I was too drunk to walk home, and I couldn’t find an empty room to hide in, so I ended up sitting by the edge of the lap pool, obscured by fake rocks and palm trees. The pool was far enough from the house that I wasn’t worried about being found, but still near enough that I could hear their laughter. I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape being Space Boy.
The moon was hardly a scratch in the sky, but underwater lights illuminated the tiled bottom of the pool. All the way down to the deep, deep end. It had to be eight or nine feet. I bet I’d sink. It would have been easy to roll over the side, fully clothed, and let the weight of denim and cotton drag me to the bottom while my last breaths escaped my lungs. The world was spinning around me, so maybe the alcohol in my blood would prevent my survival instinct from kicking in, and I could drown peacefully without all that unnecessary flailing and screaming.
It didn’t matter why the sluggers had chosen me, only that they had. Hell, why wait for the world to end at all?
Diego was wrong. Pressing the button wouldn’t give me choices. Only this. Only humiliation. Loneliness. Death was easier. I could lean forward and let my weight carry me into the water. Gravity would do the rest. Everything would end, and all I had to do was let it happen.
The moon grew brighter and multiplied the shadows. They encircled me, blotting out the light. I shook my head to clear the vertigo. I needed to piss, but I didn’t want to go back inside. I could always piss in the pool.
My breath caught in my throat, and the hairs on my ears rose. I tried to look around but couldn’t. I tried to call out, but no words escaped my lips. I was paralyzed.
Oh, I thought as the moon’s light blinded me, and the shadows grasped at me with green-brown fingers, I didn’t expect to see you here.
World War III
North Korea fires the first missile. After years of threats and insane posturing, it’s Fox’s early cancellation of Bunker that provokes North Korea’s supreme leader to action. He demands to view the finale, but is ignored. If Fox won’t resurrect Firefly, they’re certainly not going to bring back Bunker.
The North Korean missile detonates prematurely, but the aggressive act puts the world’s nations on high alert. The leaders of the European Union recommend diplomacy. China and Russia deploy their military forces to strategic positions throughout the world while suggesting that the US capitulate to North Korea’s demands.
Dennis Rodman travels to North Korea as an unofficial ambassador on a mission of peace but is taken into custody the moment he disembarks from the plane. A video of him being torn apart by a pack of starving house cats is the most popular video on YouTube for seven hours, before it is displaced by an elderly woman who inhales helium and sings Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Despite stern warnings from the United Nations Security Council, North Korea fires a second missile, striking Osaka, Japan. Thousands die. Japan and the United States declare war on North Korea. The joined forces of Russia and China advise that retaliatory attacks against North Korea will not be tolerated.
The United States Armed Forces invade North Korea on 29 January 2016 at 20:03 GMT. Russia responds by launching a nuclear missile at Universal Studios Florida, proclaiming that if they can’t visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, no one can. The United States obliterates Moscow and urges all patriotic Americans to boycott vodka.
China, taking advantage of the chaos, launches its full arsenal of nuclear weapons at key US targets, initiating a full-blown thermonuclear war that ultimately renders the planet a desolate wasteland incapable of supporting life.
The only survivors are the contestants of Bunker, forgotten by Fox producers after the show’s cancellation. Unaware of what has occurred on the surface, they eventually run out of food and draw lots to decide who they’re going to eat first.
14 September 2015
I woke up laughing. For a few disorienting seconds, I thought I was still on the spaceship. The sluggers had shown me a projection of the earth exploding again, along with the big, red button, but they hadn’t shocked or blissed me. They simply offered me the choice and waited to see what I would do. Maybe that’s why I was laughing. Averting the apocalypse shouldn’t be so easy. It should require elaborate schemes hidden from the public to keep them from panicking. It should demand sacrifice and tearful good-byes and Bruce Willis.
Obviously, I didn’t press it.
When I regained my senses and realized I wasn’t on the sluggers’ ship anymore, the laughter died in my throat. My back was damp, and something sharp dug into my hip. My hair, my boxers, and my chest were wet. I stank like stagnant canal water. When I sat up, I spit, in case some of the water had gotten into my mouth.