Chapter Text
It appears in an instant, across all timezones. Dark October sky, opaque clouds, a blank slate, and then not. One week, 168 hours, stretching horizon to horizon, visible from every inch of earth. Sun or cloud, no matter how one squints or tilts their head, no matter how far one tries to run or hide.
And then it starts counting down.
Social media, as usual, heralds humanity’s new question mark, the big fucking timer in the sky trending just below oh my god and what is that? Shaky rooftop videos pan the sky, streets below clogged with abandoned cars and upturned faces and outstretched phones. The news becomes breaking, or even more breaking than whatever was already breaking, field reporters stammering up at the Countdown — which has already lost eight hours and been christened with a capital C — wondering at just-in theories: tech industry innovation? Hollywood’s newest gimmick? Foreign show of power?
The earth waits, bated breath, as night falls and the Countdown does not disappear but glows like a nightlight, a soft silent ticking reminder.
Transportation stalls. Vehicles edge around groups gathered in desperate repentance and peddlers with protective knick-knacks for sale; subways buckle under excess traffic, tunnels blocked by squatters hiding from the sky; planes are grounded amid concerns propulsion may interfere with the still-mysterious Countdown (though soon after the government shoots missiles into the sky, raining down flaming debris on its own unwitting citizens). Around this time, the UN reports that the world’s premier scientists are gathering to nurse a solution; police rove the streets in some affectation of peacekeeping though private property seems to take priority; a pop star releases new track “It’s the Countdown Bitch”; and crowds of hundreds of thousands swell outside every legislative building in the world, rattling gates, protesting something, demanding something, though most of these offices are already empty.
Generally human reaction is predictable. Panic and hoarding and reclusion. Denial and cable-watching and shrugging over potluck dinners, though next week’s plans are suddenly a little tentative. Pilgrimage to holy places and proselytizing on big stages and a good number drink bleach. People sell their homes, quit their jobs, kill their bosses, spend lifesavings on life-long dreams or feed it into a machine, and the economy braces at the tickle of a devastating sneeze. As the days drip away, Christmas lights go up, the rich leave in spaceships, neighbours sing hymns in the street, cities burn, a dog curls up and falls asleep.
Before all this — six days before the clock hits zero — Byun Euijoo steals his mother’s car, leaves in the night with just his phone and a grade 12 essay that he never submitted, and Wang Nicholas sets out hitchhiking.