As a child, I suffered from anxiety and often got panic attacks whenever I was overstimulated,
So when the city's warning sirens blared and loud voices flooded every home with urgent orders to evacuate immediately…
I'm sure you can all guess what happened next,
Yeah, that's right,
I panicked.
Sometimes, I still get flashbacks when I stressfully zone out, and fragments of memories or bad dreams claw their way to the surface of my mind,
However, I was only ten at the time and I still can't remember all that happened...
The dark grey clouds that loomed over the city, mourned over its inevitable fate that day.
They divided to show cracks of red in the sky as tiny flaming rock particles rained down every few minutes.
The earth was still trembling from the aftershocks of the collision of the first few slabs of moon with its surface,
The real disaster hadn't begun yet.
Sirens blared in every city of the world as all the governments in the world urged people to take measures to protect themselves,
Preferably in the emergency underground bunkers their respective governments may or,
May not have provided.
Panic consumed the streets,
People were screaming out in fear as they rushed and pushed each other around,
About two thousand civilians had died that morning from stampedes in different areas of the city,
"Two hours till impact"
Time was running painfully fast, everyone became even more desperate than ever to leave this city and flee to somewhere far away and relatively safer,
The neighbors slammed their doors loudly as they screamed out for their crying children to get in the car,
Just a few blocks away, looters stormed shops and homes, gunshots echoing between the buildings.
It didn't make sense.
Everyone was going to die anyway,
Where did they think they could run?
Actually what I meant was, how far could one actually get?
And yet, the human nature persisted and prevailed.
Even at the end of the world, people found a way to cling onto greed and violence.
The boy shuddered at the sound of gunshots, cars crashing into eachother and people yelling out in fear and pain.
Roman scurried into his safe space,
The closet.
There, he shut his eyes, covered his ears and started to count in his head,
just like the nice doctor lady that his parents took him to see last Saturday told him to do when he felt very, very scared.
But it didn't work.
The momentary silence he had gained happily welcomed the pounding of his heart against his ribcage that echoed in his ears,
And, his mouth went dry, his throat constricted and his chest tightened, sending a sharp spike of pain into his head, which soon evolved into a continuous rhythm.
Like someone was sitting on his neck and playing the drum-set on his head.
The closet was no longer safe enough for him,
The walls were closing down on him as he vividly smelt the death and terror emanating from here, there and everywhere at once.
Then voices,
"Rome?"
His mother's voice, cracking with fear.
"ROMAN"
Footsteps thundering up the stairs,
"ROMAN" His father bellowed as his mother's voice wavered.
He could hear his parents screaming his name from the floor below,
"Roman, darling, please come out!" His mom yelled in a shaky voice,
Roman wanted to rush out of the closet, fall into her arms and sob like the little scared baby that he was,
But he couldn't,
He was frozen,
Stuck,
And rooted to the ground,
"Roman?!" This time it was his father's voice he heard as a door slammed,
They went from room to room in the vast mansion, searching and overturning things to find their son.
"Roman?!" His mother yelled out continuously in intervals of a few minutes,
The search continued and the yelling didn't stop,
The boy still couldn't move.
"I'm here, mommy, I'm here" was what he wanted to scream when he heard her cry out for him in vain,
But all that came out of his mouth was a miserable strangled splutter,
Finally the door to the room he was in was flung open,
He could hear his father's heavy footsteps and the light cautious ones of his mother,
Through the sliver of space the closet doors left, he could watch them throw off the covers and check under the tables,
He watched as his dad walked into the adjoining bathroom while his mother got on her knees and reached out to look under the rowdy bed,
"Roman? Roman!" They both called out as they tried their best to find their son.
The red haired woman walked to his drawers and rummaged through it,
Roman really tried his best,
He tried to force himself to scream out for help but he just couldn't make his body do it,
His heart clenched in his chest as his mother constantly sniffled, wiping away tears from her eyes with the back of her trembling hand,
She stayed as the countdown continued,
"55 minutes until collision"
"Roman!" His dad screamed, "what the hell" He whispered as he rushed out of the room to check out another, cursing beneath his breath.
"Steve, I don't think Roman's here" His mom choked out as she turned away from the drawers and walked towards the door,
"No... Mom, I'm here" He finally screamed out,
His parents didn't seem to hear and kept on talking,
Because had yelled out in his head and all that came out of his mouth was an inaudible sigh.
Big fat wet tears cascaded out of his eyes as his parents left the room,
He heard their muffled conversation downstairs.
Something about his electric bike being missing and the keys not being in the house.
They thought he had already left.
But they keys were in his pocket and his bike was at the mechanic's.
A car engine rumbled to life, and he heard it screech out of the driveway,
Roman sat there, trapped in his own body, as his parents drove away to look for him,
Or not.
The highway was a blur of motion.
Cars weaved recklessly between lanes, desperate to escape the city doomed for destruction as a distant explosion rocked the skyline, sending a plume of fire into the darkening sky.
Steve's knuckles turned white against the steering wheel as he sped along the expressway, his wife beside him mumbled incoherent prayers as she fiddled with the rosary around her neck, constantly glancing around with eyes as wide as a deer's in headlights,
Her husband swore and whispered profanities as he suddenly swerved,
narrowly missing a loose car who's owner seemed to have gone into a cardiac arrest,
He could barely hear the radio over his wife's frightened screams and the chaos outside.
Time was running out.
"Impact in 48 minutes. Seek immediate underground shelter. Evacuate if possible."
Beside him, Lily fumbled over the screen of her older fifth generation phone, as all holographic phones had been disabled by the government and every other holographic communication device was useless.
She was lucky to be able to have a working copy of the antique phone,
She clutched her phone to her ear, her breath ragged as she whispered;
"Come on, mama, come on, pick up"
"Thank God" She whispered as a beep echoed throughout the car, causing Steve to also let out a sigh of relief and visibly relax.
"Lil-lil? Everything alright? Have you crossed the border? Are you in a bunker yet?" The woman asked as she looked out of her cottage's window where she could see the black swirling storm encompassing the further city from the sunny country side,
"Mama, please tell me Roman's with you." Lilly choked out,
A brief silence simmered through the car.
Then, a confused voice crackled through the speakers.
"What?" Her tone was cold and detached as her lips turned down into a frown as she stepped back from the window, her hand tightening around her keys.
"Roman. His bike is gone, and his keys weren't at home. We thought he came to you." Her daughter whispered as she swallowed hard.
Steve's grip tightened on the wheel, the veins on his arm growing prominent as his jaw ticked.
Another pause; this one was uncomfortably long.
"Lily, what the hell are you talking about? Roman's not here!"
The blood drained from Lily's face and Steve's stomach twisted as his wife's trembling hand dropped the phone.
"Oh my God." Lily barely whispered. "Steve… we left him."
A sharp ringing filled Steve's ears. His fingers went numb on the wheel.
No. No, no, no, that wasn't possible. we searched. we looked everywhere.
Hadn't they?
Roman had anxiety.
He had panic attacks.
They knew he shut down when he was scared.
And still… still, they had convinced themselves he had run.
Still, they left him behind.
Lily let out a strangled sob as she whispered in a broken voice. "Turn the car around-"
"We can't," Steve choked out. "Lily, there's no time."
She turned to him, eyes blazing. "WE CAN'T JUST—"
"WE WON'T MAKE IT!" He shouted, his voice raw.
"Roman can't be sa—" His voice broke.
"The traffic's jammed. We have less than 50 minutes. Even if we turn around, even if we get through the city-"
They wouldn't reach him in time.
"What have we done…" Lily mumbled as she covered her mouth, shaking violently.
A sharp voice cut through the radio.
"I'm going to get him."
Both their heads snapped back to the phone, which was still on the call screen in Lily's lap.
"Mama," Lily's voice cracked as her heart dropped, "You—"
"I said I'm going to get my grandson," the older woman snapped as she grabbed her riding gear,
The visor flickered to life and data streamed across the screen as she secured it over her head,
"Mom, No!" Lily yelled,
The call ended.
"Stupid children, I always have to do everything myself" She grumbled as she strapped on a pair of armored gloves and swung one leg over her sleek turbo-bike,
If her idiot daughter and son-in-law couldn't save their own child, she damn well would.
With a flick of her wrist, the bike roared to life and the thrusters glowed bright blue.
She revved the engine once, then shot forward as fast as a comet blazing through the night,
Roman wasn't dying today.
Not on her watch.
By the time she got to the city, It was a catastrophe in flames.
Roman's grandmother maneuvered the turbo-bike through the chaos, her eyes scanning the collapsing skyline.
"Lora, engage air filter" The lady whispered as she got to the thick of the smoke choked air that turned the daylight an eerie shade of crimson.
"Activating air filter" The helmet responded as some mechanical parts moved around to upgrade the headwear.
Above her, the sky bled fire as molten shards of the Moon still rained down.
She easily dodged the big masses that fell and blocked her path while the tinier flaming rocks bounced off her titanium suit,
"That idiot girl," she thought bitterly.
"How could she leave him here?" She mumbled as she wove between abandoned cars, past panicked civilians who had long given up on organized evacuation and fallen dead, crushed under huge boulders.
"Five minutes till impact"
At this, she leaned forward and accelerated until she became a blur of blue.
When she reached the mansion, she hopped of the bike and ran straight into the building that was hardly holding up,
And when she got inside, she barely had time to process the sight of it; doors were flung open, rooms overturned and the security system blared uselessly.
Then she heard it.
A faint, miserable whimper from upstairs.
She moved.
Kicking open doors and pushing past fallen furniture whilst tracking the source of his cries through instinct alone.
And then,
The closet.
She yanked the doors open, revealing a small, curled-up boy, trembling in the darkness.
"Roman, you poor baby." She whispered as her hands trembled, He flinched and slowly opened his eyes,
They were red and his breath was uneven.
He was looking at her but didn't seem to see her as he was lost in his fear, with a blank mind.
She crouched, softening her tone. "Roman, sweetheart, it's Grandma."
There was no response from him.
The house trembled violently as a house near theirs was crushed,
"Three minutes till impact"
No more time.
She grabbed him and pulling him into her arms, securing him in a warm embrace.
"I've got you, baby. But we have to go." She whispered as she kissed his head of fluffy dark hair,
He barely reacted as she lifted him and carried him out of the room.
Using a shortcut, she was almost out of the city when it happened.
A deafening roar split the heavens and the air lit up, turning brighter than the sun as a sudden descent of heat licked up all the moisture from the atmosphere.
Then,
"Zero seconds till Impa-"
The shockwave hit the earth like the wrath of a god.
Buildings shattered.
The streets were ripped apart.
And the very air itself trembled and wheezed, as if the planet screamed in pain.
Roman's grandmother hopped off the bike with him in her hands, scrambling to drop him carefully on the floor as she turned, shielding him with her body as a massive chunk of debris hurtled toward them,
A piece of a skyscraper by the border, its steel frame twisted and burning as it fell.
She reached out her hands and braced herself for immediate death.
But she felt it
A sudden pulse of new life.
A rush of warmth spread through her body and a bright and impossible blue light flared from her fingertips.
And the world outside them went silent.
When she opened her eyes, she expected to wake in the land of the dead but they were encased in a glowing blue barrier.
The flames, the wind, the debris and everything outside was frozen mid-motion, as if time itself had stopped beyond the dome.
She stared at her hands. Her fingers still tingled with energy.
It had come from her.
She had done this.
How?
She didn't know either, and for a second, she almost didn't believe it.
But she wasn't going to stick around to find out.
She lifted Roman and ran.
The moment they cleared the edge, the shield shattered, and the wreckage of his former city collapsed behind them.
Whatever happened next was a dark blur,
But by the time her eyes fluttered open, the fires had died down and the world was unrecognizable.
Springville was gone.
Completely.
As she looked towards the horizon, she realized that not only was the city gone, but the border, the highway and the countryside, too.
Her home.
The place the government said would be safe.
Wait, the highway was gone!
And with it,
Roman's parents.
The realization hit her like a blow to the chest.
She staggered, clutching him closer as her mind struggled to accept it.
They were dead.
Her grandson was an orphan with nobody,
Except for her.
She exhaled shakily and pressed a trembling kiss to his temple.
She wouldn't fail him.
The world may have ended that day but Roman's story was just beginning.