Armageddon

"To the reader...

I don't know why I've written this.
After all these years it is unlikely that anyone will ever read it.
Perhaps I write to reconcile myself.

... Whatever the reason, this is my story.

It is written a while after the events I speak of, but I will try to keep it as close to what actually happened as I can.

I will also try to speak the truth, even if it makes you despise me, for I won't lie, I have made many bad choices, only some of which I regret.

Time is short and getting shorter by the second, so let me begin...

It took three hours for the world to end.

I've learned much about the events of The End, but there must be order to this account. Needless to say, at the time I had no idea what was about to happen and, afterward, had no idea what had happened.

I recall their had been rumors on the television about a new terrorist cell, Dissolution I believe they called themselves, had threatened to release an engineered virus they claimed to have developed, but nobody had really taken it seriously, after all, their had been those type of threats for decades previously.

It was the fifth of May, I remember that detail clearly, not only because of the events of the day itself, but also because it was the day after my mother's funeral.

It's hard to write about it, even after all this time. She had died of lung cancer, too many cigarettes, I guess; no one knew about it until afterward of course, she had been like that- never wanting to upset or worry anybody.

I suppose it doesn't really matter, like I said, she died just before The End. I suppose the only reason I bring it up is because, well... she had been my only family.

I feel like a bastard to say it, but I was almost relieved the day she died.
I know it sounds horrible, it's just she'd been torturing herself over my dad's for years since he'd been killed trying to stop a robbery.

This isn't relevant though, is it?

Well anyway, the day after her funeral I had to go to clean out her apartment, she'd moved out of the family home a few months after I left for college. It was on the ninth floor with only another floor and the rooftop above it, but I still remember what happened like it was yesterday. I was looking around, just thinking about her I guess, I've never been into religion so as far as I was concerned she was gone for good, maybe that made it worse...

I remember the deafening sound of an explosion and at the same moment all the lights went out.

At first I thought it was just lightning hitting or something, maybe a power surge, but then their were more explosions every few seconds some distant, some closer. Even in the apartment I could hear the screaming and crashes from the streets below. I was searching one of the draws in the living room for a torch or candles, when I saw something. My dad's gun was sitting their, laying on top of a picture of my mother and father, with a much younger version of myself sitting between them.

I looked at it for a while...