Free Apocalyptic Shorts by Victor Darksaber

and half sticks out. It is a pod about the size of a little dog, or the size of a bomb, but it cannot be a bomb, because at this range, it will destroy the fence, and they don’t want that. Something about it feels strange. It is smooth with glowing lines around its top and middle. The top part of the pod hisses open and the pod divides into three parts, each of the parts begins to spin in opposite direction of the other. It slowly separates from itself, leaving five inches gap between each part. I am so focused on the strange pod that I completely forget about the black-eyeds. And even now that I remember, I still cannot bring myself to look away from the pod. It glows, clicks and explodes, sending a glowing wave in every direction. Paul pulls me down flat on the ground. The wave touches and moves past us, it feels cold.
    Seconds later, I raise my face from the sand, the wave is gone and the pod is back together and it looks dead. I notice something up in the sky right above us, I look up and see a big object with faint lights on its belly hovering quietly above us, it’s a ship. The sight of the strange looking ship gives me goose bumps and a lasting chill. It is like nothing I’ve seen before; it is striking, and definitely alien.
    “Dad,” I call quietly. He’s already seeing it too. The pod clanks back on and shoots up at the ship and in a blink of an eye, the ship is gone.
    I look toward the black-eyeds, they are all on the ground, not moving. I get up on my feet and move toward them slowly. Paul calls me, but I don’t answer. I don’t know why I’m moving toward them, but I have a feeling that whatever that ship just did, it’s not evil.
    As I get closer, I see a movement among them, and then more movements. I stop, my eyes wide open, chest pumping, thinking whether I should still be here or I should be running back to Paul. What's left of the fog clears out and I hear the voice of a little girl. “Mommy,” she says.
    I move a little closer, my gun ready to go off if it needs to. A man moves toward me, and just as I am expecting, hoping, his eyes are normal, and the black veins are gone, only a trail of it left on his face. He is looking around, exhausted and confused. I look back at Paul, he’s already behind me.
    The people I once referred to as black-eyed, people who were ready to tear me apart minutes ago are now normal again, or at least, they look normal. They walk around, moving away from one another, probably wondering how they got here.
    Paul’s phone rings. “What’s going on out there?” Faye asks from the phone.
    “I think––it’s over Faye, it is over.” He hangs up. He puts his hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes. “I’m proud of you son.” He hugs me. His body presses my wound enough that it hurts, but I don’t mind. I hug him back.
    Together, we walk into the once insane crowd.
    I don’t know what really happened here, I don’t think anyone does. But my best guess is aliens tried to destroy us, aliens saved us.
    Now that I’m no longer being chased by a bunch of crazy people with black eyes, now that the adrenaline has faded, I have time to think about my loss, my mom. I am suddenly filled with intense grief and emptiness. Paul puts his hand over my shoulder and pulls me closer, just what I needed. I look over the horizon, the orange sun is setting, and for the first time in several hours, something feels good to me again. A flash of green light appears briefly over the horizon, and then it’s gone.
    The End.



Prologue
     
    In the last thirty years, prophecies of doomsday have become rampant, people claiming to be prophets, scientists, time-travelers from the future, all giving prophecies about the end of our world. But of all these prophecies, only one turned out to be exact and accurate, and that was the one prophecy that was ignored.
    Twelve years ago, Dr. Phil Lucas, a weather scientist at the University of New York published his findings on the activities of