Adulterate (aka ‘The End Of The World As We Know It’)

It had been in the news for months.  At first there were just short columns hidden way inside specialist science periodicals before, eventually, primetime news bulletins were running it every half hour and tabloid headlines were screaming “doomsday” or “Armageddon”.  Curiosity became intrigue, which finally gave way to mass fear and panic.

Families began packing up and moving out of the impact zone. Mass migration spread around the globe sending economies into meltdown.  Civilised societies fast became anarchic states. Humanity teetered on the brink of hysteria induced extinction. Survival of the fittest quickly became endurance of the craziest.

For the first time in living memory all the great superpowers came together to work out joint action on saving the planet. Military research and development, which had once been dedicated to eliminating the other, was pooled together whilst anxious American, Russian and Chinese scientific think tanks developed theories and strategies on dealing with the threat.

The meteorite was said to be larger than the Earth’s moon and was travelling at such velocity that impact upon the planet’s surface would wipe out at least three quarters of the world’s population.  A few attempts were made to knock it off its intended trajectory, but all failed spectacularly. Finally, with it bearing down on the Earth’s atmosphere, one final desperate attempt was made.

When the missile hit, the explosion was bigger than a hundred thousand Hiroshima’s.  Millions died from the fallout that followed but, despite this, there was great global joy and celebration that humanity had been saved. The people of the world finally seeing the benefit of unity and being as one. Never again, they vowed, would humanity destroy itself.

But then the rains came. Thick, black acidic rain that deluged the entire planet beneath great clouds of meteoritic dust and debris.  Buildings began to crumble beneath it, concrete devoured in minutes, and the planet’s water supplies adulterated by the alien liquid. The lucky ones died immediately, the unlucky ones were driven to insanity and a malaise that forced them, quite literally, to eat themselves to death.

When finally the rains stopped, months later, survivors emerged from underground bunkers, blinking and starving wretches – like those liberated from the Nazi concentration camps.

The planet, though, was barren – stripped of both man and nature.  Great sands drifted where once vegetation flourished, great mountains of twisted metal where cities once stood.

And then, without warning, they came; thousands upon thousands of them, emerging from the skies. They came in peace they said, the annihilation of man necessary for the survival of the universe.  And gratefully the survivors bowed down before them.

The planet of Eden was born that day.