ZERO DAY
You hear an explosion.
You open your eyes.
It's still dark.
“Am I dreaming, or did that really just happen?”
You climb out of bed and shove the curtain aside.
​
A smoking crater scars the middle of your lawn.
Chunks of soil are thrown in a near perfect circle.
Steam coils up and vanishes into the night.
You glance at the clock.
4:21 AM
You throw on yesterday's clothes,
run downstairs and out the back door.
Outside, the air smells electric.
The crater exhales heat. At its center rests a crystal-like stone,
no larger than the palm of your hand, glowing with a soft aquamarine light that pulses gently in the dark.
​
You crouch at the edge of the crater.
Something catches your ear.
You tilt your head, listening.
​
A soft melody is emanating from the meteorite itself.
“But… how?” you whisper as you reach down toward it.
The heat is intense but not unbearable,
a feverish warmth that raises goosebumps on your arm.
When your fingers close around the stone,
the music tunes out like a radio station.
For a long moment you stand there, listening to the meteorite’s otherworldly song.
You turn it over once, twice,
its iridescent edges catching the starlight.
~
Back in your room, you set the meteorite on an old text book.
You boot your PC. The fans briefly roar, then settle.
You search for “meteor strike” and your town’s name. Nothing.
No breaking-news banner. Nothing on the local feeds.
The same headline about road construction you ignored yesterday.
“Weird”
You open your audio software,
you hold your phone near the meteorite, and hit record.
The waveform rises and falls, like a dancing flame.
You name the file Frozen Flame.wav
You open your inbox.
​
Your cursor hovers over his name; Xeno.
Your oldest friend, four years older and like a brother to you.
He grew up just down the road with his mom,
back when everything felt simple.
Things changed when he turned 21
and went to work on an energy farm
owned by his estranged father’s company Xenos Industrial.
The energy farm sits on a stretch of windswept coastal farmland known as the Cerulean Peninsula,
built atop the ruins of an old spaceport.
It isn’t far from town,
but far enough that you haven’t seen him much lately.
Since then he’s grown distant, lost in forums about “doomsday asteroids” and “planet-killer trajectories.”
You attach a picture of the meteorite and the Frozen Flame.wav to a new email and type:
Subject: Meteorite?
Hey man, Found something.
Landed in my backyard around 4:20 AM. It’s playing music..?
Audio attached. Please tell me I’m not hallucinating.
You hit Send.
​
The reply lands in under three minutes.
​
Subject: MEGA
Incredible.
I’m almost certain it’s a fragment of MEGA, the meteor I’ve been tracking for months.
My models show MEGA is on a collision course with Earth.
It’s already breaking into fragments, which confirms everything.
But there’s hope.
We might still be able to stop it, I’ll need your help though.
Another fragment is near you, a girl named Cyan has it.
cyan_@angelic.com.
Contact her. Bring your fragment. We don’t have much time.
Your chair creaks as you lean back, reading it twice.
​
A memory of Xeno joking about the end of the world skitters through your mind and breaks apart.
You look at the stone. The melody is so gentle you could almost forget it’s there until you tilt your head, and it swells.
​
“Okay,” you whisper. “Okay.”
You find an old coffee tin and set the meteorite inside. The glow turns the tin’s interior a vivid aquamarine.
You close the lid carefully, listening -
The music muffles but doesn’t vanish.
You type to Cyan:
Hi. I got your email from Xeno.
I think we have the same problem.
I have a fragment of a meteorite, something he calls MEGA.
And according to him, so do you.
If you’re willing to meet, I’ll bring mine.
I think Xeno has a plan.
​
You hit Send, turn the chair to the window,
and sit with the coffee tin in your lap.
The night sky slowly gives way
to an orange band of light on the horizon as dawn approaches.
You lie down, the faint melody still audible from within the coffee tin.
Somewhere between one breath and the next,
you finally drift back to sleep.
