On September 14th, 2021, Audrey Wright woke up feeling calm and rejuvenated. She donned her work uniform and French-braided her hair. "I wish I could afford a dentist," she thought as she brushed her yellowing teeth. All she had left to do was toast a blueberry bagel and her morning routine would be complete.
The stout 24-year-old lived on the bottom story of a shoddy, 250 square foot apartment in Brooklyn. She had been immune to the everyday noises around her since childhood. That particular day, the din was louder and more frantic than usual, but not nearly enough to alter Audrey's typical nonchalance. Others might have called it pandemonium. She called it home; nothing more than a normal New York morning.
The rest of the world was not quite so collected. Everyone seemed to be rushing, sniveling, or phoning their loved ones. Audrey rolled her eyes at them. "Bunch of drama queens," she mumbled before stepping onto the subway. A respectable fellow named Antoine was saving a seat for her, as he'd done every weekday for the past three years.
He was a husky middle-aged man with an exotic flair about him. Audrey liked him enough to pretend that she believed his phony accent. He was her personal anchorman and private confidante. She took her most familiar seat beside him. "What's the latest breaking news, Capitan?" she asked dryly. His eyes widened in shock and perplexity.
"Have you really not heard? You can't be serious! I don't need to explain this one; just listen to the madman surrounding you."
She tuned her ears in to others' conversations for about five minutes. Her facial expressions varied from shocked to annoyed. When she finally spoke, her tone had become sarcastic.
"From what I've gathered, an enormous meteor is headed for the Earth and we are all going to die slow and painful deaths. Come on. You know this is going to be another Y2K: all hype, no action."
"You were a baby when the millennium ball dropped! At least refer to something you can remember! Besides, this is not hype. The newsmen say we have a year or so until impact. And you might want to know that one meteor is not headed for Earth, but three. They are calling them the Torah Meteors."
Audrey stayed quiet for a moment, exhaled slowly, and nodded her head. "Do you have family to visit before Doomsday?" she asked. Antoine shook his head back and forth. "Well," she replied, "at least we have each other. Ugh. This is so ridiculous."
"You're telling me!"
"No, I don't mean the meteors. I can't believe I'm going to die living in an apartment that doesn't even have a bathtub. That's as far as I made it in life. It figures."
"Leave Brooklyn, honey, and you can have a bathtub. You can have three bathtubs for what you pay for rent." Audrey tried to cut him off. "Oh no, stubborn girl, you don't have to tell me. I know exactly what you are going to say. You are never leaving your home. It's good that you're crazy enough to stay in Brooklyn because you fit right in with all the other loonies."
The subway screeched to a halt at Audrey's stop. "If this is for real, you'll honestly stick by me?" she asked with uncharacteristic worry in her eyes. "You're a tour guide. If these things hit, when everyone is lost in confusion, you will know exactly where to go. You better be with me on that day."
"Well then, at least we won't die alone," she remarked before leaving the subway.
Over the next few months, information poured in from every television, radio, and newsstand out there. The predicted impacts of the three Torah Meteors were within six weeks of each other. The first was small; less than a quarter kilometer in diameter. The real threats to life on Earth were the other two. The second to hit would be approximately one kilometer in diameter, and the third was supposed to be only slightly smaller than its predecessor.
Governments throughout the world began funding research for deterrents and building the necessary equipment. Rockets were being launched toward the Torah Meteors before long, but there was no guarantee that they would be knocked off course. Nobody could know for sure what was to come. For Audrey Wright, there was nothing more to do than cross her fingers and wait.
She and Antoine lived day to day, society collapsing around them all the while. The city had become a cesspool of violence and thievery, forcing them from their overpriced New York apartments. The most likely path to safety was to become a recluse. Each of the two close friends had already concocted a sensible plan for when the Torah Meteors hit. Whosever plan they chose, when the time came, they would both die at home.
The first meteor hit the Arctic on October 3rd, 2022. The real trouble began thirty-two days later, when the second plummeted into the southern Pacific Ocean, barely missing New Zealand. Despite the collective efforts of the world, there was simply no stopping it. Audrey had already led Antoine to a long-forgotten section of the subway system. She had an array of stolen supplies already stored for the long wait ahead.
With large rocks piled high around them, Antoine quickly surmised that they'd moved to more of a pit than anything else. "What if the third meteor hits the Atlantic?" he wondered aloud during their first few minutes there. Audrey chuckled. "Then we'll drown, and our bodies will rot in an extremely spacious grave. Better yet, maybe it will smash us, and we won't have to suffer!"
Both of them could hear desperate screaming above ground, but the two close friends had an understandable "every man for himself" attitude. Audrey wouldn't reveal her safe haven for any helpless soul. The way she and Antoine saw it, everyone was doomed anyhow. They may have been selfish and coldhearted, but they were still alive, and neither was screaming in fear.
The days grew quieter. Before long, the duo had lost the ability to discern noon from midnight. When who-knows-how-long had passed, they heard a faint nearby noise grow louder for hours. "This place is going to collapse over our heads!" Antoine screeched.
He shined a flashlight above them, then on each wall, until a face came into view. "A little help here?" requested a scraggly, seemingly harmless brunette with a slight British accent.
He had dug through the top layer of rocks in search of others and needed to be pulled from the pile. He had a surplus of supplies, which he reluctantly brought to their side.
"Welcome to not-so-solitary confinement. How long have you been underground?" Audrey asked when he was finished, batting her lashes. Peter, who was born in England and raised in Manhattan, could not even see her face. He introduced himself and offered them each a bottle of water.
"I don't know how long it's been. The last meteor hit two days after the second, sooner than we all expected. Newscasters and radiomen had already taken refuge. There's no knowing exactly what happened; where it landed. All I know is it was raining fire. Clouds were covering the sky, last I saw. It's an oven up there, so here I am. You're the first people I've seen so far. Are there more of you?"
Antoine reassured him that there were only two. Audrey beamed in his direction and asked whether he would like some beef jerky. She seemed indifferent toward the probable destruction of life as they knew it. It annoyed Peter, but in the end, it would make his goals easier to meet.
Three weeks had passed, not that they would know it. Audrey pulled Peter aside for a private conversation. Antoine was asleep. She seemed sad for once.
"Do I sense a tear?" Peter whispered before she had a chance to speak, "By George, you do understand that we're all going to die! It's an absolute miracle! Just think: All this time, while I thought you were filled with nave hope, you were contemplating your inevitable death like everyone else!"
In response, Audrey snapped sarcastically, "I was contemplating yours too, but I've recently - very recently - begun to anticipate it more than anything."
"How ironic," he replied, placing a knife to her throat. "Don't take this personally. It's a matter of survival," Peter stated before cutting her life short. Shortly after, in complete silence, Antoine made a small fire. "It's going to smell disgusting in here," he commented. Peter laughed. "With two hungry men? No. She'll be a pile of bones soon. It's a shame we ran out of supplies so fast." Antoine nodded his head in agreement. "We'll meet her on the other side soon. It's just a matter of time."