Story-A-Day #13: The Event

THE EVENT

The sky turned an eerie shade of green and moments later, the world exploded. It was that sudden, that abrupt. One moment the sun was shining, and in the next the world was broken, an entire city shattered.

It only lasted a few minutes, but the wrath of those moments would stay with us for years to come. Property was destroyed, people went missing, power was out for days, weeks in some parts of the city.

It destroyed the economy, sure, but it destroyed something more powerful than that as well; our trust. After The Event, people slowly stopped trusting each other. Sure there was some looting and violence in the streets, there was a curfew in place, and all the other things you would expect following such an event. That wasn’t the issue though. The lack of trust came from a lack of answers. The people in charge weren’t telling us anything and they were the first to go in the scheme of trust. They always are though.

Things quickly degraded from there. Neighbours turned on neighbours, students on teachers, the public on the authorities. It was a total societal collapse and it happened almost over night.

It’s been a few years now and we still don’t really have an answer. Some people have tried to validate their fears by claiming it was a microburst, a fierce freak storm. Others have said that it was visitors from another planet and that they either meant to destroy us, or worse still, they meant for us to destroy ourselves.

There are as many theories as there are people it seems, but none of them saw what I did. I guess that puts me in a unique position of understanding, although I fail to understand exactly what it was that I saw.

I was walking downtown, on my way back from the bar where I had just polished off a few afternoon beers over a game of pool with a friend. The sun was shining brightly, although there were a few clouds swirling above. I happened to glance up an alley, and as I did, I paused. There was something different about the alley, something shimmery and…off. There was a man at the other end staring back at me with what I imagined to be the same expression on his face. He was just as surprised to see me, as I was to see him. Especially since we were dead ringers for each other.

He flicked his hand quickly and that’s when the shimmer slammed shut. And then the world exploded. I don’t know who he was, or where he was, but I am pretty sure he is the one that caused this. I felt guilty for a while, but I realized before too long that I was only feeling the guilt because the man had looked so much like me. Now I just feel driven. Driven to find a way into that place and track that man down.

The only thing that scares me about this is that I think he knows I’m coming.