even erupted.
The world was shaken by the sudden appearance of these cracks. Governments were now stressed out over such an unknown factor suddenly appearing. Inorder to suppress mass panic, the US government tried sending missiles into the cracks or getting a helicopter close to them for scientists study. Seeing the government's hastey response to such a threat calmed the majority of people, but for the most part people were still fearful of them.
Other countries, mostly small ones, were not so lucky in their attempt to calm the masses. Small countries in Southern America flew into minor wars. North Korea decided to send out their full military might, flinging bombs and missiles all over the place in an attempt to quell the cracks. Why they would do such a thing was a mystery to the rest of the world, but then again they weren’t the main issue here so most just turned a blind eye.
The world superpowers were generally able to suppress the panic and quell any uprisings or rebellions. However, small countries or very corrupt countries were having a very hard time keeping things in order.
When a little over two weeks had passed the world had calmed, to an extent. People were still wary of these cracks and governments, who just had their very foundations shaken, were able to keep relative peace. So most people tried to live life ignoring these cracks.
Slowly, the cracks began to spread and branch from one another. At first they were unnoticeable, small expansions.
That was until some Mexican scientist noticed that the shadow around his house was getting larger and larger every day. He wasn’t the only one, but he was the first to report it to the media. This rustled peoples fear again, a new kind of fear. The primal kind, the ‘every man for himself’ kind of fear.
However, life must go on…
***
Somehow, when Wyatt first stepped into the alleyway that used to be his “backyard”, he failed to notice the darkening sky. No, it wasn’t turning dark because it was night but because of smoke and smog.
Fires broke out around LA, not just around his apartment complex.
A couple large skyscrapers in downtown LA had fallen because of the earthquake, which subsequently caused a few fires. One of which was heading towards his general direction. It wasn’t close enough to be a danger but the fact that soon, if the firefighters weren’t able to get it under control fasts enough, it would engulf his apartment.
Perhaps I should move?
…
Oh right I’m dirt poor. Broke as a doorknob. Fucking expensive diamonds, stupid love, just goddamn it all!
Wyatt started screaming and cursing in his mind. God, why was he so stupid? Such a dumb and pathetic man, driven by his lust and greed. He never had much to lose, but once he gained something unattainable and invaluable, he had much farther to fall. Losing his love, his other half, had crushed his spirit. His only light was taken from him, reducing him to nothing.
SLAP
He slapped himself, trying to get his mind out of the dark thoughts. They won’t help his situation and they certainly won’t help heal his emotions.
Alright, alright. No bad thoughts. Let's think about finding a tv. Got to figure out what's going on.
Thus, began his search for a tv.
Slowly, he exited the dark and gloomy alleyway that doubled as his “backyard”. Normally the streets of his neighborhood would be quiet, people would keep their heads down and mind their own business. It wasn’t the safest place to be and crimes were commonplace. So it came to a huge surprise when he saw people up and about.
The family that lived a floor above him was stuffed into their small truck, their belongings shoved into plastic bags. They were frantically trying to leave the area, their car windows rolled up and the children stayed low on the seats.
A fat man, probably in his mid-thirties, was running to his small shack of a home screaming a woman's name.
People around him panicked. Screaming bloody murder and running as if a beast chased them. Confused as hell, Wyatt just stood there at the entrance to the gloomy alleyway.
Wait what did I miss? Was this all because of the earthquake? I get it was bad but not enough to cause this much panic. I mean, a wall came down but my apartment is still livable. Mostly.
As he was lost in thought, a homeless and smelly man shoved him out of the way as he ran out of the alleyway. He had a small dog following his heels, barking in fear as it followed it’s owner.
With a thump, Wyatt landed in some trash pile. At Least he didn’t land on the gravel, that would have left a few nasty scratches.
He picked himself up and dusted off his butt. That was when a small ray of light pierced through the smoke and landed on his face.
Squinting up, he looked at the sky. That was when he noticed it. The deep ocean blue… cracks? There was an absurdly large crack hanging over the skies of eastern LA. It was hard to see through the smoke but he was sure that he saw smaller, less noticeable, cracks around the large one.
He was in a daze. There was something about these cracks that sent a chill down his spine, something was really wrong. He wanted to move, to run back to his home and curl into a ball on his couch. To watch sunday night football with a bowl of chips next to him, to feel those simple pleasures life brought. But the crack forced some kind of fear in him. No, a primal feeling. His animal instincts told him to fear this thing. To run and hide. But he just couldn’t bring himself to move. His feet were frozen to the ground as his heart beat faster and faster.
His eyes never blinked, he didn’t even feel the dust and dirt that swept past him. It didn’t matter. The deep, dark blue hue of the crack overhead was pulling his conscience into it. Drowning him in it’s beauty. Swallowing him whole.
WEEEE WOO WEEEE WOO
The sound of sirens brought him back to reality. It snapped him out of his daze and he realized he was the only one left. Everyone else was gone. The family, the fat man, everyone. He was alone.
Alone, terribly confused, and extremely scared.