Sometime in the night his fever broke. Rolling over and peering at the clock through his sticky eyes, he moaned. 5:00 a.m. The sheets were soaking wet, and every joint ached, but he had stopped sweating; surely a good sign. He had no idea how many days he had been laid up, alternately freezing cold or burning up. Feeling as if he had just run a marathon, exhausted and suddenly starving, he pushed himself to a sitting position. Lying beside his pillow was his phone with a smidgeon of life. Blinking a couple of times to try and focus he looked at the date, flabbergasted at what he saw. “Jesus,” he said out loud. “I’ve been battling this monster for days.” There was only static from the phone; not unusual in this area. Losing a signal happened regularly. He tossed the phone back on the bed, gingerly pushed off the covers and slowly got to his feet. He desperately needed a shower and some food. “Life goes on,” he thought to himself as he stood on his wobbly legs and slowly made his way to the bathroom. The water was tepid as usual, but he stood under the shower head until there wasn’t a drop of hot water left, found clean clothes and dressed, amazed at how his jeans hung on him. Exhaustion overtook him and he had to sit on the bed for a moment. What he wanted was just to go back to sleep but he needed to eat and call into work. He vaguely remembered telling them he was sick and would be out for a few days, but he hadn’t contacted them since. God knows what was going on at the bookstore with just those two knuckleheads in charge. They might be university students but between the two of them there weren’t enough brain cells to make them dependable. His shoes were by the door of his apartment and he slipped them on and locked the door behind him. Grasping on to the railing and going step by step he made it down the stairs and pushed open the front door. It was quiet on the street, but then it was still early. His head hurt and he had to force himself to put one foot in front of the other. All he could think about was a lot of good hot coffee and a cheese omelet. If he could just make it another block, he could finally sit down in a booth at Chick’s and get himself together. He felt like he’d been run over with a truck. The city was oddly quiet; no comings and goings of people and a couple of cars came speeding by him as he stepped onto the sidewalk. “What the hell’s the rush,” he muttered. “Idiots need to slow down.” The walk took everything out of him and he had to concentrate to just put one foot in front of the other. Every few feet he would stop, lean against a street pole and just breathe deeply. The thought of a pot of coffee and a plate of eggs kept him going like a carrot dangled before a race horse. Trudging on in his walking, rresting pattern, he saw the blinking “Open” sign of in Chick’s window, and the inside lights were on. It looked warm and welcoming but no one was going in or out and he couldn’t see much movement. At this point, all he wanted was to sit. He was in the middle of the intersection, crossing over to the diner when suddenly everything went dark.He stopped dead. No street lights, no “open” sign, not a single light anywhere around. It was dark as pitch, and somewhere in the distance he heard a metallic crash, most likely a couple of cars. Standing there and looking around it was not only dark but eerily quiet. Why didn’t people rush out to see what was going on? “What the hell?” he spoke out loud but there was no one around to hear him. It was dark as pitch. “Just a power outage,” he mumbled. It really was incredibly dark; not a traffic signal or a neon sign, just darkness with a faint hint of light from the crescent moon and the scattering of stars. Unsure of what to do, he did nothing. Then it came. Out of the inky night there was a monstrous screeching sound unlike anything he had ever heard before. He threw his hands over his ears but his brain brain felt like it was exploding. It went on and on and just as suddenly as it had started it stopped. The immense quiet, the deep black around him made the hairs stand up on the back of his head. Then came the voice; eery, robotic, mechanical, the timbre so deep the windows rattled in the buildings around him. “THREE MINUTES REMAINING.” What did that even mean? What the fuck was going on? He was beyond terrified. What had happened while he was so out of it? What had he missed? Exhaustion forgotten, charged with adrenaline, he turned around and began running, running, running. But where to go? What was he running from or where was he running to? Finally his body gave up and when he saw an alleyway he ducked down there. It was so damn dark, so quiet, so eerily quiet. There was a short staircase on the right side that looked like it led down to a basement room in an old brick building. Feeling his way down, he rattled at a locked door but there was no salvation there. Horrified and now hysterical, the tears came unbidden. His fevered brain kept beating the mantr - Three minutes. Three miniutes. Three minutes. How long had it been? How far had he run? He curled up in a ball in the tiny stairwell, moaning and crying. Lifting his head he let out a primal scream that echoed off the walls of the buildings. “HELP ME!” In that moment he heard an enormous roar, and the world lit up around him. The air was sucked out from around him and he was in a primordial void; no light, no air, no life. “MAMA!” He cried into the abyss with his final breath. It was over in seconds. He would never know what hit him, what happened, but it was over for him. It was over for everyone. It was over.