Year 2024 - 9:32 pm - New York

It was a day like any other on the streets of one of the biggest cities in the world. The car traffic was nightmarish as usual and the streets were bustling with people going about their business.

On one such street, a young man, not over 25, was lying down in front of a supermarket. Based on his clothes and the fact that he had 2 large bags on his side, you could easily assume that he was a beggar. His eyes were dark blue, his hair was short and pitch black, and his clothes were dirty and broken.

[Oh, another person quickly turning their head around when walking past me, as usual.] he thought while eyeing an older woman who has just passed by. He slowly raised his left hand and looked deeply at the ring situated on his index finger. It was grey and the patterns on it were simple and crude. It didn't seem to have any value, however his eyes were fixated on it like it was his greatest treasure.

[I wonder where he is now...] just as this thought passed through his head, he suddenly looked up only to see two bulky men standing in front of him.

"Hah, sorry guys but today has been an awful day for business, I have nothing to give you." he smiled calmly, however the trembling of his left hand was very noticeable. He was half-lying. There were some money he gained today from begging but he gave them all to a small homeless girl he knew, who had a lung disease and needed constant medication. She hasn't been able to earn enough to buy the medicine she needs for quite a while and her symptoms worsened by the day.

"That's fine with us, but the boss won't be pleased...and you know the boss. He always says that the rewards and punishments system is the best. And guess what, you've earned yourself a punishment!" he said laughing before quickly grabbing the man, raising him up before throwing a punch right to his stomach.

"Ugh..." the beggar dropped down while looking terrified.

"This is your first time so we will be lenient, but next time will be different..? What's with that look?" he asked the beggar that was looking more and more terrified. His look was directed behind the standing man, a bit upwards.

When the thug turned around, a look of panic flashed across his eyes as well.

Thousands of lights were suddenly sprouting up in the previously dark skies. It was a beautiful sight in itself, if not for what it represented.

They were of various sizes, some a few meters small and others seemed as big as skyscrapers. The people on the streets quickly started screaming and panicking while running disorderly.

The most despairing thing was that this wasn't the only place on Earth where this was happening, far from it.

Tibet - 4000 meters underground

A group of 21 people were sitting at a round table in a medium-sized hall. On the walls, there were multiple screens displaying the events outside. Many of them suddenly turned black as their connection with satellites was suddenly cut off, probably because many satellites were already hit by the meteors.

If you looked closely at them, you could recognize some of these people, like the current presidents of the US and Russia, followed by some Prime Ministers of other countries, and also some unknown figures who, by their bearing, didn't seem to be any less powerful than the others.

Each of them had a black suitcase in front of them which held a small screen inside and two keyholes. As most of the screens were continuously going black the voice of an older man echoed in the room.

"It is now or never." He followed by quickly inserting two keys in his suitcase and turning them both. Several grunts and comments could be heard in the room but all of the others mirrored his actions quickly.

As all of the keys were used, everyone turned with anxiety towards the only 3 screens still working in the room. In the beginning there were 85 screens in the room, each connected to a different satellite, through which all parts of the globe could be seen. After the meteor shower passed by the satellite layer, only three were left. Now, these three were pointing towards the USA, south Europe and north Africa, and one towards Japan and a part of the Pacific.

In many secluded places in the world, the ground started splitting up to reveal huge rockets that in the next second flew off, along with the hopes of the ones who fired them. The most powerful people in the world knew that while nuclear arsenal was considered as one of the worst invention created by humanity, at this moment it was their last hope for survival.

Using nuclear weapons has always been in the talk when considering potential ways to destroy or at least deflect asteroids if need be. The problem has always been that for the smaller ones, that would not have a huge impact since most of their mass would burn in the atmosphere, the use of such arsenal would be overkill and very hazardous for our environment. For the bigger ones however, the bombs wouldn't be nearly enough to destroy them. In the best case scenario, they would only split them into smaller ones which could impact several areas around the world, rather than just one. True, the impact the individual smaller pieces would have would be a lot less than it might have been for the big one, however the range it would impact would also significantly increase.

However, in the current situation, what else could be done rather than use everything we've got and hope that at least the world doesn't end with this.

Thousands of nuclear bombs flew up almost at the same time from all over the world, USA, Russia, UK, France and even North Korea. In history, this was probably the only moment where humanity has been truly united, acting as a whole and not holding back anything.

The speed at which they traveled was shocking, probably the result of the recent advancements in technology. The most impressive thing was that even if there were many countries in the world which did not possess any nuclear arsenal, the moment that several thousands of these weapons rose into the air from the US and Russia, they actually split up evenly towards neighbouring countries as well.

After all, even if your country is not hit directly, it would still be destroyed by the shock waves and the burning atmosphere resulted from the other impacts.

The same happened to the warheads deployed by the other countries. The US warheads easily covered a big part of South and North America while Europe, Russia, China and India all deployed a significant part to the skies of Africa and Australia. In a few seconds, the sky was lit up by huge explosions. Shock waves started spreading out toppling entire cities in their way.

While this could prevent an extinction level impact, the radiation emitted by these explosions...would mark the death of 99% of all humans on the surface. Most of the weapons were able to hit the meteors outside the atmosphere, however there were still a few which were impacted inside and exploded, sending huge blasts of heat and radiation in all directions. The impact on the environment will be irreversible.

Still, even after using up all the nuclear warheads, there were still many meteorites which slipped through or were left from an explosion of a bigger one, which were still falling towards the Earth.

As things were standing, the attempt can be considered mostly a failure.