A little deviation from my 30 day challenge, I saw a link to a Flash Fiction competition and thought that I would give it a go, my entry is below, If you like what I've written, please, please, please give it a like at, http://www.writingonthewall.org.uk/flash-fiction-submission.html at the minute, it's the first entry on the page, why not enter yourself? Ta very much =D
Final Countdown
“Impact, T-minus 100…”
This was it, months of training, and the time had finally arrived. Zara sat at her station, observing the situation in London from The Bunker. She flicked through the streams of video, pausing when she reached the Oxford Street stream. The once busy street was empty, even the pigeons had vanished. Plastic bags drifted down the street like tumbleweed, a bus sat abandoned, indicator blinking on and off.
The next station was Cian on Dublin. He nervously tapped out the ‘Final Countdown’ with his pen as a drunken man ambled through the deserted streets of Dublin. “Shut up Man!” Mukhtar said through gritted teeth from the other side of Zara, he was on Cardiff, “Don’t you realise…”
“Chill out man…”
“I will not ‘Chill out’, we’re witnessing the end of the world as we know it, show some respect” he settled back in his chair and continued to recite an Islamic prayer as the masses gathered to pray together in Roald Dahl Pass.
The Authorities had known the Asteroid would collide with Earth for years. Trojan, they called it. They saw it as the chance to make a fresh start. Rid the world of evil. ‘Recruits’ had been collected in secret, only the best were taken on, the smartest, the fittest. Bunkers, deep underground had been built in secret. The ‘Lucky’ recruits had been moved into them as they completed training, only then their true purpose was revealed. They were told about the asteroid, how it would wipe out life on Earth, but they had been chosen to survive, to repopulate the world.
Of course, some Recruits didn’t take the news well, decided that they wouldn’t abandon their fellow man. The Commanders said that they had returned to the outside world, but deep down Zara knew the truth. ‘Returned to the outside’ was code for ‘Killed’. Of course they couldn’t return outside, if people knew about the Recruits, there would be chaos. People would panic, they would find the Bunker entrances, try to get in. No, it was better that they didn’t know, Zara told herself.
“Impact, T-minus 10…9…8…”
“This is it” Cian whispered as he made the sign of the cross. “May Allah have mercy on their souls”, Mukhtar whispered. There was a sharp intake of breath.
“Impact, T-minus 1…”
The whole bunker shook violently. Zara heard someone scream as one of the metal panels crashed down from the ceiling. The lights and screens blinked off and the room plunged into darkness. There wasn’t a sound, no one dared to breathe. It seemed to take an eternity, but one by one, screens began to blink back to life and a sigh of relief rippled around the room. The pictures of deserted streets across the world were replaced by grainy white noise. It would take some time for the cameras to stabilise and for the images to return. Then they would be allowed outside, the ‘New Age’ would begin.
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