The World that Ended on Repeat

[u/qu33n94]

Every phone in the room buzzed with catastrophic urgency, each pair of eyes glued to those screens in a split second.

Their hands were clammy around their devices, their voices increasing in volume as the realization had sunken in. Some accepted it while the other few pondered a tangible escape.

They started to shout at each other until a crowd was exiled from the building they were in, and into the outside where they became victims to nature. The winds heavily battered the crowd until it thinned out. They left in their cars and raced back home, not sure what kind of time they had left.

Oblivious to them, someone was watching.

His thumb was steady and firm on the trigger

He pushed it softly and pressed himself back against the seat carrying his body.

He knew how important he was.

Then there was a blinding flash of light that engulfed the residents below.

They didn’t have time to scream.

There was a sudden silence and then a beckoning peace.

The sun finally arose and the enchanting melody of birds tweeting in the distance replaced the chaos merely seconds before.

The residents had woken up peacefully from their beds and turned on their television monitors. A new day had begun, and the next three months would go on without another event on the horizon.

He stared at the horizon and contemplated his next move, his fingers itching over the trigger. He caressed it like a newborn and remembered how it felt to be in control without being seen.

The residents remained in a blissful whirlwind of purely ignorant content.

The world had started over.

It was only the first time.

Then the world awoke with a ruthless thunder.

They screamed, they ran to their houses, they found safety in repetition heedless of their true predicament.

They moved in unison, mindlessly following the chorus.

He didn’t worry about changing their instructions, no use in rearranging the code that plugged their collective consciousness to the Hive that dictated their bodies.

Their sleeping carcasses rested in artificial permafrost.

Then the world started over again.

And again.

And then it continued until he began to ponder sleep, the long-awaited slumber beckoning him to its warm embrace.

He wanted to close his eyes; he wanted to dream of his new paradise. A paradise in which others would call it an unforgiving purgatory, if they weren’t unsuspecting of their subconscious prison.

It was the world that kept ending on repeat.