The first sign that the world was ending?
The Wi-Fi went out.
Ava Zhang was halfway through a
mindless scroll
on her phone when the screen froze.
No signal. No data. No connection.
She groaned, stuffing the device into her hoodie pocket and
glancing toward the front of the lecture hall
. The professor was still droning on about
economics
, completely unaware that Ava's attention span had checked out
fifteen minutes ago
.
Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something.
Maybe it was time to start paying attention.
Or maybe—
The
floor buckled beneath her.
For a brief, hopeful second, Ava thought,
Great. Maybe they'll cancel class.
Then the walls
shook violently
, the projector
ripped from the ceiling
, and students
screamed
as their desks slid across the room.
So... probably not just a minor earthquake.
The
crackling emergency sirens outside
confirmed it.
The universe wasn't
sending a message
.
It was
sending a warning.
And from the way the
entire city outside the window was collapsing
, Ava was starting to think
it might be serious
.
If there was ever a time to run, this was it.
Ava
vaulted over chairs and desks
, dodging students who were either
frozen in shock or actively panicking
.
"Everyone stay calm!" the professor shouted, immediately contradicting himself by
diving under the desk like a coward
.
Not wasting another second, Ava
bolted through the exit
, her sneakers skidding against the trembling floor as she sprinted
down the hallway and out into the open.
The campus was
a war zone
.
Buildings
cracked apart
, cars were either
on fire or flipped upside down
, and the streets had
more holes than a conspiracy theory.
And the sky?
Yeah, the sky was
not supposed to be that color.
A deep, unnatural
red
bled across the horizon, streaked with
black smoke and flashes of green lightning
.
"Well," Ava muttered to herself, "that doesn't look good."
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Mom:
GET HOME. NOW.
The message had been sent
exactly one minute ago
.
Ava
turned on her heel
and ran.
The path home was easy. The usual fifteen-minute walk to her apartment turned into
a two-hour obstacle course of nightmares
.
She dodged
falling streetlights
, avoided
gaping sinkholes
, and only
nearly died three times
.
Which, all things considered, wasn't
too bad
for what was clearly turning into
a full-blown extinction event.
She saw people trying to
climb out of crushed vehicles
, others staring
blankly at the sky
like they were
waiting for it to fix itself.
The air
grew thick
with smoke and something
acrid
, burning her lungs with every breath.
By the time she reached her street, her legs felt like
rubber
, and her hands were
shaking from adrenaline overload
.
But her parents were
outside waiting for her
.
Standing in groups in the partking lot.
Her mother looked
relieved and furious
at the same time, and her father was
already pulling her toward the car.
"Get in!" he barked. "We're leaving!"
Ava
blinked
. "Where exactly are we going?"
"The government's shelter—"
"Wait, the government actually prepared for this? Since when?"
Her mother shot her a
look
that said
not the time
.
Fine. Whatever. Ava would
save the sarcasm for later.
She
jumped into the backseat
, slammed the door shut, and held on for dear life as her father
sped through the ruins of civilization.
The bunker was
three miles away
.
They made it
two and a half.
The last stretch of road was
almost safe
.
Almost.
But because
the universe clearly hated them
, the second they crossed onto the final bridge, the ground
gave out.
Ava felt the
drop before she understood what was happening
.
The road beneath them
collapsed inward
, cracking apart like
a brittle eggshell
.
Her mother screamed.
Her father hit the brakes—too late.
Ava had just enough time to realize,
Oh. That's a sinkhole.
Then everything
plunged downward.
She had the vague, blurry sensation of
falling—spinning—hitting something hard—
Then, nothing.
It was sometime later that Ava woke up to
pain and silence
.
The first thing she noticed was that her
entire body ached
. The second was that
it was way too dark
.
She was
half-buried in concrete and twisted metal
, dust clogging her throat.
It took
several agonizing minutes
to pull herself free, her arms shaking as she pushed debris off her chest and
forced herself upright.
Her parents—
The thought hit like a bullet.
Ava
whirled around
, scanning the destruction, but—
Nothing.
The car was
gone
. The road was
gone
.
And the sinkhole?
It had
sealed itself shut
like the earth had
decided to erase them entirely.
Ava stared at the place where her parents had been.
Her hands clenched into
white-knuckled fists
.
Her throat burned, but no sound came out.
She had no time to grieve. No time to think.
She had to
move.
The bunker was
half a mile away
.
Her legs
felt like they might give out
.
But she kept running anyway.
By the time she reached the bunker, she was
half-dead on her feet
.
The military was already there, standing
stiff and expressionless
, letting survivors
trickle in
one by one.
Ava barely registered it when a soldier grabbed her
by the arm
, asking her
some nonsense about shifters and systems.
She was
too tired to care
.
Someone pushed her forward, and the next thing she knew—
The bunker doors slammed shut behind her.
The outside world was
officially gone.
Her parents were
gone.
And she was
stuck underground with strangers and soldiers, waiting to see what fresh hell came next.
Ava exhaled slowly.
"Well," she muttered to herself, "this is gonna suck."
Looking at the hurt and worn out people moving pass her. It already did.