The End of the World: Purge Style.

Gravity: (noun) the force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass

Time: (noun) the indefinite continuous progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole; a point in time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon.

~~~

In the year 2030, the United States, along with every country in the International Union (IU), agreed that the earth was getting too overpopulated. Unless they acted on it, the world would become inhabitable.

They spent the next several years researching different population control strategies, ranging from limiting the number of kids each family produced to the purge. In the end, the IU unanimously decided to implement the purge in 2037. After all, killing, robbing, and vandalizing are urges we have, but (as controversial Austrian psychologist Sigmund Freud would say), our superego represses those urges into our unconscious.

Every year since the purge was implemented it is on a Friday the thirteenth, for some extra spook. This year, the IU planned it for Friday, October 13th, 2187. That’s where this story starts.

Everyone woke up this year to the usual purge announcement, believing it would be your usual purge.

Little did they know, this purge would affect the entire universe for eons to come.

~~~

Sophie Walters was one of the few naive seniors who went to school on the purge, thinking that if they didn’t go, it would mess up their graduation timeline. Unbeknownst to them, their attendance would not affect graduation, because none of them would make it to graduation.

Sophie woke up bright and early at five am, determined to get to school early. However, due to her little brother’s multitude of morning tantrums, all of her best efforts were wasted, as she was ten minutes late to her first-hour CIS Psychology class. 

Fuming, she sat at her desk, getting her notebook open to catch up on the notes of today’s lesson: Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages of development, a 300-year-old theory that is extremely controversial and rejected by modern psychology. 

Throughout Mr. Montgomery’s monotonous lecture, gunshots rattled in the streets, although never coming within proximity to the school. Even though it is not explicitly stated that you must avoid the schools, the general hivemind was to avoid them. Any shootings that happen in the school on the purge were your rare rebellious student trying to make the day seem more. . . interesting. 

A note slapped on Sophie’s desk, jolting her from her empty-minded stupor she is somehow always in during Mr. Montgomery’s lectures, no matter the amount of sleep she got or the concentration of caffeine in her system. 

I wish someone would take out Mr. Montgomery already, I’m sick of his boring lectures, the note read in Sophie’s friend, Casey William’s, barely legible scrawl. 

Sophie looked over to Casey and nodded her head, signaling her agreement. She checked the clock, certain that class had to be close to being over, only to be met with the clock reading 8:25 am. Not believing she has been in class for only five minutes, she checks her phone, only to be greeted by the same time staring at her from her phone screen.

Sophie shrugs it off, blaming her lack of sensing time on her poor sleep schedule, and that she did not take any caffeine yet. However, the second Sophie returns to writing notes, the bell signaling the end of the hour rings.

Sophie whipped her head at the clock, which now displayed the time of 8:55 am. Blaming it on the lack of sleep and caffeine, Sophie brushed it off and headed to her second-period ceramics class. 

In class, there was a substitute, who was the most boring and old substitute. Sophie put down her books and prepared her clay and bucket of water. She slammed the clay onto the pottery wheel, setting the bucket of water and tools right next to her. She turned on the wheel and slowly sped it up as the substitute started taking attendance and rattling off today’s agenda. 

Sophie began on her project, a seven-inch-tall vase for flowers. She turned on the wheel, speeding it up all of the way, blocking out the noise of the gunshots rattling in the streets. She grabbed the sponge and poured water over it, then cupped her hands around it to shape it. 

Right as her hands touched the surface of the water on the clay, the bell dismissing class rang. 

Sophie hurried to put away her items and hurried to her third and fourth-hour classes.

The third and fourth hours of the school day passed by as they usually would. Boring, medium-paced, and full of the same old lectures. However, this is where things began to go wrong. Desks started to lift, even if it was by mere millimeters as if gravity was losing force. Nobody noticed. 

Lunch A is when the real problems started occurring. As bombs exploded, alarms went off in nearby stores, and gunshots popped, tables started flying up, unaffected by gravity’s force. Slowly, chairs, shelves, and even people floated up. 

Sophie freaked out, as sensible people do, and looked around frantically for her friends. She spotted Casey, who was floating up towards the ceiling.

Sophie ran to her, trying to pull her down, only to be overcome by the effect of zero gravity plaguing the small town of St. Charles, along with the entire world. 

Sophie screamed, taken by the shock of it. Before her scream got out of her mouth, gravity slammed everything back down with a loud bang.

People screamed in the streets. All of the teachers led the students outside, onto the track. People ran to find their friends, siblings, or lovers. 

Everything was fine until somebody noticed the intense heat and brightness of the outside. 

Sophie turned around, only to scream with pure horror at the sight she saw. The sun, which was once 99 million miles away, was barreling toward the earth. 

Sophie grabbed onto Casey, hugging her tight. People all around screamed and hugged the people they cared about. Sophie squeezed her eyes shut against the bright sun and intense heat, but the brightness behind her eyelids only got brighter.

Then it stopped.

“Sophie, sweetheart, you can open your eyes,” a distant voice crooned. It belonged to Sophie’s mother.

Sophie opened her eyes, expecting to see her mom, only to remember she had died five years ago due to pneumonia. 

Sophie looked into the sky and screamed as she saw the sun engulf the earth.