So Long

"The news has said that before, hundreds of times per century. What makes you think that this time an asteroid big enough to kill us all is actually going to hit us!"

I glared at the sarcastic jerk. Minor asteroids had been peppering the planet for the last week. The news report this morning stated that today impact was expected somewhere in Europe. I could waste time better spent loading the shelter with extra water and air filters or I could try again to convince my neighbor. The fires would be epic, toxic smoke and ash would make the surface unliveable for months. Hopefully, I had planned well enough ahead. What I couldn't plan for was the shortsighted stupidity of everyone I had invited into the shelter with me. I guess the astronomers had cried wolf too many times for people to believe this was the one. God knows Nasa couldn't get funding to work on deflection technologies, and there wasn't enough profit in it for the private sector to work one up.

I sighed and pushed another trolly of supplies deep into the shelter my great-grandfather had built to survive WWIII. It was deep and well-maintained. My family were all preppers for generations. My sister was setting up the branch of our family in a sizeable and well-secured shelter against nukes and the vampire apocalypse in Wyoming. I was the lone holdout in Colorado. My sheltering would be lonely without another human to talk to. But I had my animals. Chickens, goats, and other farm animals were secure in their portion of the shelter and I had a small pack of dogs to keep me company too.

I heard a roar on the horizon and the angry glow of a large glowing rock falling from the heavens. I ran for the shelter and began securing it against impact. Outside I knew the neighbors were beginning to take things seriously. I just secured one shock door after another going deeper into the mountain. If they had any idea how well-stocked I was they would have raided my shelter long ago for the petroleum batteries and hydrogen fuel cells that were in there to power my survival. The world shook and I knew it was just another foreshock of the real impact to come.

prompt ▼

The Science Fiction Short Story Contest

December Prompt:
It's the end of the world as we know it... so what happens next? World-ending (or near-world ending) disasters are foreshadowed by films such as Armageddon, Deep Impact, a plethora of Zombie movies, and in dozens of books and games. Will we hide underground as in "Wool" or the "Fallout" series? Will we desperately send people to space after all? Or will the destruction be as total as in Horizon Zero Dawn?

The big asteroid is coming and we can't deflect it. So - what does a technologically advanced earth do? The winning entry for December will show us what lies ahead...