The asteroid was the size and length of a skyscraper.
Like a spear hurtling through space it moved at impossible speed, giving the planet only a half-hour to crunch the numbers and calculate the devastation. Every action theorized the same result, the damning evidence assuring the world as a whole that there would be no saving grace, no trump card to pull. Humanity simply didn’t have the time.
Alarms echoed in the face of annihilation, nations pleading their citizens to cherish their final moments as the world awaited an impact that would surely erase us from existence.
Be it dumb luck or an act of God, the shard from the heavens impacted just inside the coast of The Great Basin Desert of Nevada, a merciful miscalculation of trajectory that granted a wall of sand instead of a fiery death of biblical proportion.
We hugged our loved ones as the dust settled, rejoicing in the miracle that had saved us from destruction. Nobody could figure out the how or why, the specifics of the phenomenon seemed too great for us to understand. Miles wide, impossibly deep. Like it had reached the core of the Earth and stopped.
Was it the sand?
Did the asteroid break apart at the last second?
Was it aliens?
Was it God?
The theories continued long after the dust settled. No amount of data could tell us the reason. Like the asteroid itself had chosen a softer landing. After the news crews got their scoop and everyone went back home, we settled back into our cozy life, and the hole left behind became another wonder of the world. The more we tried to fathom it, the less others seemed to care. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to move on from it. The total destruction of humanity became a meme, and we continued our blissful struggle of existence like it never happened.
It became an attraction, like Niagra Falls.
People came from across the world to look at the hole, and marvel at its impossibility. It started with food trucks and carnival games. HOLE t-shirts and HOLE food. HOLE memes littered the internet, until you couldn’t surf without seeing the massive crater that could’ve been our eradication. People laughed and made signs with their hands, some in worship, others in excited appreciation. It was a sign of our continued humanity; the icon of our second chance.
In time we just accepted the hole, rather than question it.
As the months flew by, some people never left. People continued to flock, coming together in the Sahara to see the wonder, to do their part. It was all over the news, headlines like:
“FREE-LOVE MEETS ALIENSTOCK”
In time, investors took interest. What started as a joke cultivated into a plan to build a town around the diameter of the hole, a new age Point Pleasant for the anomaly that was our mercy. Crews were assembled, lumber was cut, and the days of euphoria and admiration were filled to the sounds of saws and hammered nails.
We built across the sand, surrounding the crust of the massive hole with general stores, condos, and vacation spots. A-list singers wrote songs about it. Influencers lined up to be a part, spreading the hype that the world couldn’t ignore. In the midst of the bustling construction and blissful peace, a church was erected.
It didn’t matter where you were in the world, everyone loved the Hole in their own way.
Until it started consuming us.
The first casualty was deemed an accident. An elderly woman, well into her nineties and vacationing with her family. Rumor was she stumbled in by mistake, in a risky photo-op past the boundaries set up to prevent such a thing. Bystanders assumed she had lost her balance and tumbled over the side. But the family swore she wasn’t thinking straight, and that she threw herself in. This was documented as an “freak accident”, and everyone moved on.
After the next victim, people started to worry. A young man, early twenties. Frequent jogger near the hole that had made it a daily regime to run around its diameter. Turned on his heel mid stride, and kept the same jogging pace until he reached the mouth of the gigantic pit. People said he only took a second to look down into its depths, before holding his arms out and falling head first. Funding was allocated to install better railings around the hole, in an effort to appease those making a stink over the second casualty.
Was the hole dangerous? Should we make an effort to close it?
Heresy. The hole saved us.
The newly erected church boycotted any attempts to seal the danger, going as far as restricting the crews trying to better fortify the edge to prevent further loss. The community seemed torn over the prospect. Petitions were signed, both in favor and opposing the sealing of the hole we had built the community around.
The third instance shook everyone, and made national news. The next victim was not singular but many, a group of 17 to be exact. Several simultaneous 911 calls rang the following Sunday, people reporting a potential mass suicide near the church. Police arrived on scene as quickly as possible, but the reported victims were already long gone, leaving responders to look in awe at the gaping hole that seemed to radiate nothing but eerie silence.
Eyewitness testimony stated they had “tied ropes to each other and gone in single-file”. It sounded insane, but local security cam footage affirmed such a thing. Grainy footage showing the Reverend of the Hole-Church leading a small group, all bound in a continuous leash towards the wide maw of the infinite crater.
The first few went in willingly. After the fifth, there wasn’t much of a choice.
Following this incident, the government called for an executive order to block off the hole to prevent more casualties. The Church of the Hole was shut down and demolished in an attempt to prevent any worship that would result in theoretical death by falling into the hole.
The next day, a fleet of construction crews converged on the hole and began what was predicted to be a seamless and smooth operation, especially with the recent deaths. However, when the trucks reached the hole, they were met with heavy protesting. Civilians inhabiting the surrounding town had blocked all roads leading in. A case of mass hysteria had fallen over them, stating the construction team was there to harm, not help.
“The hole is here to protect us.” They said in droves, men, women, and children alike standing hand in hand to thwart the coming boundary.
Those who didn’t stand against the machines, began walking to the hole, including local law enforcement trying to break apart the mob. By the time the National Guard was called, it was estimated over forty people had willingly thrown themselves in, but it was impossible to tell exactly how many.
By the next morning, it was estimated to be in the hundreds.
Madness seemed to fall over the community by the hole, an anomaly that was now broadcast on live television. There was no feasible explanation. The world watched as not only citizens, but members of the construction crew simply put their hands at their sides, and walked towards the hole. Police officers calmly set down shields and followed, no matter how loud their peers shouted for them. Live recording of news anchors covering the event were seen setting down their microphone, and walking away from the shot, only for the camera to drop to the ground as the crew followed suit. Crying children watched their parents abandon them without a word. The National Guard mid-command would simply lower their weapon, look towards the hole, and march towards it.
They offered no reasoning, they said no prayers. Only willingly fed the hole. Some who witnessed the anomaly on television would simply get into their car and drive to the location, ignoring police roadblocks and driving around jammed traffic, all to offer themselves to the hole. Scientists scratched their heads at the madness, unable to discern what was causing people to act in such a way. When local law and fire departments of the neighboring towns and cities were exhausted, the U.S. Army was called, an action that only yielded the same results. Every road leading the ever-consuming hole was filled for miles with abandoned cars, emergency response vehicles, military trucks. Those who couldn’t find a direct route with GPS turned to crossing The Great Basin on foot, those who didn’t perish in the way fed the Hole with diligence.
Estimated loss in the ten thousands and climbing.
The President of the United States issues an executive order to evacuate and “quarantine” towns neighboring the Hole, sealing off Baker, Ely, Delta, Salt Lake City. By nightfall, Las Vegas. By morning, Nevada as a whole.
Nothing seemed to stop this “Brainwashed Death March”, the inconsolable need to feed the Hole. Single file hordes of American citizens stared blankly ahead, to throw themselves into the bottomless pit.
Government officials sweat as the world grew angry, wondering why a solution had yet to be provided. People turned off their televisions and canceled subscriptions in fear of the mind-control the Hole had over people, even avoiding radio contact. Newspaper presses ran hot with every new shred of information, new rubber-banded chaos hitting front porches every eight hours. Hiding in their homes people read of the sealing of neighboring states, too afraid to phone loved ones in Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming. Nevada goes dark entirely, California not long after.
Casualties in the millions, and unable to accurately count after. The Hole continues to consume the willing with no end in sight. The scent of death and decay carries on the wind for hundreds of miles.
An emergency meeting is called at The Millennium Summit. World Leaders warn America that if the threat isn’t neutralized immediately, the country as a whole will be bombed from existence.
Amongst the highest level of clearances, whispers are heard, and a greenlight is given. An unfinished project funded by trillions of black-budget dollars is called to action, an experimental technology of questionable purpose to be activated immediately. The only viable Hail Mary America had to save itself. The Top Secret of Top Secret.
Deep within the mountain range of Death Valley, the walls of rock began to part. Sun shined into a hangar for the first time, organic light painting a classified structure taller than four Statues of Liberty. Nearly a hundred-thousand metric tons of armor, missiles, and AI targeted weaponry. The most effective physical/cyber security money could buy.
Remote activated and AI controlled. An indestructible destroyer pulled straight from fiction, slumbering in the earth until a threat materialized dangerous enough for an excuse to use it. All without a single human being onboard.
The First Mech.
Projected rolling blackouts for months following activation. God help us all—
The government transmission was cut short as soon as they turned the key. The entire U.S. power grid lit up like a Christas tree, and fell silent. Off in the distance, all we could hear is the boot-up sequence. Like something shattering the sound barrier.
The Mech’s thrusters ignited and the colossus emerged from its home, nearly blotting out the sun in Death Valley. Its shadow carried across the land with a sense of foreboding, a deadlier sign of the end times than the Hole itself. We gave it a single mission, one it seemed to understand. For lack of a better term:
LOCATE AND NEUTRALIZE THE THREAT IN THE HOLE. NO SURVIVORS, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.
The Mech beamed back a confirmation, a signal message that read : Understood.
The world watched as the Mech flew to the Hole, progress that was watched through several live feeds of generator powered equipment. The other nation leaders got a feed as well, a last favor for their preparation if we failed.
The Mech continued its automated course until it floated directly above the Hole, shining metal and lights shining like a star. Even as it hovered above people were still found heading to it, unable to resist the mysterious pull of the crater.
It’s descent was slow but calculated. The Mech floated downward feet first, hundreds of scanners scanning the darkness below for movement. It kept lowering and lowering, until even it was swallowed by the darkness.
We tracked the Mech’s descent every step of the way, professionals scouring screen after screen of the hollow pit, trying to find the cause of the anomaly. Hundreds of Terabytes were logged and stored for future research, professionals in every field were on board to give their own theory while the world watched and waited. The mech just kept going, deeper and deeper.
After five miles, we lost visual contact.
After ten, we could no longer track it.
The only thing we could do was listen to the audio feed, and the whispers that echoed from deep below.
There was no specialist that could translate it, but it sounded horrible. A blend of screams, human and animal alike, put through a blender and thrown together. It was horrible but we listened, with some desperate hope that we could find the answer.
Until it hit twenty-three miles, and everything went dark.
We waited for hours, and heard nothing. No ground shake, no echoes of battle, so signs it had found anything down there. We hung our heads in defeat, thinking maybe it had lost power, or had a malfunction at some point.
That was, until it resurfaced an hour later. Its shiny armor was tarnished, the lights the wrong color. Something had embedded into the machine, a veiny growth of pulsing red meat plastered across the bulletproof steel and seeping into the cracks. It looked wrong, angry even.
Deep within the machine husk the gears started to turn, state-of-the-art targeting systems started to recalibrate, and weapons started to take aim. A single transmission returned to ground control, one we probably weren’t meant to receive. Right before it started flying toward us.
A confirmation of targets, hundreds of millions of them. Us.
It’s been years since I’ve been above ground. Human life has been reduced to a benign tumor, scratching around in dark tunnels with no real goal but to keep living. I won’t tell you how I know all this, because it really doesn’t matter. I’m not even sure if there’s anyone left up there to save, the sounds of the first and last mech’s annihilating spree have been silent for some time now. I don’t know what it looks like above ground, and I don’t have any plans of going up there any time soon.
I’ve come to accept this life we have now. Deep down I know we deserve it, some strange form of causality paying us back for all the bad we’ve done in the world. I’ve made amends with that. And even though I know the mech has long since powered down, either due to lack of power or targets to extinguish, I still find myself terrified.
It’s not claustrophobia that gets to me, or the fact I’ll never see the sun again. Its not that I know we’ll never rebuild what the mech took away from us, or that the husks of people around me are probably the last humans I’ll ever see.
It’s the whisper I hear in the back of my head, just when I’m about to fall asleep. The Hole calls to me, a murmuring that doesn’t make sense, but one I understand nonetheless. It wants me to go to it. It wants me to feed it. I can brush it off for now, and most times it just feels like a bad dream.
Other times, I wake up standing in front of the bulkhead.
I… I don’t know how much longer I can resist.