Storm

Chapter 10

Ray had eyes on the leaky roof, and he was wondering about Flat-Earthers. People from before the Storm that flooded internet forums with discussions on how we were all being duped and tricked and the government and all the major airlines were in on this huge conspiracy trying to convince us that the Earth was round, when really it had edges and a great wall called the Ice Wall in Antarctica.

He had spent hours -- in this past world with amenities like internet and worldwide electricity -- going through message boards and forums on the Flat Earth Theory, reading about it, watching videos, listening to podcasts... everything.

He didn't believe a word of it, naturally. But the people fascinated Ray. The individuals who dedicated their lives to shutting their eyes so hard they denied something as trivial as the Earth being round and managed to scrape and manufacture evidence from the most mundane of things like plane routes or pictures from mountain tops, like alchemist turning flat boring metals into gold. Everything was a new reason to doubt the system. There was nothing that couldn't be turned into more proof that we, the sheeple, were being deceived, and that they were right.

A loud thud rang over Ray's head outside. A dragging sound and then, a moment later, Ray raises his head to see a metal chair emerging from the edge of the alley's roof just outside. It banged against the sidewalk pavement, rolled down climbed a feet into the air again with the wind before disappearing from sight.

A muted flash of light bathed the street in white outside, followed by the roar of its thunder a second later.

Ray rested his head back on the floor and sighed. It'd require some Flat-Earther levels of denial to believe another Fall wasn't coming now.

"Bed's too bourgeois for you?"

Ray turned back. Dean's face followed his feet down the steep stairway, a slice of pizza in his hand.

"Thought you were sleeping," Ray said.

"Wyatt. Snore. Impossible."

Dean threw himself on a chair by Ray's side, eyes out the glass doors. "So, looks like this new Fall thing's for real, right?"

Ray pulled himself up to sitting position. "Looks like it."

"How long do you think we'll hold?"

"Us two?" Ray scoffed. "Like five minutes. I don't know how we managed to survive the first one, to tell you the truth."

"I mean the place," Dean said. "Our place."

Ray looked around Desmond's Pizza. "Oh. I don't know."

But even as he spoke he could feel the soft rattling of the floor and the walls that had been a constant for the past days. It was gradually growing stronger. He knew Dean felt it too, and Wyatt too, probably, but none of them talked about it. The rattling was a constant reminder of their limited time in that place and of the fact that, Dean's wish to preserve his father's legacy and the place where he had met Vanessa notwithstanding, they'd have to abandon headquarters soon. That or be crushed to death when the place finally collapsed.

"It's a funny thing, isn't it?" Dean said, eyes on the sprayed glass doors framing the wild night outside. "The end of the world."

"Funny. Horrifying. Abhorrent. Whatever."

"A year ago my biggest problem was getting into USC," Dean continued. "Then six months ago Vanessa... well..." he paused. "Suddenly USC seemed like the stupidest, most unimportant thing in the world." Dean turned to Ray. "And now the world's literally ending, so, technically, Vanessa doesn't matter anymore as well. Isn't that funny?"