Last Night Alive

3 weeks earlier:

A red light flashed on a computer screen to his left. The computer had just found an anomaly in this part of the solar system they were observing.

"Umm...sir...I think you need to take a look at this," Lewis Courtney said. He was just a part-time intern at this laboratory. He never came across something like this before and yet it seemed familiar....maybe in a movie or something...

"What is it, Lewis?" Dr. Thomas Bowen said, without looking up from his work. He was a renown physicist and astrologist and had won a Nobel Prize only last year for his studies in molecular physics.

Looking at the screen, it started to dawn on Lewis. "Sir, I remember reading about this somewhere."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Dr. Bowen said intrigued.

"Come take a look."

Walking over, he didn't really understand the data scrolling up the screen. The computer began to make a print-out. Picking it up, he began to see what was happening. The orbits of Mercury and Venus had been disturbed, causing them to wobble along their orbit.

"I remember! I read this in an Astrology Journal." Lewis exclaimed suddenly and then he seemed grave. "Oh no..."

"What?" Dr. Bowen said, perplexed.

"Sir, the planets are aligning with the exact center of the galaxy. Lewis explained. "The last time this occured, back when life on Earth was newly formed.....a gamma ray burst from a star at the center of the galaxy shot through the entire solar system..and..."

"What is it? Come on, spit it out!" Dr. Bowen said, his palms becoming moist. Lewis' anxiety and distress was starting to become contagious.

"Sir, this star, Beta Psi 291 nicknamed Anixia, regularly shoots out bursts of gamma radiation that usually misses our part of the galaxy, but sometimes it grazes us. Remember that huge magnetic storm that lasted for a good part of the year a little while back?"

"Yea, our scientists say it was due to increased solar activity." Dr. Bowen said, confidently. He remembered when it occured, anything remotely electrical ceased to work.

 "That was only a half-truth," Lewis said. "Anixia's gamma rays are so powerful that if they hit another celestial object, not only would they destroy any form of atmosphere, they would actually knock it out of its orbit."

"So, the erratic orbits of Mercury and Venus are caused by-"

"Anixia's gamma rays, sir."

"So let me get this straight," said Dr. Bowen, trying to keep calm. "These rays are powerful enough to not only destroy all forms of atmosphere, but they can knock planets out of orbit."

"Yes, sir," Lewis said. "But, there also one more thing."

"Which is?"

"The rays will miss Mercury and Venus completely, sir," Lewis said, sadly. "But, they will hit Earth directly."

"How long do we have?"

"According to the computer," Lewis said as he reached for it. "Oh no...."

"What is it!?"

"Turns out the Mayans were right, sir," Lewis sighed. "December 21, 2012, the day of the winter solstice."

"That's only two weeks!"

"I know..."

"The God help us."