HalfWorlder #Wattys2017

Chapter 11-"The end is coming!"

The ground shook for what seemed like forever. After it was over, I got a pretty severe scolding from mom and Morty before Alexandra and Neter convinced them it wasn't me. Good thing too, because after we watched CNN on Neter's interface panel to see what was really happening, we realized even I couldn't do that much damage. There were quakes all over the place: California (of course), Utah and even northern Georgia in the southern United States.

But it was worse than that.

It was planet wide.

Mexico City got hit by at 7.1, while Honshu, Japan and Northern Chile all reported activity around 6.2's on the Richter scale. Not to mention the quakes in the North Indian Ocean, Spain, Canada, Indonesia, the Tonga Islands and portions of the MidAtlantic Ridge.

It was that bad.

I don't think Alexandra and I even heard our parent's ship come rushing down the tunnel, or felt the wind off their other-worldly speed as they hurried off the elevator to grab us and hold us, so thankful we were safe, then yell at us for causing the quake. We were sitting there almost catatonic-like on Neter's bridge when they dashed in, trying to cope with what we learned and what had happened. Trying to work all the disparate puzzle pieces into something solvable.

Neter interrupted the brief reunion. "You should see this," she said simply and her interface panels lit up with news feeds from across the world, the reporters and anchors speaking in a jumbled mix of languages and with varying levels of worry.

Morty's phone buzzed in his pocket by now repeatedly, but he ignored it. "That one." He pointed at CNN. The other feeds switched off.

The pretty anchor went on speaking. "Seismic activity occurs every day on the planet, but never concurrently worldwide. So, experts are trying to understand how all this activity occurred at the exact same time, to the second, across the planet's hot spots. Jim?"

"Let's not panic." The expert sat up more straight. "Statistically speaking, the probability exists for concurrent seismic activity."

Another expert, rather frumpy in a gray wrinkled suit, interrupted. He was sweating. "You've got a rosy picture of the world, now don't you, Jim? Always did. Listen, I don't know how to say this, but I'll be blunt." He looked directly at the camera. "You should all kiss your mothers and take the day off to do something special." The camera hastily cut away from the emotional guest.

Wow.

The anchor gathered worry lines as the story progressed. She cut to a reporter on the streets of San Francisco. People were standing on the corners with signs shouting, "The end is coming!" This scene was repeated in several more cities in the States and across the world.

Another reporter showed a mob of people at an Arkansas Walmart hoarding supplies for the "coming apocalypse." Yet another showed the beginnings of a new island off devastated Tonga. It seemed a little overkill to me to be going nuts over a few earthquakes, but then again, I knew the end of the world was coming, so I had to give them some credit.

Try explaining that to your parents.

"That's enough, Neter," Morty rubbed at his mouth.

"Morty." Mom's face was pale. "The last time this kind of planet-wide seismic activity was recorded predated the Ta-hil Era, didn't it?" Her eyes drifted far away through time. "It was called Ratajagaha, I think. I learned about it when I was a little girl." She wouldn't even look up at him until she finished her sentence, but when she did, I knew why. There was terror there.

"What was called Ratajagaha?" I tried out the strange word using the same inflection she had.

"A planet." She spoke quietly. "It doesn't exist anymore."