The App: App-ocalypse (1)

Day 19 - Destroying the world

The world has ended. Literally (almost).

There was a flash of light when I was doing the dishes yesterday morning. Then we ran out of electricity and all devices around me went sparkling as if they were exploding from the inside. Then Michael called me from outside of the house where he was playing a moment ago - but now the sound of his voice made me realised pretty quickly he was panicking and crying. All of this took like... I don't know, 10 seconds? Maybe less.

It was another hot summer day that started like every morning and I was writing about my life ten minutes before it happened. I may be just a little bit self-centered now that I think about it. I thought the App-ocalypse was the day Earth went through hell. I was wrong.

I took my diary - I learnt from my mistake and swore to never leave it anywhere again - and ran outside to see what was happening to Michael. Electronic device and all those sparkles were way less important than him. Anna and Adriana went down the stairs as I was crossing the threshold of the house. I ran out of air when I saw it.

Michael was looking in my direction, looking for me, calling my name as if he couldn't see me. John was running from a corn field toward the house, yelling at us to go back inside. And behind the corn field... Fire and dust. A lot. Very far.

It was exactly like in all the movies I saw and books I read about it. Except it was it. A nuclear mushroom-shaped explosion. It was so far I could hardly saw it but it was there - somewhere on the south. I knew it. Because in the pale blue summer sky was now coming toward us a dark and grey cloud of dust and ashes making its way above fields in front of the farm. It was there as far as I could see and it was almost as if it was snowing over the farthest field. I was petrified.

John took Michael under his arm and yelled at me, pushing me inside. I stormed out of my initial shock when he touched me and suddenly ran inside as fast as I could. Anna and Adriana had already opened the door to our safe haven under the house.

I didn't hesitate and ran into it - and they all followed me. We closed the door and that was it. Darkness all around us. We were blind - the light didn't turn on despite our best efforts.
Michael was crying. I tried to reach him but Anna was quicker than me and hugged him. Lucky child. He told us he couldn't see anything. At first we answered him it was normal since there was no light - but we then understood he was really blind. We still don't know how he turned blind but he is since the moment he saw the explosion and the flash of light. He can't see anything now.

We luckily had candles in there. John found them in the dark and only then did he used its firelight - spoiler alert he was hiding in the corn field to smoke. Adriana and him had a whole argument about it since she thought he had quit smoking years ago. It turned out he started again when the App hit the world and he wasn't proud about it. And we were there to listen to their argument since we had nowhere to go.

Then we decided to save up our candles as much as we could - and that's what we did. We only light one of them when we need to eat or to go to the toilets - a small room where we can't flush but where there is the only working air conditioner.

I don't think we're safe at all in our safe haven. If we ran out of electricity it's probably because of the explosion but if we don't have electricity in here it probably means there is a breach somewhere on the walls. I don't know. Anyway we've already been exposed to radiations since we went outside just after the explosion.

I'm really concerned about John. He started vomiting yesterday in the evening and he vomited some blood this morning. This can't be a good sign even though he tries to minimise the situation.

We're locked and can't hope for any sort of medical help. We're on our own, mostly in the dark.

Anna is feeding Michael with her fork since he can't see anything. We're going back into the night as soon as his meal is over. We don't know how long we're supposed to stay in the haven - how long will it be since there won't be any risk of radiation outside?

However we all know we'll be there for a long time.