10 Minutes To Impact
“I warned you! I won't warn you again!” Michael shouts through the small retractable slide that
serves as a peep hole on the shelter door. Despite being several inches of solid steel,
the rhythmic pounding of a sledgehammer on the other side can still be heard inside
the small shelter. Outside that door, a man sweats profusely as he hammers away at the
locking mechanism to the shelter door. “C'mon, there's more than enough room!”
“I told you weeks ago to prepare, I told you there'd be no room with us here. I can't be
responsible for you and your family, I won't be responsible!” Michael shouts again through the
peep hole, the man pounding outside the door can't see Michael's hands clutching the old
thirty-ought-six. The barrel's large for a rifle, but small enough to fit through the peep hole...
“I've got my family out here, public shelter's all full up! Where we supposed to go?! Let us in!”
The rhythmic pounding continues, the hammer pounding away at the locking mechanism keeping
the underground shelter protected from whatever may happen outside in the next ten minutes.
“Robert. Get... away... from... this... door...
I won't warn you again...” The pounding continues, the warning ignored.
Michael turns to look behind him, nodding at Alexandra, his wife. “Cover Lily's eyes. Lily,
darling, cover your ears.” The eight year old girl does as she's told, her eyes wide with panic as
her mother clutches her close and puts her hands over her eyes. Michael then looks at his older
son, Luke, and simply nods. The asteroid still hasn't hit yet, but the old world died hours ago
as panic set in when the general population could no longer find appropriate shelter.
At sixteen years old, Luke was old enough for what was coming next. He had to be.
Luke nods at his father.
Michael lifts the rifle to the peep hole and sticks the edge of the barrel out the other side.
He doesn't have to aim, his target is so close it's impossible to miss.
Bam!
The rifle thunders inside the small, cramped shelter, amplifying the retort to a painful
degree. Luke gasps, face white with terror, but he holds his tears in even as they threaten
to squeeze out of the corner of his eyes. Outside the door the hammering has stopped.
Michael pulls the rifle back inside the shelter, grim determination on his face. He spent years
in the service fighting in the deserts of both Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn't his first kill,
but this one- it's just plain wrong. This was his neighbor. Two months ago he was borrowing the
portable grill for a family camping trip. But that was the old world, before news of the asteroid.
Outside the door there's a single, soft sob,
and Michael presses an eye back up against the peep hole. Standing twenty feet down the
underground corridor his grandfather had dug during the start of the Cold War is Carol.
“Carol... I'm... I'm so sorry. Carol, listen,
I begged him to stop. I- we just can't. We don't have enough room and I've got two children.
You knew, you knew! For weeks you know we wouldn't be able to fit you in!”
Carol stands in shock, tears streaming from her eyes as she gazes down at the body of her husband.
“Carol. Carol! You have to go, darling. You have to go and you have to find somewhere to shelter.
Find a home with a basement or a parking garage somewhere or... Carol, you have to hurry! Please.”
She doesn't reply. Instead, she slowly turns around and
walks back up the twenty feet of stairs leading back up to the outside world.
Inside the shelter, Michael sighs and slumps back on the wall behind him. The rifle nearly falls out
of his hands, but he pulls himself together. This is not a time to be weak. If they were
going to survive what was coming next, if anyone was going to survive, they'd have to be strong.
Michael joins his wife sitting on the floor and kneels down,
gently pulling Lily's fingers out of her ears. “Shhh, it's ok baby
that's it. You don't have to plug your ears anymore. Everything's alright.”
“Daddy, I heard a gunshot.”
“I know, baby, I-”
“-dad was just warning off Mr. Trucker is all.” Luke is quick to interject. His father nods his
approval at him. Then, he turns his attention to the shelves of supplies and equipment behind him.
“Luke, go on and fetch that old radio, will you?”
Luke nods. The radio’s practically ancient at this point, something his grandfather stashed away down
here in preparation for the end of the world. It picks up both AM and FM, and runs off batteries-
which they have plenty of. With what the experts on tv have predicted happening, it's likely that
radio will be the only means of communications left very soon. Then again, with what the experts
on TV have predicted, Luke's not sure there'll be anyone left to communicate with at all.
He shakes those thoughts away and cranks the radio on, immediately picking up a station
still broadcasting. Whoever is on the other end has obviously chosen not to seek shelter,
probably figuring there wasn't much point in it. There's many like him,
millions of people crowd the streets of every major city in the world
just... waiting for the end. Some of them never bothered to try and seek shelter,
some- like Mr. Trucker and his wife- were simply unlucky and couldn't find any.
“-is believed to be sheltering underground somewhere under the
Rocky Mountains along with his cabinet and most senior members of government.
The mountains are largely made of very tough granite, and it's believed by some- well,
hoped- that it'll afford at least some protection from the asteroid impact. It all depends of
course on exactly where the asteroid hits. Predictions have swung back and forth since
discovery of Aester-2022, with some believing it will strike directly on the coast of Spain,
and others sure it will strike a few dozen miles off the coast into the ocean. In that event-”
Michael grabs the radio from his son and turns the tuning knob. He knows precisely what'll
happen in either event as it's all the media talked about for the last four weeks since the
discovery of Aester-2022. Regardless of where the asteroid lands, humanity will go exticnt.
And yet, here he was, huddled with his family in an old Cold War shelter his grandfather
dug with his own two hands. What else was he supposed to do? He'd heard reports of families
taking the easy way out as soon as two weeks ago but... he couldn't stomach the thought.
If there was a chance, he was going to fight for it.
The knob finally lands on another station.
“-this very troubling time. Friends, I don't know what happens next. I don't know if this
is judgment day for us all, the end of times, or any form of the apocalypse. Whatever your faith,
all I hope is that you have lived a good, happy life. And with one minute and
thirty eight seconds until impact, I leave you with this: should any of us pull through this,
my hope is that we forget the things that made our world evil- war, hate, prejudice-
and never forget what made our civilization great: love, respect, and empathy. Amen, and goodbye.”
“...amen.” Michael whispers to himself as the station goes off the air,
his eyes locked on the door.
He cranks the power knob and turns the radio off,
seating himself between his wife and his son. Little Lily is still in her mother's arms. She's
been brave ever since the family packed into the shelter an hour ago and hasn't even cried once.
Michael kisses her on the forehead and then turns to kiss his son on the forehead.
He puts his arms around his family and pulls his wife close for a quick kiss.
“Everyone, go ahead and close your eyes. Open your mouth to
equalize the air pressure and plug your ears.”
IMPACT
A massive asteroid the size of Rhode Island smashes into the upper layers of the atmosphere.
Its collision course with the earth puts it on a very shallow angle, resulting in it starting
to penetrate our atmosphere somewhere off the coast of Portugal over the Atlantic.
The asteroid physically compresses air in front of it, creating a superheated shockwave that
rides just in front and below the asteroid. Moving at over twenty thousand miles an hour,
it lights up the sky over Portugal and very quickly crosses over into Spain.
The shockwave is so intense that as it flies over Spanish cities, thousands of people who
couldn't find shelter or decided the impact simply wasn't survivable, are all knocked
down to the ground by the force of the passing asteroid. As the massive space rock nears Madrid,
the shockwave below it is so intense that people are knocked down with enough force to kill them.
About thirty four seconds after first making contact with the uppermost layers
of the atmosphere, the asteroid slams straight into the foot of the Pyrenees mountains that
separate Spain from France. Predicting the impact location of such a massive,
fast moving object was always difficult, and the best estimates have been hundreds of miles off.
In the first nanosecond before impact, the massive superheated air in front of the asteroid
immediately incinerates any plants, animals, or humans within half a dozen miles.
The air is so compressed in front of the gargantuan rock that it actually
smashes into the rocky terrain with enough force to melt it to lava a few inches deep.
Then the rock itself actually strikes.
In an instant, the asteroid and half a mile wide, three hundred feet deep area
of rock are vaporized. Then the shockwave and heat, reaching temperatures as hot as the sun,
melt rock in the impact zone down to a half-mile deep.
The shockwave propagates through the ground faster than the speed of sound,
and completely tears apart any living thing caught in its path for several miles.
The mighty Pyrenese mountains themselves are shattered by the impact
as a crater a hundred miles across quickly forms, splitting the mighty mountain range nearly in two.
The shockwaves continue racing out and hit the first major population centers within a
minute of impact. Buildings, vehicles, and people are absolutely annihilated
by the force of the shockwave, torn to shreds and tossed about like rag dolls.
At about the same time, a massive plume of molten rock shoots up into the sky from the center of the
crater. Trillions of tons of molten lava fire up into the atmosphere and even beyond it. In
space around the earth rocks from the impact have already been flung with enough force to eventually
leave earth's orbit. Some will end up catching up with the earth again in a few thousands or
millions of years. Others will float forever in the void between planets inside our solar system.
Still others will end up crash landing on Venus and Mars, escapees from a dying earth.
The massive lava plume comes crashing back down to earth, too hot to be chilled by its flight into
the sky, and washes over an area dozens of square miles wide. Anything that might have somehow
survived the shockwave of impact will now be bathed in fiery lava as it rains from the heavens.
The shockwave continues to propagate out across Europe, leveling cities all the way
out to Portugal in the east and Paris in the west. In the English Channel and the
Mediterranean sea massive tsunamis half a mile high build up and speed out at several
hundred miles an hour. The water will reach all the way to London itself in the north,
and destroy the entire southern mediterranean coastline of Africa. It'll even reach all the
way to Turkey, where its seaside communities will be flooded with waves three meters high.
Tens of trillions of tons of vaporized rocks are picked up by hurricane force winds
created by the impact and spread across the upper atmosphere.
This will turn the air poisonous across all of Europe and northern Africa,
but trade winds will eventually bring the poisonous atmosphere as far as the east coast
of the US and the Middle East. By then it'll be more of a health hazard than a deadly threat
however- but for Europeans without breathing apparatuses their next breath could be lethal.
Billions of tons of molten rocks hurled up into space now start to make their way back down
again. This meteor rain of half-molten lava will reach all the way to Asia and the United States,
starting massive fires across every continent on Earth except for Australia. Millions will
die from this deadly rain as it smashes into cities and towns as the deadliest form of hail
humanity has ever witnessed- the fires will kill anyone who survives the crushing rain.
28 Minutes After Impact
It starts with a slow tremor, and then suddenly, the shockwave of the impact hits the family
shelter with enough force to physically pick up and throw the family around the room.
Lily screams as she's hurled out of her mother's arms, but it's over in
an instant and nobody is seriously hurt. Michael calms the family as best he can,
he's prepared them for this and they all know what comes next.
The shockwave of the impact circles the earth and hits them again.
The second time though it was much milder, simply rattling the contents
of the shelf for a bit before passing on. It'll circle the earth three or four more times,
losing exponentially more energy with each pass but still detectable on seismometers.
The first rock falls with a thundering crash somewhere above and about fifty feet south of
them. Michael does the calculations and figures it must have hit somewhere around the back of the
house. The shelter is about thirty five feet from the back porch, dug twenty feet into the ground.
He's pretty sure they're safe, but as more impacts are heard and felt,
he becomes seriously concerned about being buried alive. He has no idea,
but it's raining mountains over the American east coast- the Pyrenees mountains specifically.
“Everybody hang on to each other!” He shouts as he grabs on to Lily's hand and pulls her close,
then hugs in his wife and Luke. The family clings to each other
as the deadly rain of ballistic rock missiles washes over their community.
6 Hours After Impact
It stopped raining rocks half hour ago, but Michael wanted to be cautious. Now... well,
he supposes there is nothing to do but survey the damage. He passes Lily off to his wife and nods at
Luke. Reflexively he reaches for his rifle and shoulders it- he's not really sure why though.
Maybe in case there's other people desperate enough to try and take his shelter away from
him and his family. However, after hours of it raining rocks he doubts anybody caught out in the
open could have survived. Or anyone sheltering in buildings without basements for that matter.
He opens the peep hole on the door and looks out of it- thankfully the tunnel leading to
the outside hasn't collapsed. He was worried about that, and had stuck two shovels inside
the shelter just in case. The door itself takes significant effort to push open- made
worse by the fact that his dead neighbor's body still lays where it fell six hours ago.
As the pair emerge from the shelter, Michael closes his eyes. He almost doesn't want to look.
Seeing what remains will make it all too real- the end of the world.
But he opens them as acrid smoke hits his nostrils and makes his eyes water.
What he sees is nothing short of complete, and utter devastation. A fiery, burning hell
has come to earth, his former suburban neighborhood completely unrecognizable.
It had promised to be a bright, sunny summer day as the family headed to the shelter at 8:30 am.
Few clouds in the sky, but not enough to compete with the gloriously rising sun. Michael's mind
reels from the sight of it all- the sky above now is black and gray from massive plumes of ash
rising up across the entire American east coast. But the clouds are weird, they look like ripples
on a lake and are moving quickly across the sky to the west. The upper atmosphere is in absolute
turmoil even hours after impact, and in a day ash from burning cities in Europe will reach America.
Michael has no way of knowing if he'd never see the sun again,
though many scientists had predicted as much.
The family home is nothing but ash. The fires were so intense that they had burned
everything but the concrete foundation and rock fireplace. The intensity of the flames
had thankfully made them short lived though, and the area around the shelter opening is
relatively safe. All over the ground lay shards of obsidian, globs of molten lava that had risen
high enough into the atmosphere to cool before impacting the ground and bursting like bombs,
shredding anything- and anyone in the vicinity with razor sharp obsidian shards.
In the distance where the city skyline used to be visible all that Michael and
Luke can see are the skeletal remains of a few large buildings jutting up into the skyline.
It’s difficult to see more than that due to how thick the smoglike conditions have become.
Coughing and choking, the two quickly decide to head back underground.
Michael whispers a silent thank you to his long-dead grandfather for the foresight to
install an air filtration system in what was supposed to be a nuclear war fallout shelter.
1 Week After Impact
There are still batteries for the radio, but Luke hasn't bothered to turn it on in days.
There would be no point, nobody was transmitting anything anymore. For two days after impact they
could still pick up transmissions from the west coast, which had been far less
pummeled by the initial impact. However, all of North America is in flames now from the
massive wildfires which run completely unchecked across the continent. The fires have run straight
through major cities, and the notoriously dry west coast went up like a tinderbox.
Before the last radio station went down they had relayed a transmission from somewhere in Europe,
possibly Germany. Incredibly, somebody had survived the initial impact event,
but the news wasn't good. Hundreds of millions killed in the impact alone, an estimated 1 billion
dead across Europe and Africa from tsunamis, the shower of impact debris, and the global wildfires.
The air outside the shelter is still not safe to breathe without a respirator. It’s choked with
ash and toxic vapors given off by the burning of trillions of tons of various building materials
and other chemical products that make up our cities. The shelter's air filtration system works
overtime, and Michael thanks his grandfather daily for having the foresight to install it. Without a
doubt though, anyone not inside a shelter with a similar system is dead by now. Michael's thoughts
sometimes turn to his neighbo rCarol... but he chases those thoughts away as soon as they appear.
There's six months worth of food and water in the shelter. It's cramped, uncomfortable, and a bit
claustrophobic, but the family has no choice. It's simply not safe to go outside yet. So they wait.
Three Months After Impact
Michael takes in a gulp of air. It's not fresh by any means, but not immediately toxic either.
At least it no longer smells of cooked flesh. Whatever toxins still linger in the air, there's
nothing he can do about it as the shelter's air filtration system broke down a week ago.
Staying in the shelter is no longer feasible, and he calls down to the family.
“Luke, go ahead and bring your sister and mother up.” They won't have to pass the remains of their
former neighbor, Michael had personally removed those himself on one of his solo trips up top.
This is Lily's first time out of the shelter and she coughs profusely as she breathes
in the slightly toxic atmosphere. Michael frowns, but there's simply nothing he can
do for her. He'd like to go and find some masks or respirators- anything,
but there doesn't seem to be anything left to scavenge. The fires have claimed everything.
Maybe there’s something deeper into the city though.
“Honey, stay here with Lily. Maybe try... I don't know,
maybe we can make some kind of above ground shelter?” Alexandra nods slowly then looks
around dejectedly. What kind of shelter can she possibly make when there's just nothing left?
But she quickly recomposes herself, this is no time for defeatist attitudes.
“Luke, you and I will head into the city, maybe we'll find... I don't know, something.”
Luke nods slowly. Michael feels the futility in his son's gaze,
but they have to at least try. Surely the fires couldn't have consumed everything.
The hike into the city is more difficult than expected. The two have to climb over
the molten slag heaps that are all that remains of vehicles caught out in the open after impact.
Most of what's left is ash though, with here and there a surviving support beam
sticking out of the remains of homes and small buildings.
Visibility has improved, but not by much. Michael can see a few miles ahead to where
he knows the downtown area of the city starts, and the skeletal remains of the
tall buildings that used to rule its skyline are now gone, collapsed in on themselves or
knocked over by the massive windstorms that rocked the planet for days after impact.
Every mile that passes Michael keeps hoping that he'll spot-
something. He's not sure what. Just anything. Some sign that civilization has survived.
But each mile brings more disappointment.
He knows where the major shopping centers are by memory, but nothing but ashes and ruins remain-
the fires have completely gutted even the largest of the big box stores. Humanity has
never seen fires on this scale, only the dinosaurs before them saw the horrors of a planet on fire.
After a few more miles Michael stops, sighing dejectedly. “Hold on,
son. Let's just... let's just go back. There's nothing out there. Nothing at all.”
Luke doesn't reply, he merely nods in agreement. He's too tired to keep
going and much like the rest of the family, doesn't even believe there's a point anymore.
That night the family has their first dinner outside, but they can't even see the moon above
their heads due to the cloud cover. Dust and debris has circled the world and will remain
aloft for years- maybe as much as a decade. The loss of sunlight has already cooled the
world a few degrees, and the wind bites with extra chill despite it being the middle of the summer.
The world won't descend into an ice age as commonly feared, but it will fully counteract
the effects of global warming and drop global temperatures by several degrees for years.
The family is quiet as they eat, each lost in their own thoughts. They can't remain where
they are, but though none of them will admit it, there really isn't any place to go either.
There are no 'safe zones' from an extinction level event, and though they'll set out in the morning
for the west, heading towards the far mountains and the national park at their foothills,
they have no idea that nothing but matchsticks will be waiting for them.
The fires have killed over half of the vegetation on the entire planet, and what
remained has been dying for months from lack of sunlight and the effects of extreme acid rain.
Their only hope is to find pockets of civilization that haven't been consumed by fire.
Maybe there they can find more canned goods to survive off. But, eventually, those will run
out or go bad, and there's no knowing if either will happen before sunlight hits the earth again
and plants and trees return or not. There's various doomsday seed vaults around the globe,
and well planned long-term survival shelters where a tiny population of humans have survived impact.
In all likelihood, humanity won't go extinct as predicted. Will it ever be what it once
was though? That is doubtful. What's been lost is incalculable, and even if humanity
rebuilds it'll have scores of lost knowledge to rediscover. Once it tries to move to a second
industrial revolution it'll discover that all of the easy gas and oil which fueled our modern
world has already been greedily sucked up by their ancestors. Is there enough left for a civilization
to grow advanced enough to mass-produce renewable energy technologies? Doubtful.
For Michael and his family though, all that matters is tomorrow,
and each day looks a little bleaker than the last.
Now you need to watch “Can You Survive A Nuclear Winter (And Other Nuclear Stories)”
Or, have a look at “What Would Happen If Russia and the US Went to War”