Writing Prompt

It‘s been ages since i saw another human being. I only pass the bots every day. The M3D-Bots usually help with overall health issues but currently they look like useless puppets. My favorites are the G4R-Gen1-Bots. They look like gnomes and do the gardening work. Without them no city would look this clean and neat anymore. It‘s been how long since the asteroid crashed into earth? Maybe like a year or two? I‘m really losing track of time. I do my usualy sneak into the next store. Sadly all fresh vegetables and fruits have rotted away and luckily the bots cleaned that up. I seem to be the last person on earth sooooo fuck paying. I just take whatever i need. Production is still going strong due to them being fully automated so what’s the problem? Sometimes i see myself going crazy, just like the sanity that i‘m losing from not socializing with anyone. I mean AI is great but it doesn’t get me. You know you can‘t argue with an AI the same way you could with your sister or your boyfriend. I lost both of them to the asteroid because they thought i‘d be enough to save the world or human-kind someday. Instead of shutting me so deep inside of earth that not even an asteroid could kill me, they should have found a way to stop the asteroid!! The professors and scientists all said that i‘m not the only “fresh gene pool“ they are trying to save within the bunkers. Apparently we got spread up to get a better chance of survival but seriously i‘m not gonna go outside of this city just to find another “fresh gene pool“ and to save humanity this way. I mean i wanna live but hey maybe we deserved this. I ain’t gonna save anyone! I‘m literally just 17? 18? I‘m not a hero but an ordinary girl. I find myself a bench- that is only half melted and not completely-to enjoy my daily canned breakfast. I spent my day in the sun. I still wonder how the stores and bots survived the crash. Maybe they got shut down underneath too? I‘ve been so deep in thoughts once again that it’s dawning already. Something’s up tho. The street lights should have turned on. They‘re still off. The store‘s neon signs are also not brightly flickering anymore. The store itself is dark. Wait, did the power turn off? Oh shit then production is down, the mutants can break out and even worse the water won’t be drinkable anymore. “Fuuckkk!!!!“ i yell as i kick the empty breakfast canister. What should i do? I start to hyperventilate.

“It’s dark.”

That’s the only thing I could say. The silence around me almost even more deafening than the noise that was there before. My hoverboard, and crystal that powers it lay lifelessly by my side on the floor. My wrist and side hurting from the 100 foot drop. I’m on the floor but I don’t I have the strength to get up. The only way I survived was the special drop and roll that I’ve practiced at the training grounds.

See the year is 3045 and my name is Ezra. I’ve been going to a training camp to become a National Guard, the people that fight and defend my city. But I’ve never trained for when the world goes dark. No gadget worked. All lights turned off. Even my hover board that I control the electrical system inside has powered off.

“It’s dark.” I repeat again.

A girl runs over to me from what appears to be out of nowhere carrying a black bookbag. She kneels and says something. Her lips are moving but the sound is muffled. Maybe I hit my head on the way down as well.

“Are you alright?” I finally hear her say.

“What? Yeah. I’m fine.” I say while trying to get up.

The girl stops me, “Stop. I saw you hit your head. You shouldn’t get up to fast.”

I scoff and run my hands through my hair, “I’m fine.”

We argue for awhile before my patience snaps and I slowly start to get up. Sure the world spins in an unhealthy shade of yellow but at least I’m up.

I look around and see other people on the floor, hoverboards snapped in half. Air trains broken and on fire. I look up to the dome surrounding our city and almost collapse again. The sky Dome’s protection shield is slowly disintegrating. Like when you put water on top of sugar.

I look at the girl in disbelief. She has long dark hair pulled back into a tight low bun. She’s wearing black clothes with a weird symbol on the breast pocket.

“I didn’t catch your name.” I say suspiciously.

I single tear trickles down her cheek before she shakes her head and wipes it, “I’m sorry.”

Before I have time to react she pulls out a taser from a hidden pocket and presses it to my injured side. Pain rips through me and consumes my body. I’ve never felt something like this before. In the training grounds we’ve been trained to resist tasers and other electrical shocks, but this…this is something much worse. I may have screamed. I don’t remember. Next thing I know I’m on the ground again and she has my hands and feet tied with a glowing red wire. My mouth gagged with the same thing. Her hands are shaking so bad it makes me think she’s never fought anyone before. Not that this was much of a fight.

She grabs a phone from her jean pocket and presses it to her ear, “General. I’ve found our target. He’s weak and wounded so it wasn’t much of a fight.”

Her voice quivered on the last word. And that’s when I realize what’s happening. An attack. An attack on my city. Someone looking for me. But I have no idea why that would be. I’m not some person from story books that have some unknown power. I’m a soldier preparing for the National Guard.

The girl nods and takes something out of her bookbag. An object that looks like something people used to use to measure their temperature. She’s nodding at whatever the person on other side is saying and then presses the tip of the object to my forehead.

She looks at me with guilt. Like she really didn’t want to do this. But I have no remorse. No pity. She’s part of the attack of my people. My city. And I’m here before her tied up and wounded.

She presses a button on the gadgets and a coolness floods through my mind seconds before the world goes dark once more.

I don’t think we realized how important technology was to our world until it’s gone. All our entertainment came from it. Our information. Our communication. Our light. When it all disappeared and darkness consumed us, so did panic. People ran to the only source of light left, the sun. And for a few hours, all was still. But then that left us, and the brief anxiety from earlier exploded into something worst. We scrambled over each other to find anything to save us from the darkness. Food. Blankets. Anything. We didn't care who fell to the ground and were trampled. We didn't care about the families we tore apart in the chaos. We didn't care. The monsters who had to hide from the light now emerged. Murders, thieves, and worse came out of their hiding holes. They walked among us and committed their heinous crimes right in front of us. But we were only concerned with ourselves. The sun rose and that tenuous peace returned. And everyone prayed that it would stay. That the comforts we had become so used to would return. That everything would become normal. It wasn’t. And it wouldn’t be for days. Weeks. Months. The government had no way to tell us everything would be okay. The police tried to maintain order, but the sheer numbers overwhelmed them. The laws that made up our world fell apart. Giant fights for resources broke out every hour. Power-hungry narcissists gained power over small communities. Thousands died right in the streets. And no one did anything. When the power returned, the normal that was expected didn't. The world had been broken beyond repair. Nothing would ever be the same.

It was sudden.

It was like someone had clicked their fingers.

Like someone had flicked a single switch - a switch that controlled every single angle in time.

At first, I was unaware. I had considered the blinks of the bulb to be a coincidence. I was the only one who believed that the desolate outside was bleak because of a simple power cut.

Oh, how I was so wrong.

                                                                                ***

Once I had come round, I realised that what I was seeing before my very eyes was real.

All my restless eyeballs could make out was a faded dot - a light - in the distance.

It was the last piece of hope left in the world.

I saw it - it was strong and bold. It didn’t look like it would fail.

I saw it - it glimmered before flashing.

I saw it - it blinked.

I saw it - the light was becoming dimmer and the more I stared at it, the more it seemed to fade away into the inky blackness.

And there, I saw it.

The only piece of hope left.

It had gone.

Only fools turn to violence so quick. . .

It was an important night in downtown ‘Generic Metropolis’ when all hell broke loose… quite literally, since I am recalling this. There was a major sports match, and at the same time the great pop star ‘Vanity’ was putting on a sold out show next door. Across town there was a policeman’s ball AND a local radio promotion bar crawl. As if that was not enough draw, a major political convention was due to start the very next day. People were swarming into the city in droves.

It was the perfect storm. . .

The power had gone out at 9:15PM. It was right in the apex of excitement and intoxication amongst the spread out general population. It was not just the regular grid. . . It was an EMP. Of course, the fools that night had no forethought to determine that. All they knew is that all the lights went out… and then the back up generators failed. And the battery powered flashlights didn’t work… and for the kids… there was no cellphone service. The internet had disappeared. There was simply no connection to any outside source, and even worse to everyone… there was no explanation or timeframe of repair.

The fires started before the rioting did. Thousands of drunk city goers poured into the streets, and with a lack of light… folks began to light anything that would burn on fire. The fires got out of control… a common theme were makeshift torches out of branches and shirts.

Soon after the fires began, the looting also took hold. Windows were smashed, folks crawled through like ants marching along with the colony to pick upon a discarded apple peel. They grabbed and stuffed and sprinted away into the dark. Some coming back two or three times. This began fires in buildings, not by purpose but by the clumsiness of the looters.

The riots began later. When the folks leaving the events came to the realization that their cars wouldn’t function, they turned back upon the city in anger. One argument and shoving contest soon broke out like a rapid spreading virus. Before anyone even realized what was happening, there were two major opposing sides pushing upon each-other with no more better cause than “East vs West”.

Generic Metropolis had never seen such destruction and devastation that night. When the sun had finally arose, and the dust settled, there was nearly a billion dollars in property damage collectively. Fifteen hundred people had been killed in various ways throughout the night. The press suggested that the city would never recover.

What had caused the event? A secret military operation gone wrong. A nearby arsenal was moving an unknown device to a new storage location. The truck had hit a pothole, it jostled the device and set of the largest EMP the world had ever seen. Since the truth simply could not be covered up… The event eventually triggered a new era of war.

What started as a simple switch of the lights, led to the decline of man. Funny how our entire existence can hinge on such basic desires.

Creeping. Cold. Cutthroat.

Desolate. Darkness. Danger.

Alone. Afraid. Alert.

I had just returned home. From where, I have no clue. When all of a sudden a massive bang. An explosion that plunged the world into darkness. The sort of event that was like an end of the world simulation. On the dying radio waves came a message: ‘Stay at home!’

Short. Serious. Simple.

So here I am, laying on my settee. Eyes fixed on the sulking light. A single bare bulb encased in a polka-dot lamp shade; lifeless. Shivering slightly in my damp hoodie, which confused me because it hadn’t been raining. Not a drop of rain for days now. Lightly running my fingertips of the wettest area I started to panic.

The substance was thicker, tackier, than water. Cautiously, raising my hand to my nose, I sniffed. Greeted by a faint coppery tang of old coins. It was blood.

How had blood gotten onto my clothes? Was I injured?

Rolling over to stand I heard a dull thud. Thud? I must be delusional, the perpetual gloom playing tricks on my senses. Stumbling, tripping, blind I managed to relocate my bag. Rummaging inside the clutter I tug out my phone. Dead.

Groaning I start searching for the emergency torch. I mean it would have been sensible to leave it my the front door or in a kitchen draw. Oh no not me, I apparently keep it behind the maps in the dinning room cabinet. Click. Luminous. Light.

The thin stringy beam of ancient yellow light, I welcomed with open arms. Awkwardly, I position my arm to illuminate the strange sticky patch on my dark hoodie. A patch. A splatter. An uneven shape. The colour of burgundy rust. That was definitely drying blood.

My hands also appeared to be tainted. Gently placing the cylindrical object on the mahogany table. Dipping my hands into the trembling golden stream…

Once I had finished screaming at the sight of the crimson and ruby tan. I chuckled as the phrase ‘caught red handed’ sprung to mind. At least no one would see the startling evidence in this global blackout.

Whispering in my ear. Tugging at my gut. What was the thud?

There on the chic navy rug, a knife. One that resembled one I had in the kitchen. Creeping forward I examined the offensive item. There was no denying it. That was my knife. Garnet lacquer covered the once shiny slate blade.

Frozen I searched my memory. Except there was no recollection of having wielded my kitchen knife in anger.

Feet shuffled. Finger snapped. Lips pursed.

Fragments of broken memories. Swirling like lost snow flake on a teasing breeze. Drifting to the uneven ground. Gradually building up; filling in the gaps.

Realisation struck me roughly to the floor.

Stalking through the fading light, your eyes squinted. Slits of deep brown. Hiding in plain sight, blazing sunlight beating down on your back. You were on the hunt.

After several hours of searching you found your prey. Sharp ears detecting the obnoxious shrieking grating voice. Stalking them at a safe distance, instilling the unsettle fear.

Flicking your tongue out, you moistened your lips. You could taste the sweetness already. Touching the pocket of your jumper you felt the distinct outline of your weapon of choice. Twisting. Turning. Ducking. Dodging. It appeared your quarry was growing weary. Head down. Slender hands on hips. Erratic rise and fall of ribs.

Small puffs of air exploded into the cooling atmosphere. They were out of shape despite their belying willowy frame. Unfair fight, perhaps. In nature there’s always a weaker individual. There’s no place for weaklings.

In a swift explosive leap you drove home your claw. Latched onto their shoulder, giant paws easily engulfing their delicate features. Yanking your blade free, you heard it hum through the air. Slicing hamstrings with liquid movement. A muffed howl as they crumpled to biting concrete.

Liquid rubies began to flow from clean seams. A graceful swing. Tiny droplets leapt up soaking you in shame. Choking, rattle breath escaped their destroyed trachea. Death came swiftly; mercifully.

My knees gave way, as I returned to the moment. Had I really killed a person? All the evidence would suggest so. Just then fizz and pop. Order restored as the electricity jolted back to life.

Hilstone General

She wouldn’t have noticed the popping in her ears but just then the lights… died. They didn’t flicker, they didn’t hum, they just turned theirselves off. One minute she was trying to find out about a John Doe they had in the operating room, fresh from a car wreck, and then her computer went black. The nurse next to her hung up her phone and tried picking it up again. “That’s so weird… Linda, there’s not even a dial tone.”

“The back up generator should have kicked in by now…” Shouting, screaming, yelling…

The nurses and doctors all leapt into action. This was a large hospital and so many CO-VID cases were on ventilators. The patients on life support… Staff found theirselves panicking, forgetting any trace of training and common sense. Certain doors, guarded by electric locks, wouldn’t open, trapping doctors inside, unable to help anyone, simply viewing from the pane of wired glass, the chaos taking place in the halls.

There were codes and calls for anything battery operated. Maintenance shoved their way through the sterile halls, knowing they had to get the back up generators going, otherwise a lot of people were going to die.

As the Linda stood numbly, at the events unfolding in front of her eyes, she thought… a lot of people were already dying.

I-45, Hilstone, Exit 12

“YOU’RE LISTENING TO WLSX, HILSTONE’S TOP HITS!” One of those irritating pop songs started blaring from the radio but Jeremy found that he just couldn’t help himself from singing along quietly. His fiancé was waiting for him, their rehearsal dinner halfway across town. His hands were sweaty against the soft leather of the wheel as he curved to take his exit.

“–we weren’t perfect but I’ve never felt this waaayyy for no one! And I just can’t imagine how you could be so okaaayyy nooowww–!“ Then he was left singing to himself as the song quit. The song wasn’t the only thing. The street lights left him, as did any control over his vehicle. It suddenly turned off, gravity and momentum pulling it down the hill.

The road curved… the car did not. His electric brakes no longer worked, turning the wheel only served to send the car swerving. It soared into the corpse of trees, the front fender wrapped around the trunk of a pine, it’s unbuckled occupant sent flying through the trees… it would be days before they found him.

Hilstone, Old Town District

Amber’s phone turned itself off. With an irritated sigh, she got up and looked for her phone charger. ‘FLICK!’ When the lights go her room didn’t come on the first time, her solution was of course, turn it off and on again. It always worked for the TV. ‘FLICK! FLICK!” Nothing… she knew the phone charger was at her bed and she could easily navigate the dark room without the lights. She yanked it out of the wall and brought it to the living room.

As she plugged it up, some corner of her mind waited for that chime from her phone, to signal it was charging. It never came. She left the wall socket and just then something pulled her attention out the window. It was dark. Darker than she thought it would be. It was night coming, yes, the world held in that eerie grey light, but the window should have been lit from the street lamp that always shined to brightly into their apartment. The lamp was not on… neither was the one beside it. The hum of the ancient refrigerator didn’t fill the void of silence. Instead yelling filled the black space of the apartment.

Amber hesitated to unlock the door but… she knew everyone in this apartment building, they wouldn’t hurt her… right? So she eased the door open with caution and at the end of the hall, elevator doors open just a crack, but frozen between landings. Someone was stuck in the elevator! More people were leaving out of their apartments to see the distress of the trapped woman.

“Mrs.Hannaday!” Amber bit her lip and was crouched at the stuck doors. Mrs.Hannaday’s face was red, pupils small, like a frightened goat,obviously panicked at being trapped in an elevator, in the dark. “Does anyone have a flashlight?” She yelled above the murmuring tenets. Just then someone else came running forward. A boy about her age, Derek.

“MOM!” Amber was beginning to realize just how much she wanted her mom…

He had been chosen to turn the two switches, one off—-one on. The oldest in that sector, old enough to have known the stink of fossil fuels and the poisonous remains of fuel rods. Most couldn’t even remember those things, only the sun and wind and hydrogen push. The Push, that’s what they called those sources for electricity. The Push would be turned off for something completely new.

His fingers trembled, he wished he could say a prayer to a greater power, but what they had learned in those two centuries after The War That Had Ended all Wars—-and almost all of them—-they were on their own. Knowing there was no hope from above, at least not from any divinities, they turned back to the softer sciences of splitting cells instead of splitting atoms. They had turned back from striving to the stars and lying back to only look at their beauty. The Earth was their home, the Earth was their gem, they had learned to bring back the life that had and again adorned her. Their home once again a breathing biosphere.

He had watched it all. The turning away from earth raped metals, heavy and rare. Now what they used was biological and clean. As soon as their technology turned from the scrap heap of polluting wires and sheet metals to wood with organic chips pushing the bytes to the gazillion, somehow their hearts, their minds purified themselves. Wars and conflicts, capitalistic competition, and even the fights on the playgrounds ended. It was hard for him to believe, he who had been turned into something different in those times. In The Turn, now, would they lose something that was needed for what was left of those fish who crawled out of the sea, climbed up the trees and then jumped down onto the ground to turn the planet into a place of their own making? Their needs had changed, they had become smart monkeys. Smart monkeys with tools and then weapons and now something deeper.

The telepathic cameras lodged naturally in the heads of those who were born to be reporters began to take pictures of him and pass them to the minds ready to receive them. He smiled and did what he should. He explained it was The Turn, a turn for the best, the greatest turn ever for all humanity. Each sector had chosen an Elder, so that when the sun went down, the switches would be turned for the dawn of a new era. He had the honor, he had been told the Luxaeterna Bacteria had already had their global spread. Everyone had received their new devices which would automatically connect. Transportation, computation, and even humble cooking would all be done without a plug, without ever needing to be turned off and on again.

Again, a hard swallow in his throat pushing down his panic. This was it, this was the last turn for them on planet Earth. The sun was gone, the night was black but the lights of the city and zooming cars still glistened. He took that symbolic switch and pulled it down. It was the darkest night he had known. The sector stopped humming and the cars in the air hiccuped for just a second. Then he pulled the other switch up.

The Turn.

And there it was an unending bioluminescence filled the night. The cars went on their way, the city exploded in light, and each person found that they glowed with pastel colors of different shades. They hadn’t known that Luxaeterna Bacteria would react differently to each citizen’s skins. He glistened light blue, his favorite color. They all were so beautiful, monkeys who shimmered now in an angelic incandescence, only without wings. The stars, in their hydrogenic and heliumic fire, looked down burning with jealousy.

Imagine all of us, the whole fucking world, flipping switches, fumbling for flash lights, lighting candles, cussing as we open fuse boxes, ask neighbors if there’s a another black out or Nuclear meltdown. The longer the lights are gone the angrier some are at PGE. “Bastards,” screams old ladies and rednecks. Wives demand to know what their husbands did with the money for the utility bill this time, workers languish in a dark limbo and for some generators kick on making them feel smug about the investment as the solar panels do little more than flicker. There is only so long the cell phones can stay charged and now no one can send information out about why electricity has forsaken them all. “Thank god for propane,” someone says. “And battered for flash lights.” . Horders are gratified. “See I told you those broken emergency candies and kerosine lanterns would save the day,” Grammarians will gleefully ask, “No where’s your spell check? “ Bibliophiles will mock tech freaks. “The cloud is beyond reach. But my copy of Ham on Rye is right here, with my book lights.”

After a week or two, we come to terms with it. We go on with our lives. We have a huge feast to avoid wasting food, we have a lot of bar b ques and give up on distance learning. We listen to records, use solar charges that take a day to get a full battery but there’s no texting or calling . No internet, no face book, to snap chat nothing. We can listen to music we keep and books we’ve downloaded. We can pay candy crush, photoshop, read kindle books. We can’t shop, look up trivia or find love anymore. We all go through various withdrawals. We become feral in our ways, retreating at sundown because we fear darkness. We cannot reach our friend in Spain. Our psycho ex can no longer stalk us. The banks have no idea who’s money is who’s. Money is piss. Squatter find homes and bankers discover leisure. For a long time everyone just languishes. Cleaning guns, gathering and hunting food. Looting. Reading. Fucking. Swimming, sight seeing, coloring, flying kites in a plot to capture lightening again.

There was a loud, piercing and Earth-shattering boom that echoed furiously around me. Suddenly the lights went out. The TV was silenced. My initial thoughts was that there was a power outage in the neighbourhood. I reached my pocket for my smart phone. I taps the screen but it didn’t respond. I tried resetting it through the side but it didn’t show any signs of life. I mentally painted the layout of my living room as I started shuffling my feet and avoiding pieces of furniture that would trip me over in the darkness. I got to the hallway and into the kitchen, careful not to hit my hips against the table. My hands explored the surfaces like snakes in the darkness, the touch recognising familiar shapes and handles. I found the draw with the lighter. I pulled it open and scattered my fingers across its contents to find that small rectangular shape. I found it and took it out. Spark. A small flame illuminated the kitchen poorly. At least I wasn’t blind I randomly thought. Another idea, i searched another draw and found the really expensive candle that I got for Christmas many years ago. Who knew that I would need it now. I lit it and the flame jumped alive. At least I wouldn’t have to keep my finger on the gas.

I looked outside and I could see in the faint starlight others suffering too.