CHAPTER NINE
It’s easy to lose track of time in the dark and with no watches, they quickly lost track of time. Judging from his growling stomach, Stephen calculated that about twelve hours or more went by since they were locked up in the bomb shelter. Their captors never came back to check whether or not they were still alive and the growing fear was that they might never return.
“It’s hard to believe that this is it.” Sam said; shaking his head in defeat, “Who would’ve thought it? I survived two tsunamis, the loss of the love of my life, one earthquake, a treacherous relocation inland and a never-ending heat wave only to die in a dark basement.”
“Don’t give up just yet.” Stephen said, “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”
Sam chuckled in despair, “I think the tsunami got the fat lady months ago.”
“Would you stop sulking?” Stephen insisted.
“The world’s ending and I have nobody.”
“You have me.” Stephen asserted.
Silence befell the room as Jessica shifted a bit uneasy and Sam gave Stephen a profoundly perplexed look. Stephen knew the cat was out of the bag and that he had to come clean, but telling the untold truth was never an easy thing – no matter who or what the consequences.
“I didn’t save you by accident.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked puzzled.
Heavy silence befell the room as Stephen realised he could no longer keep the truth hidden from Sam. He had tried so many times before to tell Sam the truth, but simply couldn’t.
“I went looking for my brother.” Stephen finally spat out, “Alex was my brother.”
“What?” Sam was dumbfounded.
“I heard something that shocked me to my core on the day of the evacuations. As they ushered my wife and daughter to safety, I saw two men arguing with the army who wouldn’t let them in – they wouldn’t let them in because they were gay… they were told the reason for the bunker was to preserve humanity and repopulate – something they couldn’t provide. I knew right then and there that my brother was out there somewhere and that I needed to find him.”
“But you found me instead…” Sam sighed, “You were too late.”
“I was too late for my brother, but I could save you.”
“Why?” Sam asked, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“I’ve tried many times before, but… I just couldn’t. I was ashamed that it took the end of the world for me to reunite with my younger brother. And I was too late…”
A tear ran down Stephen’s cheek and he lowered his head; wiping the tear away. Sam moved in closer and wrapped his arms around him. Sam was glad he knew the truth. It meant that Alex was still with him in a way and he clung to Stephen; imagining it was Alex and he could feel the earth move under him like the day they met.
It took Sam a while to realise that the earth beneath them was actually rumbling and he let go of Stephen. The three of them slowly got to their feet; staring down at the ground that rumbled louder and louder. Their first instincts were to run, but where to? So they huddled together in the clammy corner and watched as the shaking walls shed cement dust with each rolling rumble.
A massive jolt shook the entire building and they nearly fell over, but kept to the corner as the room started shaking more violently.
They heard their captors running outside the door and Stephen stumbled across the shaky room towards the door; banging on it in desperation to be freed.
“Hey!” Stephen called out, “Don’t leave us here! Open up, you bastards!”
A deafening fizzing, swooshing sound followed by screams on the other side of the door answered his desperate plight and then Stephen stepped back – realising that the safest place to be might just be locked inside the bomb shelter.
INTERMEZZO
And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning bright as if it were a lamp… and the star was called Wormwood… and many men died.
Revelations 8:10-11
And a fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw Wormwood falling from heaven to earth and it was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.
Revelations 9:01
And the sea will rise over the city and its roaring waves will cover her.
Jeremiah 51:42
CHAPTER TEN
All was quiet in the dark room that held them captive after the inexplicable commotion outside died down. Sam and Jessica stayed back while Stephen cautiously stepped closer to the door – afraid to see what was on the other side. It’s been almost twenty minutes since the earthquake ended and there hasn’t been a sound since making Stephen fear the worst for the men on the other side of the door.
Cement dust shifted in the silence as Stephen stepped closer to the cracked wall. Sam and Jessica kept their distance in fear that the basement would give way and crush them if they ventured too close to a seemingly unstable wall.
“Be careful.” Sam uttered.
Stephen didn’t look back, but nodded as he fidgeted with his fingers and then reached out towards the door. It was warm to the touch, and when he pulled on the handle, the door opened as the charcoaled barricade disintegrated.
The corridor outside was charred black and filled with smoke, and when Stephen stepped out he saw a charred body crumpled in the corner. Whatever happened, happened quick and without warning. Their captors didn’t stand a chance.
He gestured for Jessica and Sam to follow him and they joined him out in the opaque hallway; covering their mouths in shock and for the smoke.
“Dear God.” Jessica coughed, “What happened out here?”
“Just more of Planet X’s aftermath.” Stephen avowed.
They made their way out of the building; climbing over rubble and clearing their way out into the street where the last bit of water drained down a massive fissure that ran along the length of the street. The city outside was littered with unearthed trees, upturned cars and burning windows.
They glanced up beyond the smoking buildings and windows with flickering flames and stared up at the conquering presence of Planet X. Though it was still millions of miles away from our moon, it was closer than the day before and appeared to be at least a hundred times larger than the moon – dwarfing it.
“That thing is getting closer and closer each day.” Jessica said, “Though it is a marvellous sight to behold, it’s a scary one.”
“And each day brings new threats.” Stephen added, “Every day Mother Nature thinks up a new way to try and kill us thanks to that bastard in the sky.”
“I wonder what it’s like.”
“What?” Stephen asked.
“Up there.” She said with a nudge of her head, “I can’t see anything except clouds… do you think its surface is like earth’s?”
“Do you mean –”
“Do you think there’s life on Planet X?”
“Doubt it.” Stephen said, “It theoretically only gets close to the sun for a couple of months every three thousand years or so. It’s safe to say that planet is a frozen graveyard.”
Jessica kept staring up at the marvel that hung over their heads and wondered what secrets the surface of Planet X kept. Could there be oceans and mountains like on earth? What was hidden behind the veil of clouds?
“Is it possible?” Sam said in thought.
“What?” Jessica asked.
“Is it possible that the approaching presence of that planet could result in flash firestorms breaking out?”
“Anything is possible these days.” Stephen said, “Two years ago the idea of a rogue planet was absurd and now it’s dangling over our heads.”
A rumble in the distance made them all look east and they witnessed the top of a building crumbling and collapse to the tenth floor. Though the rest of the building seemed sturdy, it wasn’t a chance Stephen was willing to take.
“We should keep moving.” Stephen announced.
“Do you even know where we’re heading?” J
essica asked.
“Further inland – away from the rising ocean.”
Sam and Stephen started walking away, but Jessica lingered for a moment; wondering whether sticking with them was the best idea or a notion that might get her killed. She stared up at the colossal planet in the sky and shielded her eyes from the sun. There was another object – a third object – in the sky that caught her attention and intrigue… it looked like a moon.
“Guys…” She uttered and they turned around.
She kept staring up at the sky in disbelief – the rogue Planet X brought along its own orbiting moon which was three times bigger than our own moon and a pale shade of blue.
“Look…” She said; pointing up at the sky.
Stephen’s heart sank to his feet when he saw it. Planet X was worrisome enough and now the realisation that it had an orbiting moon brought even more complications – complications of an E.L.E… Extinction Level Event – almost the same as the giant-impact hypothesis that earth collided with another planet, Theia billions of years ago. If it should happen again, it would be the end of mankind forever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fourteen Months Ago
Jesse’s room was a stereotypical eight year old girl’s room with pink walls, and fairy curtains and soft, fluffy toys that decorated her bed of oversized pillows as well as a big poster above her bed of the USS John F Kennedy and though it didn’t match anything in her bedroom, she didn’t care. She didn’t have many friends and spent most of her time alone in her room playing with toys, but since she learned about Planet X’s approach from kids at school, she was obsessed with it.
Since then she put away her toys for a laptop and a search engine to find out as much as she possibly could about the thing that was threatening to take away her future in the navy before it even begun.
It was a Tuesday afternoon and just like every other afternoon, she sifted through hundreds of videos on Youtube to find more information about the illusive and deadly threat that was hurdling towards earth from the darkest corner of space. Most of the videos were homemade videos by people expressing their own fears, but she was able to find a few documentaries and news clips as well. She’d seen most of them, but every now and then she found a new video on the subject, like she did that afternoon by clicking on a video by Professor Black.
“This thing,” Professor Black said, “has been entering our solar system every 3,600 years for millions of years and has brought untold disasters with it every time. Calculations and evidence show that Planet X, Nibiru or Wormwood, as the Christian Bible calls it, passed by earth 3,600 years ago and caused the massive flood God told Noah to prepare for. We know the flood happened and we found evidence of the ark years ago, but we also found carvings depicting that this planet was visible behind the storm clouds that lasted for forty days.”
“As it enters our solar system it has to go through the asteroid belt – sending asteroids towards earth just like it did when it came around millions of years ago. That’s right. We now believe that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was knocked out of the asteroid belt by Planet X.
“Planet X, Nibiru or Wormwood – whichever you want to call it,” Professor Black continued, “will pass by earth much closer this time and bring along with it much more unprecedented disasters than it did in the time of Noah. We’re taking about tsunamis, earthquakes, shifting of earth’s poles and continental displacement. This planet is a monster in comparison with earth and though it will pass by us hundreds of thousands of miles away, its gravitational pull will be so intense that we will feel it here on earth.”
Stephen knocked on the door, but when he didn’t get a reply, he peeked in and saw his little princess captivated by the video she was watching on her laptop.
“Jesse, what are you watching?” Stephen asked as he stepped in.
She didn’t respond and watched the video with captivation; hanging off the edge of every word Professor Black spoke.
“There is also a possibility that this planet is bringing its own moon along for the ride.” Professor Black said, “And depending on its orbital path, it might slam into or graze earth—”
Stephen closed the laptop much to her protest.
“I was watching that!”
“You’re just scaring yourself.” He said as he sat down next to her.
“We need to know what to expect. We need to be prepared.”
“It’s going to miss us.”
“Its moon might not.” She insisted.
“You need to stop worrying. You’re still a little girl. Worrying is my job.”
He ran his fingers through her silky black hair and kissed her on the forehead. He loved her so much and it broke him to see his little girl worrying about things no child should ever worry about. He knew there was no pretending that everything would ever be alright, because things never will be the same.
He longed for the days of butterfly kisses making the monsters in the closet go away, but she was growing up faster than Planet X’s approach and he knew there was no hiding the truth from her – no matter how upsetting it was.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The three fugitives of fate stared up at the sleepy moon that not just added a new degree of terror, but also an anomalous sense of ardour to an otherwise callous and desolate city. It was a sight that needed to sink in to be realised, but Stephen knew staying put would be the death of them. Planet X might be closing in at a sluggish pace, but it was clear that the moon’s orbit around its planet was much faster – disaster could be upon them within a day or even less.
“We should get going.” Stephen said once more; sounding like a broken vinyl player.
Sam nodded in agreement and nudged Jessica to follow them as they walked down the street and away from Planet X; carefully crossing narrow and wide fissures that split the city streets in half like veins.
They walked in silence – each lost in their own thoughts of survival and acceptance of the dire situation they were in. Sam glanced at the broken display window of a toyshop as they passed it; reminded by the fact that he’ll never have the adoption discussion with Alex – something that made his heart ache with every step he took.
“Do you think the people underground are still alive?” Sam asked.
Stephen hesitated, “I hope so.”
He’d been trying to get his wife and daughter out of his mind all day so that he could concentrate on staying alive, but it was a question he’d been asking himself ever since the army closed those iron doors behind them on the day he last saw his family.
“It’s the United States government we’re talking about!” Jessica reassured them, “If they could put a man on the moon, I’m pretty sure they could construct an underground bunker that could withstand the end of days.”
“And yet they couldn’t derail Planet X.” Sam said sceptically; thinking of Alex with a broken heart.
“We’re talking about an entire planet.” Stephen said, “I doubt there was anything anyone could do to prevent this.”
“Oh, please…” Sam grunted.
The building tension was not easily missed and Jessica decided that it was up to her to lift the spirits of her fellow travellers and decided to tell a joke she once heard – a joke which couldn’t be more appropriate given the circumstances.
“You guys wanna hear a joke about the end of the world?” Jessica asked, “So anyway, two priests stand on a bridge with a sign that reads, ‘The end is here!’ The first car that passes ignores them and the second driver yells at them, ‘just leave us alone you religious freaks!’ When a third driver yells at them while driving by, the first priest turns to the second priest and asks, ‘don’t you think we should change the sign to say the bridge ends here?’
Jessica chuckled at her joke, but the others weren’t amused and Sam simply gave her a mundane expression as he glanced at her over his shoulder.
“Well, I thought it was an amusing joke.” She said; clearing her throat.
They wa
lked past the zoo’s unhinged gates and Sam glanced in at the chaos beyond the gate; wondering whether the poor animals were evacuated along with the humans or left to perish.
“Do you think they evacuated the animals?”
“I’m pretty sure they took two of each species like Noah.” Stephen said.
“And what about the rest?” Jessica asked dismayed, “Were they just left behind like us?”
“Most probably.” Stephen said, “Life is cruel and nobody knows it better than animals. It’s a daily game of survival of the fittest for them.”
A heavy purring-sound – sounding a bit like a car idling – made Sam glance to his left and he spotted a lion lying on the hood of a dented car a few yards down an alley. He froze instantly; keeping his sights on the lion as the other two kept walking.
“You guys…” He finally uttered.
Stephen turned around and saw a completely petrified Sam standing a few feet from them and walked back to him.
“Sam? What is it?”
“Look…” Sam whispered.
Stephen felt the life drain from his body when he spotted the lion – and it was clearly aware of the humans as it stared at them with its intimidating stare. Jessica walked over to Sam and Stephen and when she spotted the lion she gasped and before she could scream, Stephen grabbed her and covered her mouth with his hand.
“Don’t make a sound. Don’t move. Maybe it won’t see us.”
“It’s not a T-Rex, Stephen…”
“Just keep still…”
“It already saw us.” Sam whispered.
The car dented and moaned as the lion shifted and climbed off. The three of them took a step back with fear when the lion started walking towards them, but they kept as still as they possibly could; all the while in a stare-off with the king of the jungle. It walked up to them and stopped a few feet away – nearly causing Sam’s heart to stop as he found himself face to face with Mother Nature’s most effective killing machine.
The lion stared at the three of them for a moment, huffed uninterested and walked away; leaving them holding their breath in disbelief. When the lion was about half a block away, Sam gasped for air; shivering from head to toe.
“That was intense.”
Jessica felt sorry for the lion and couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was thinking or what it had been through just to stay alive.