I woke to the sticky heat pressing down on my chest, a thin sheet tangled around my legs. My rented room was claustrophobic—a single rusted bedframe, one faded curtain, more cracks on the wall than memories inside it. Sweat beaded on my forehead. The ceiling fan hung lifeless, the blades unmoving, a ghost of relief denied by yet another power cut.
No electricity. No breakfast, not when my pockets clinked with nothing but dust. I grabbed the crusty bottle by the bedside, forced down lukewarm water as my empty stomach twisted in protest. That would have to do.
A dull thump. The door. My landlord, face greasy and scowling, barked about the rent—again. I mustered the best lie I could, voice scratchy: "I'll pay next week, uncle. I'm expecting some money. Just a few more days." He snorted, muttered something about freeloaders, and stalked off.
My phone was worse off than me—cracked screen, 1% battery, no data. Might as well have been a stone. Clutching my bag, I slipped into the humid corridor, ready for another pointless day.
Outside, the world spun on, indifferent. I almost missed the poster tacked to a crooked pole: "Volunteers Needed for Medical Testing. Good Pay!" For a second, hope flickered. I snapped a photo, just in case.
Campus was half-awake, students loitering in broken clusters. Our professor never arrived; whispers spread like infection: "He collapsed at home, aunty said." Laughter died quick. Everyone checked their phones for updates—nothing but recycled memes and spam.
Word drifted from the hallways: news of a strange illness spreading in the next city over. People dropping without warning. Some idiots joked, but nobody was really laughing.
Neha, the girl who always wore headphones, winced as she sat down. She said her dog bit her last night, then bolted into the street like it'd seen a stranger.
On the bus ride back, I stared out the window. The sky—it looked… wrong. Wisps of clouds curled in careful, unnatural spirals. No one else seemed to notice. Then, for a heartbeat, every phone on the bus flashed an alert—red symbols, something like an emergency broadcast—but it vanished just as quick. Everyone blinked, shrugged, and went back to scrolling.
Walking home, I took the long way through the basti. The city's forgotten corners—children scraping leftovers out of broken plates, stray dogs fighting over bread, old men staring with hollow eyes. The world already felt fallen, apocalypse or not.
There was a heaviness in my chest, sharper than usual. Maybe it was hunger. Maybe it was the air itself. Things had always been bad, getting just a little worse every day—but today, something different gnawed underneath. Not just despair. Something… changing.
A memory ambushed me—my mother, sitting beside me, shaping a ball of roti with sugar. She'd smile, tuck hair behind her ear, say, "We may not have much, beta, but we have each other." I swallowed hard. She was gone now. No one left.
I looked up at the coiling sky and muttered, "This world really is breaking, isn't it?"
The streetlights blinked and died, all at once. A blackout, but this was more—unnatural silence thick enough to taste. Every phone in sight went dead, screens black as void. Even the dogs went quiet.
Across the street, a man collapsed—legs jerking, mouth foaming, eyes rolled back as if seeing things no one else could. I froze, every nerve burning.
Birds plummeted from the sky—thud, thud, thud—dark feathers scattering on the asphalt like ash from a broken world.
Then, from above, the sky groaned—a rumble that shouldn't exist, a warning carved into thunder. My heart drummed in my ears.
This… this wasn't normal. Something broke. And I don't think it's gonna stop.