The End of All Things

2. Einstein's Monster

RYLEE

Have you ever felt that feeling of grief and terror that is so intense it feels like it hollows out something inside of you?

If you're lucky, you might get it two or three times in your life. I felt it when I watched one of my classmates get hit by a car after school when I was thirteen. The girl spun through the air, flying for nearly ten meters before she landed on the gravely roadside. The girl lived, but her left femur shattered, along with her knee cap. All our classmates watching thought she had died.

The other time was when I walked through the doors of the hospice at three in the morning. My parents had called to say that we should come in, because my sister wasn't doing well. My older brother met me in the hallway once I arrived with my aunt. With silent tears sliding down his cheeks he shook his head and said, "I'm sorry."

You know the feeling? Now multiply that by the population of New York.

***

A fireball punches upward into the once flawless sky and transforms into a black mushroom cloud before our very eyes. I can't move, I can't even breathe. The boom comes seconds later, like a clap of distant thunder followed by a deeper rumble that doesn't seem to end. We dive to the ground again and it quivers beneath me, or maybe that's my own body shaking?

This time when we look up, the entire city is just a cloud of fire, dust, and smoke

The shockwave is visible, a white line traveling toward us as the moisture in the environment is instantly turned to steam from the heat. Once it gets closer though, it's just a sudden gust of wind on an otherwise perfect day. Leaves blow around us as we sit in shock, unable to process what we've just witnessed.

"Was that real? Did that really just happen?" I hear myself croak out as I stumble to my feet, only to keel over as my stomach heaves up my recently eaten lunch.

"That was a nuke." Caleb's stating down at his hands like he expects them to burst into flame. "Are we going to die? Are we getting radiation even now?"

I wipe my mouth on my sleeve and snatch up my things, shoving them back into my bag. "We have to get the hell away right now," I shout at them, whirling around to point at the black cloud of NYC. "If we haven't been fried yet, we've got to get as far away as possible, right now." I don't exactly know what our next move should be, but I know here isn't a good place to try and figure that out.

We run the whole way back, thankful the trail is mostly downhill from the ruins. I only trip up once, ripping the knee in my jeans and getting bloody hands. The stinging pain is nothing compared to the terror that grips my heart.

We get to the CRV in less than a quarter of the time it took to climb to the castle and scramble inside.

There's a stabbing pain in my side that tells me I've got a stitch and It feels like I can't catch my breath – damn me for being so unfit!

Emily's beaten Caleb to the driver's seat so I call shotgun. We'd all left our phones in the car, and the first thing I do is grab mine.

"I've got no service," I say, looking around at the others. I sag limply into my seat, too puffed to collect my thoughts and too dazed from how surreal our situation is to know where to begin.

"Mine does." Emily hurriedly dials a number, she's the only one on a different network from the rest of us. She pauses once she brings the phone to her ear. Her face falls and she pulls it away again, tapping the screen and putting it on speakerphone.