Droubble: Doomed

Doomed

The vision lasted about forty seconds. We all saw it. The official explanations ranged from exotic space-time phenomena to ESP to signs from God. It didn’t really matter. After seeing the vision, we all knew it for what it was: A vision of the future – not only that, the immediate future.

A pleasant vision it was not. Nobody agreed whether it’d been nuclear war or plague or natural disaster or divine retribution, but we all saw the silent, ruined city. We all knew what it meant.

A few fled to the hills, stockpiled food and weapons. But we most resigned ourselves to fate and tried to make the most of our remaining time.

The first few days had an air of carnival. The power went out before long – nobody had reported for work at the plants – so we reveled by firelight. The stores were closed, but so were the police departments, so we took what we needed.

Day five, we started to wonder what the bomb or the meteor or whatever was waiting for. Out-of-control fires swept through much of the city. Food was scarce. Fights broke out.

On the eighth day, the ruins had gone silent.