Standalones

It’s hard to look back and pinpoint the exact moment that set the apocalypse into motion. People often think there’s one moment, one memory that you can focus on to blame the entire collapse of civilization on. In truth, it’s a series of random events that happen in quick succession to knock over the stack of cards. Take Chernobyl, for example.

In April of 1986 a safety test failure caused a catastrophic nuclear incident. Late at night a simulated station blackout power failure was performed, where the safety systems are intentionally shut off for testing. Uncontrolled reaction conditions occurred when reactor design flaws met with reactor operation failures, leading to water to flash into steam leading to a steam explosion and an open-air graphite fire. This created updrafts for nine days, which lofted plumes of fission products into the atmosphere.

To blame one particular part of the melt down is a mistake – it was a coordinate set of events, all within moments of each other which ultimately lead to a system failure and one of the largest nuclear power plant incidents in history. The final ramifications were not ultimately known, because within 100 years of this incident Earth as we know it was gone.

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In the distance the acid rain storm crackled and fizzled, sending electric sparks into the air. Tommy shuddered, wrapping his arms tighter around himself and pulling the thick hood further down over his head. If any of the overhead sentinels caught sight of them they’d be toast – royalty or not. It was forbidden to leave the safe zone, it was basically death to do so with an impending storm. Lily, of course, thought this was the perfect time to escape on one of her senseless missions for her older sister. “They won’t risk losing a sentinel in the storm, they’re too hard to make,” she reasoned. She wasn’t wrong, Tommy hadn’t seen a single one fly by in all the time they’d be outside the borders of the safe zone. He listened against the desert wind for the tell tale whine of the drone and heard nothing. Good, he thought, he didn’t need to explain to his parents what he was doing outside of the safe zone. They worried enough about him for hanging out with Lily and what that could mean for their family. They didn’t trust her – he didn’t blame them.

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“I’d literally rather die,” Antony said to his cousin Jerry, flopping down into a chair in the presidential suite. Jerry laughed. “I’m the melodramatic one, remember?” he responded, reaching into his pocket to pull out his comm device and send a quick message to one of his hundreds of conquests. He was always tapping away at the device, sending messages to one girl or another. “How’s Felicia?” Antony asked, more so to drag his cousin away from his comm screen than out of actual curiosity. The fact was Antony never liked any of Jerry’s girlfriends, he found them all boring. Beautiful, but dull.

“Who? Oh, Felicia. I don’t know, we don’t talk anymore,” he said, flipping the screen closed. He glanced up at Antony then, shrugging. “Back to the matter at hand, you’ll love Earth.”

“I doubt it. There’s a reason no one communicated with them for almost 200 years,” Anthony retorted. “Yeah, nuclear blackout,” Jerry said matter-of-factly. He hated inaccurate statements. “All I’m saying is I’ve heard they’re uncivilized. They still have a monarchy for star’s sake.”

“They also don’t have poverty, the underground scene is hella fun, and you can breathe real air! I’m telling you, Tony, you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve tried it. Gravity is a little shitty at first, but once you get used to it it’s not so bad. I’ll show you a good time, promise.”

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