Wall Street, Manhattan, New York. Monday, October 7th, 2019. 17:00

The world ended at rush hour.

It was chaos as meteors came down, and then things got awful. Waves of New Yorkers pressed at the edge of the madness with mouths agape, when thousands of confused people held their breath and waited for "something" and listened for sirens, which did not come.

No one knew what was going on. They started to burn. People were scared, people were screaming, people were crying. Otherworldly energies seared their flesh as it seeped into their beings. Most of them died instantly, unable to cope with the energies. Only one out of every thousand remained alive. Many more would die to fallen debris, courtesy of the meteor shower.

They woke up a week later to a transformed world. Half of the city was demolished. There was no electricity, no water. Cats and dogs walked among the dead. Rats crawled over the rubble. The city was, in a word, destroyed.

Except for the Empire State Building. It was still standing. The survivors gathered around it. It was a beacon of hope. It was a lighthouse in the darkness. The survivors knew that the building meant shelter. They climbed it and when they got to the top, they fell to their knees.

"Dear God, it's all gone!" One survivor said, sobbing.

"I don't care," said another. He climbed the fence and jumped.

"Don't look down!" A preacher shouted. "The power of God has delivered us from certain death. We are the chosen ones, here to reclaim the Earth and consecrate it to the heavens."

The survivors gathered around the charismatic man.

"The sky is purged," he said. "The world is scorched. This will be the beginning of a new era. Here, we will rebuild. The Lion will return with the Apostles. We need to build a temple!"

And so they started to rebuild. They scavenged the surroundings for food, furniture, tools, and whatever they could use to rebuild their homes and lives. They found very little, and worried about their survival. Winter was just a few months away.

And so the survivors split. A few made their homes underground, in the subway tunnels. They believed the core of the city was the safest place to be. Everyone was afraid of what was going on above ground. They were afraid of disease, of earthquakes, of asteroids and comets.

Others decided to move south. To run away from the cold. To find a place they could grow their own food, or to search for somewhere not destroyed by a meteor shower.

Attrition between survivors became common, and murder was just another way to solve conflicts. The death toll was high.

*

*

The world ended at rush hour.

Some among us thought we were blessed. Others thought we were cursed. There was no one among us who wasn't trying to figure out how this could be so.

When it was over, when the cities were just smoldering husks, and no one was left to blame, those of us who lived there told ourselves that we would learn from our mistake. We would never live in such a manner again.

For some, hope became a disease.

Those who died didn't understand the reason.

Those who lived didn't know what to expect. Everyone had lost everything they had and everybody they knew.

The world was no longer safe, and the way people lived had changed.

Those of us who had survived the world ending thought we could control the chaos. We thought we could find a way to live in peace.

But the world didn't end.

It just continued, worse than before.

*

*

Manhattan, New York. Monday, October 7th, 2019. 17:00

The world ended at rush hour.

I was walking to a subway station in midtown Manhattan when the sky went dark, the city went silent, and it felt as if time had stopped. I don't know what I expected to see—a flood, a hurricane, a supernova, or a comet crashing to Earth—but it was nothing like this. The last thing I saw was a car crashing into a tree. It happened so fast, and it was so dark, I wasn't sure of what I saw.

The world went completely silent that I had no idea what would happen next. I couldn't see any smoke, or flames, or even hear any sirens. That's when my body started to burn. All around me, people screamed and died. I fell unconscious.

When I woke up, the city was silent. Several buildings were destroyed and I was lucky to avoid being crushed by the debris. I was parched and starving. My phone was dead. Everything was silent except for the chittering of rats, prowling freely over the rubble.

I don't know what happened to the world. I don't know if there was an explosion or if the sky just blacked out. I had no idea what I should do. I felt afraid. Around me, dead corpses, locked in their final moments of agony. It unnerved me.

I decided to leave. The Empire State Building was the last skyscraper left in downtown Manhattan. I felt a dark ominous aura coming from it. I went as far away from that place as possible. I didn't know what I would do if I found someone else. I was afraid. What would people do when the bonds that kept society together fell apart?

I walked on dead streets and climbed over ruined buildings until I found a man sitting on the curb. He was crying. He said he was hungry and begged me to help him. I had nothing to give him. I told him my idea to get away Get out of this dead island, and find food and shelter. I asked him to come with me, and he agreed.

The bridges over the Hudson were no more. The support pillars stood in defiance of the rushing waters. We were stuck on the island.

I told him to follow me, and he did. We walked north, watching for any boats, or any signs of a living person. At night, we slept together, seeking solace and warmth on each other's bodies.

I woke up to the sound of the river crashing against the promenade. I saw the sun rise and felt the warmth of the day. Somehow, my partner had found food. I dared not ask what meat that was. We made a fire, cooked our food, and boiled some water.

He said he was a scientist before the world ended. He said he was on the verge of discovering something that would change the world forever. He said he needed to go back to his lab. I told him I would go with him.

The world ended but we had to keep the things precious to us safe.

We started walking back to the city. The dead were still everywhere. The stench of rotting corpses filled the air. I was scared. I had no idea where my next meal would come from and we had nowhere to go. We heard an explosion and rushed to see if we could help someone.

We saw a car on fire, and two bodies lying in the street. Differently from the others, these were freshly dead. We went closer. The car had exploded. I heard a noise. I looked up and saw a woman. A strange feeling took over me as I ran to her and hugged her.

She was trembling. She looked like she was in shock. I asked her where she was from, and she told me she was from the Bronx. She said her name was Alex.

I asked her what happened to the world. She told me that she was at work, and she got a call from her boss, saying that they had to evacuate the building. She said she got on the subway and was on the platform when everyone started to scream and burn. She didn't know what happened next.

She'd climbed out of the station and found the world in this state. Then the car exploded and these people died from the blast. I asked her if she would come with us.

That's when the thugs found us, attracted by the sound of the explosion. They had guns and looked like members of a gang. I told them we were harmless, and we were just trying to get back to the city. They told us to go away. They said they would shoot us if we didn't.

I thought I saw a dead man walking and panicked. I tried to escape, but I couldn't. They shot at me and I fell down. My back burned and it was hard to breathe. I looked back and saw Alex and my boyfriend. They were on the ground, wounded. All I could hear was them screaming.

I crawled to them and held their hands. I hugged them. I tried to protect them from the thugs. They were bleeding. I tried to get up and find help, but they had little time left. They shot me again and I fell back down. I felt as if I was dying. I looked up and saw the thugs walking away.

Then I saw no more.