The End Of The World

The other astronauts got out of their seats, eager to watch the asteroid as broke through the Earth's atmosphere and slammed into the surface. They were very disappointed to see Morgan had closed the windows again.

"If you thought the flash that those nukes made was bad," he told them, "This one is going to be ten times worse."

"He's right." Rogers said as he closed the blinds to his windows as well. Before he did, he took one last glance at the earth for a second then slammed the blinder down.

Morgan and the rest of the crew waited and then there was a flash. They knew it had happened because despite being closed, the flash seemed to still brighten the window panels anyway. Morgan could only imagine how bright it would have been to look at or even how bright it looked back at lunar one. Morgan waited almost thirty seconds and when the flash seemed to start to die down he opened the shade to take a look. When the others realized it was safe, they all opened their windows to witness the rest of the event with their own eyes. The large rock caused an explosion the planet hadn't experienced in over a hundred million years. Thousands of tones of earth were flying so high that a lot of it was leaving the atmosphere.

"I hope the station made enough distance to be clear of all that debris." Elizabeth said as she looked out.

"We'll try to contact him from Lunar One." Morgan said, "It might take a few days to establish communications. I'm pretty confident Lunar One will try for at least a few weeks."

"I'll do you one better." Rogers called out from his seat. "When the debris clears, I'm going to refuel and come back to look for him."

"Thank you." Elizabeth said as she was clearly concerned for her friend.

"It was a land hit." One of the other scientists called out.

"Are you sure about that, Phil?" Elizabeth asked him.

"I'm pretty sure." Phil said as he gestured. "Impact zone looks to be north of the Indian Ocean because there's Australia. This bugger hit land all right."

"Right in the middle of Asia," Morgan said as he agreed with Phil's projection. "China and India were obliterated in a matter of seconds. That's over three billion people on impact."

"That planet is mostly water." Rogers replied. "What are the odds that this thing would hit land?"

"The odds were against it." Phil called back "This dart just hit triple twenty on the board."

"Had it hit water, humanity might have had a chance." Morgan replied as he kept watching. "A land hit is going to wipe out all life. It's the worst case scenario."

"It certainly is." Elizabeth concurred.

"This is going to be hard to recover from." Another astronaut from the space station said as they all kept watching.

"Even if we do." Phil started, "Our species will never be the same again. There are no natives from the Americas on any of our stations, no people originating from Africa or the Middle East. Whole peoples have just vanished from existence."

"It's hard to think about." Morgan said as he turned away from the window. "We all know someone down there and we'll never see that person again for as long as we live."

"Our culture is down there as well." Elizabeth said as she turned to Morgan. "Our art galleries, museums, our history... all wiped out."

"Some of it will carry on." Rogers called from his seat in the cockpit. "Whole archives of books, literature and even art were transferred to Lunar One just in case something this bad occurred. If we don't make it the reason won't be because we didn't try."

Morgan could hear something in Captain Rogers' voice that concerned him. He walked back to the cockpit and sat back down in his chair. "Jack, are you all right?"

"No, you dumbass." Rogers replied, as he wiped a tear from his cheek. "I'm not okay. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the population was just wiped off the face of the planet. The universe just hit the reset button and there wasn't a fucking thing any of us could do about it!"

"You're right." Morgan confirmed, "There's nothing we could have done to stop it. But is that really why you're upset?"

"No," Rogers said as he looked angry enough to punch the dash. "Do you know how many kids were down there?"

Morgan thought about it for a moment. "Not really."

"I happened to read an article in magazine about it." Rogers said as he could barely hide his anger. "One point nine billion, and that's billion with a bee Morgan. Twenty seven percent of the Earth's population are under the age of fifteen. Most of them aren't old enough to have lived very long. They had the unfortunate luck of being born very close to the day the world ends. Many of them never got kiss their first girl or make the honor roll. They barely had a chance to live and now it's all over for them. They've been denied the chance to make something out of their lives and that's not fair."

"I know what you're saying, Jack." Morgan replied, "I have a niece that will never live to see tomorrow. I'll never speak to her again. I'll never speak to my brother or get a chance to hear his wife nag him for talking to me too long."

Jack laughed. "I'll never hear my ex nag me anymore either. I feel bad the last thing I ever said to her was mean."

"At least you got to say goodbye." Morgan said, "Even if it was in your own unique way."

"That I did," Jack said as he couldn't look back. The sight of the Earth and its new color was more than he could bear. Flames have slowly circled the entire planet, making the earth a bright burning red. The entire surface of the Earth was aflame, and slowly burning.

Morgan turned back to look at their passengers and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Morgan hopped out of his seat and floated back to the cabin and tried to comfort some of them. He reached over and placed a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Dumb question," Liz replied, looking back at Morgan. "Are you married, Dr. Taylor?"

"No." Morgan admitted, "Never found the right person I guess."

"I am." Liz said as she looked back at the burning planet. "I was until that happened. I'm now a widow."

"I'm very sorry." Morgan said as he looked out the same window. The earth looked like a red star.

Everyone he ever knew prior to leaving the planet was now dead. No one was going to survive that impact. Every major city from New York to Los Angeles were burning as humanity would go the way of the dinosaurs, wiped out by a single extinction level event.

"Is there any chance anyone down there is still alive?" Phil asked.

"There's always a chance." Morgan answered. "I have a hard time believing that not a single country prepared for just this event. There has to be some deep shelters made to handle this kind of impact."

"There's one underneath Washington." Phil replied. "The nuclear shelter underneath the white house should be all right."

"There are more." Rogers called from the cockpit. "I know of at least two or three that are capable of surviving this impact. Area 51 is one of them. That bunker is a mile deep as well and well stocked."

"How do you know that?" Morgan called back.

"I've been there." Rogers answered, "All astronauts are debriefed from there after visiting Lunar One for the first time."

"What the hell does that mean?" Liz asked, confused.

"Oh, you're in for a surprise." Morgan confirmed, "There's a lot about Lunar One that the public was kept in the dark about."

"Such as?" Liz asked, curious to know more. The statement Morgan made had also gotten the attention of the four other passengers.

"Settle down." Rogers ordered, "You'll all get a chance to see for yourself. Just be happy it's there. Right now that facility is the only thing that's going to keep us all alive."

"He's right." Morgan said as he turned away from the window. "Right now international treaties are pretty useless. What we have to worry about is survival. Our species is on the verge of becoming extinct. We need to work together if we are to survive and save ourselves from fading out."

"No pressure," Phil sarcastically shot back as he realized what kind of situation they were in. "We're going to spend the rest of our lives in a small tin box on the moon, packed in our barracks like sardines."

Morgan didn't respond and floated back to the front of the ship. "Have we been able to contact the station?"

"Not yet." Rogers answered. "They have no idea we have passengers on board. They might not get the warmest of welcomes if I don't break the news to them before we land. What kind of group do we have here?"

"From what I can gather," Morgan said as he looked back. "We have a lady from Canada, a man and woman from the United Kingdom, Phil is from Japan, that guy's from Israel and then there's Demetri."

"Wait, we have a Demetri on board?" Rogers asked.

"Wanna ponder a guess where he's from?" Morgan asked.

"Oh, that's going to be awkward." Rogers said as he looked back. "I have a feeling our Soviet friend will have the brig all to himself."

"Don't be so negative." Morgan replied, "We're all in the same boat. I hope they'll realize those borders don't exist anymore. We are one group now; the human race just trying to survive."

"I get it." Rogers said, "Just don't be surprised if there are not issues when we first get there. Old habits die hard."

"How long until we arrive to Lunar One?" Morgan asked, wondering how much time they had to worry about it.

"I'm doing a slow burn to conserve fuel this time." Rogers replied, "It will take a day or two to get to the moon. Hopefully we'll re-establish communications and they can get ready to receive guests."

"It will be alright," Morgan said as he tried to remain positive. "I can't see them getting too upset about what we've done. It's not like they can call home and rat us out, right?"

"I guess not." Rogers said as he took a deep breath. "It's going to take a while to realize things have changed."

"We'll adjust." Morgan said, "It will just take time. Something I hope we have an abundance of on Lunar One."

"We'll be fine there." Rogers replied, "I hope."