Chapter 76

The warning came through a loudspeaker, crackling over the city's deafening silence. Ten minutes.

Everyone had ten minutes to live. The message cut off with a sharp, mechanical beep, as if the speaker itself had given up. The sky was gray, the usual haze of clouds thickening into something unnatural. No storm. No thunder. Just a blanket of unbroken stillness that seemed to press against the earth.

The people, all across the world, stopped. They stared up at the dark sky, at the giant, impossible thing hanging there. A meteor, fifty times larger than the sun, was hurtling toward them. It wasn't a comet. It wasn't even a rock. It was a force of nature, a nightmare that didn't belong in any world.

Aaron stood in his apartment, the television screen frozen on the image of the meteor. His fingers twitched, and he glanced over at the clock. Nine minutes. He was alone. No one was there to scream, to beg, to beg for a way out. His mother, his brother, his friends—they were all gone. It was just him, sitting in a chair in the small, dark room. The city outside was quieter than it had ever been. Even the sirens, the panicked shouts, the car horns—everything had stopped.

They all knew. There was nowhere to run.

The window was open. A gust of wind rolled through the cracks, bringing with it the scent of wet pavement and rust. The sky had turned a pale, sickly color, and the meteor grew bigger by the second, a monstrous, jagged shape that seemed to eat up the horizon. It felt like it was coming toward him, toward everyone, no matter where they were.

Aaron stood and walked to the window. There was no point in staring at the clock anymore. Time didn't matter. It hadn't for years. It was just a ticking thing that everyone had ignored for far too long. Now, it had caught up with them.

The meteor was louder now. Not that it made a sound. It was as though the world itself was bending, groaning in anticipation of the destruction that was coming. The air grew colder, a numbing chill crawling over Aaron's skin. He felt it in his bones, the dread of something that could never be stopped.

Eight minutes. 

His heartbeat thudded in his chest. It felt like a joke, like the whole world was being played for fools. There wasn't any grand moment of heroism. No savior would come. Nothing could stop the inevitable. No matter how many times you tell yourself it's not real, that it's some mistake, you can't outrun it. You can't.

"Shit," Aaron muttered under his breath. His voice felt strange, harsh against the stillness.

Another gust of wind. He stepped away from the window, though it didn't make any difference. The meteor would find him, find everyone. It didn't matter where you were, how you hid, or how much you prayed. Ten minutes. That's all they had.

He thought of his family. His mother's face flashed in his mind—her quiet laugh, her kind eyes. His brother, always making dumb jokes that were never funny. They were both gone now. People who had mattered to him. The meteor hadn't taken them, but time, all this time spent waiting for things to change, had. And now, it would end all of them.

The floor creaked beneath his feet. The apartment felt smaller, tighter, like it was slowly closing in on him. It was just the air. He could feel it in his lungs now, thick and heavy, each breath harder than the last.

Six minutes.

The meteor was closer now. He could see it without even looking directly. He could feel it, as if it were in his chest. His heartbeat was off, and his breath kept catching in his throat. It was coming for him. It was coming for everyone. He looked around, his eyes flickering from the empty chair to the window. A chair he would never sit in again. A window he wouldn't open anymore.

His hands were trembling. The timer ticking away in his mind was louder than anything.

Five minutes.

It was all wrong. Nothing was supposed to end like this.

Aaron stumbled toward the door and yanked it open. He had no plan, no idea where to go, but it didn't matter. No matter how fast he ran, he would never get far enough. His feet slapped against the cold, wet pavement. The streets were silent. No cars. No people. The city was empty, the echoes of everyone's footsteps long gone.

He stopped and turned his eyes upward. The meteor had grown. It covered the sky now, the world beneath it nothing but a speck, a dot that would soon be erased. There was no sky anymore. No stars. Just the meteor, so close now that it felt like it could crush him with a single motion.

Four minutes.

Aaron's legs buckled beneath him. He hit the ground, hands scraping the pavement, his breath coming out in short, jagged bursts. The world was empty. The silence crushed him. It filled his chest, stifling every word, every thought. There was no escape.

But then, as he lay there, face to the cold, wet concrete, he heard something. It wasn't a sound. It was a feeling, a crackling, crawling sensation that surged through him. Like the earth itself was starting to break. He couldn't tell if it was the meteor or his own body, but it didn't matter.

Three minutes.

He thought of his mother again. Thought of her voice—soft, full of warmth and hope. He didn't feel that anymore. There was no warmth left in him. Just this cold, this emptiness that ate at him, gnawed at him from the inside. The world had already ended. The meteor was only the finishing blow.

Two minutes.

Aaron opened his mouth, trying to speak, trying to say something, anything. He couldn't. His lips trembled, his breath harsh. His chest tightened, then exploded into pain. He coughed once. Then twice.

One minute.

The meteor eclipsed the sky, darkness swallowing everything. It didn't even matter when it hit. Nothing would ever matter again. The world wasn't a world anymore.

Then, with an impossible noise, the meteor struck.

Everything disintegrated.