Mikhail Zakorov

2nd of December 2016

Orders from Warnock. We're to have radio silence for the next few weeks... almost. He's the only one allowed to talk to us, my partner and I, we can't talk to him. He has the power to break radio silence and only he.

It probably has something to do with the meteor we spotted the other week. We got Houston on the line and told them about it...

Come to think of it, I never did plot the trajectory precisely. What if... Oh god! I thought that it might just pass by...that's why I called them up... it could have been a beautiful spectacle. I got to check...

********

Sweet Mother of God! It's worse than I could ever have thought... It will hit and it will hit hard. Not only will it hit, but it will hit in the worst possible place... no wonder he wants radio silence, we're the only station capable of seeing it in enough detail to figure it out.

It will hit the Ice caps, the Ice caps will shatter and boil. This time next month the maps will have changed.

It's a deadly combination...

Ice, Rock and Fire.

President Dunne

2nd of December 2016

Well... it's a little bit over a month. Then I'm out of office. It's been fun, but I've got to retire, I'm 63 after all, hopefully the next guy does a better job than me... what's his name again?

The economy crisis was partially, (or maybe practically), blamed on me. It could've been me... it probably was me. I've only been in the position for one term, and I didn't run for a second. I'm almost sure that I wouldn't have got a second term... I am sure.

I didn't now what I was doing, I'll admit that here. I am a failure.

There is still some work for me to do however, I don't want to leave too big a mess for the next guy...

********

If there is a next guy... I guess I should have known. Retirement was not going to happen.

Jesus Christ!

What did I do to deserve this... the world will be consumed and I will be blamed. A meteor is coming, it'll be here soon... how long did that bastard Warnock withhold this information. He told me not to say anything.

I agree in some respects, but I have to give them something, I'll give them part of the truth. It's important that there isn't a panic. So very important. Out of panic comes anarchy, out of anarchy comes dictators, (who feel they can rise above what little there is), out of dictators come war. what comes from war is clear.

I'm going to tell them slowly, so that all they will be able to do is run. I'll leave no time for an uprising. Only time for flight.

********

" Something is coming, I'll warn you now, so that the star gazers don't stir it all up later, make it more than it is."

" A meteor will strike the ice caps in exactly two weeks, " massive media stir, " But I assure you! Nothing will come of it! Nothing but a rumble, we have faced worse, we will face worse again and we are facing worse right now. The meteor will cause but a rumble, a minor quake."

" I say again... don't make it more than it is... do not panic. "

********

I was never going to be allowed to retire... but never did I think that this, that this would be how it would end.

The Family Man

It's not the finest world, not for me, but it's the best world I have. That's the philosophy I chose to stick to.

Unfortunately Philosophy doesn't cut it. There is no rule of thumb. The world has its own rules and you have to sacrifice everything to meet them. At this point in time the rulebook might as well have been written by a fucking Nazi.

When I graduated the world had already descended into shit... 8 years of my life... gone. My eduction made no difference. Having a doctorate in engineering, it had no impact. There were no jobs for me.

I waited and kept trying, getting stuck in some dead end job, after 10 years I'm still there, still waiting. Except with one crucial difference. I have people to protect. Having people who depend on you is the biggest goddam liability. You can't leave em behind, but you have to bust your ass twice as hard to keep em alive.

You can't leave em behind because you love em... that's the biggest goddam liability...

Love.

To say I'm still there is a slight lie, I was shifted to the other side. A higher position for less pay. In another country. Some little place in Europe under the shadow of the Alps... in France. I don't even speak fucking French.

Sometimes I just think, Why am I still doing this, and honest to God sometimes it's hard to answer. It certainly isn't for the good old U S of A, anyway. The only answer, and honest to Christ it's the only thing keeping me going.

A family to love and a whiskey to cry in to.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky, at least I have a job, and ain't that the sad truth...

Ellie Martin

The world is full of naught but scum... I always thought that when I became a doctor... that somehow... well you know the story. Anyone who has has that dream does. I thought that I'd be making a difference. These days I just don't know.

This economy... produces nasty things. I can't seem to put it any other way. I treat them day in day out. The druggies, the rapists, the alcoholics. New York has fallen down the cracks... so will the world. Or maybe it already has.

Even the doctors themselves barely employ ethics. It's all about the profit.

This economy produces some nasty things.

This one guy came in here today, knife wound. If you can call it that. He was missing a hand. He comes to me and he says, " C'mon, you got to give me some, I'm dying here!", drug addict... probably cut the hand off himself.

I reply, "No."

Next thing I know I'm on the table, a knife at my side, the man at my face. " Give me the goddam stuff!"

"No."

It's a busy hospital, the guy's off my case soon enough. Then not long after that back on the streets. Too long after that I say.

More than once one of them has tried to rape me... more than once they've come close... but never that close. Only close enough to believe that they had won. It's a busy hospital.

Maybe I still have time to make a difference... I doubt it.

This economy produces some nasty things...

These last few weeks I've been hearing voices... strange voices, in my head. They tell me to... kill them. I don't understand why... It's not my voice... Why would I kill them.

They'll do the job themselves.

The voices are driving me to the brink. I'm standing over the edge... over the edge?

Do I really have no choice? I'm not a killer!

I'm a doctor... a doctor in a dying world.

I go down there, to that hospital, but to what avail. There. is. no. hope.

Oh God! I'm losing it...

Brian Phoenix

We had spent years avoiding it... I suppose it had to happen. We thought we had suceeded... the flood had to come in the end. Global warming they had called it. Unless we do something now then we will see the sea-level rise, they had claimed.

And we did... crisis averted... time well spent. They should have understood. That was the way it was meant to happen. God's will.

The lord moves in mysterious ways.

But here I am, rambling. My name is Brian Phoenix. I am one of the survivors of a meteor... a meteor no one had time or ever thought to name. I'll give it a go now... God's will. That's as good as any.

On December 16th 2016, a meteor, molten hot, collided with the ice caps. It shattered. It melted. It changed things. God's will could have destroyed the whole of Australia, but it chose it's target, and it destroyed the whole planet.

And So It Begins

The world is lost...