the.dawn

When it happened, the major news outlets were referring to it as The Dark Dawn. Most just call it The Dawn now. It was a banner for the lead story on the noon edition. Humans name things in order to feign control over them and understand them, to try to predict what comes next.

But I have never seen such hopelessness and dread on the faces of the reporters tasked with spreading the news of the horrible events of that day.

For years, the most brilliant minds in the world - epidemiologists, virologists, biologists - warned of the possibility of disease ravaging cities. They warned of a new ‘super bug’ that could wipe out one-third of the population in a matter of months. "The next extinction level event is almost a certainty" they said. Whether man-made or a newly escaped strain of something long since dormant, the bio-threat was a dominant force in the arena of doomsaying. It could be the new Black Plague, was the popular sentiment. Over-population, unchecked breeding, unsanitary conditions in the major cities: these would lead to the sweeping epidemic that could geometrically progress through our civilization before we could produce a cure. There was nothing we could do, when the time came.

That was one school of thought.

The souls with their eyes to the heavens believed an asteroid would usher forth the end of life as we know it. One particular astro-physicist, Dr. Ernest Sands, claimed that we were mathematically destined to this fate. Because of his wit, charm, and unabashed love for popular culture references, his opinion was widely regarded. Contingents of his loyal adherents regurgitated the facts to anyone who would listen. What once were nothing more than groupies, became Doomsday puppets. We are doomed to the fate of the dinosaurs, they declared, on internet message boards and from the comfort of a stool at the bar of their local taverns. Again, the human race would be helpless in this scenario.

Those of a militant mindset, and those that were children during the Cold War, always believed we would be annihilated by global thermonuclear war. The cheery high pitched whistle of a metal casket falling to the ground, a microsecond flash of brilliant light, then we would all be ashes and dust. The initial attack, whichever nation made the first move, would lead to thousands of retaliatory strikes. Then: nuclear winter. We could never survive that of course but it would not matter. The human race would be wiped out from the attacks. We could do nothing to stave off this threat, were it to occur.

Then came The Dark Dawn.

It was not a plague, no Alleghierian influenza dominatus. It was not a massive chunk of rock and chemicals from deep space, splashing down in our ocean and rupturing the core of our planet. The Dawn was not a simple, errant decision, in the form of a destructive bomb dropped on a hapless village, leading to all-out war. Sentient robots, realizing the uselessness of the human race, were not the harbingers of our doom. Aliens didn't invade and zombie hoards didn't rise and raze the flesh from our bones.

In those beginning hours of our quickly fading days, we knew what The Dark Dawn was not. At ground zero of our fears was the leaden weight of the unknown; we were most afraid of the realization that we were at a loss to determine what The Dark Dawn was.

There were too many accounts of the events of that day to sort out the facts. The source was as elusive as a plague but as powerful as a global killer falling from the heavens. It was eugenics without prejudice. How could something have prejudice that had no face of its own?

Death has no wont for prejudice when we are the vessels for its bidding.

Our fall from the pinnacle of the animal kingdom was swift and complete. In almost its entirety, human civilization was brought to its knees by an untraceable death dealer as alive as any flesh and blood body with a pulse. It swept into existence with stealth and precision. Unparalleled in ferocity, it tore through the fabric of the modern world. Initially, there was no response, because there were no signs. We couldn't assign blame. Pointing fingers was futile because there was nothing could be done to prevent it. Trying to do so was like flying a kite in a snowstorm. Not only was it impossible to delineate solution it was just as untenable to declare even the tiniest variable responsible.

The devastation was perfect. Where buildings once stood, teeming with footsteps and heaving lungs, now there stand only empty monoliths, hollowed and scarred.  Dried up, now, are the busy causeways of human industrialism. A drought of life and soul is that which reaps here now.  Crops of skin and bone and blood, lost to the burning hunger of a ubiquitous masticating maw.  Crimson rivers in veins no longer flow. Across the landscape are scarlet creeks fed by the aftermath of the exodus of souls.

It hit everywhere all at once.

The origin could not be pinpointed because it was all over. 

And it was all over so fast.