Orion

17

The sun rose and everything fell.
Of course, that’s normal with solar flares, right? Whoever chose the sun over a couple million fluorescent lights must have been alright with it. Or, he could’ve just been a lazy cheapskate. He must’ve thought, ‘Why should I pay more for a bunch of lightbulbs that I’ll have to install, when I can get a giant nuclear fireball? It’s far away enough that it won’t hurt me.’ We can’t verify that, though. The guy got skin cancer.
What we do know is that this was a particularly bad day to be Alex. Alex, you see, is a gamer. At age 38, most would say Alex doesn’t seem much to look at. At 483 pounds, I’d say there’s a whole lot to look at. Of course, I can only see the back of his head from the window in his dad’s basement, so what do I know?
Anyway, the sun had it in for Alex. Alex, however, thought the sun was a myth, part of some fantasy about something his crazy dad called the ‘Outdoors’. But, since the sun had long found out that it couldn’t bake Alex down to 150 pounds, it decided it would go for something a little easier: the power grid. So, the sun used enough nuclear power to make the U.S. and Russia jealous, just to blast a bunch of hot air at the Earth. Alex simply yelled at his to turn the A/C down. Which his father did, out of fear that his son may eat him. Or sit on him. With Alex’s insulation properly chilled, he promptly returned to what he did best, pretending he was running around firing machine guns at everything that moved, while yelling at eight-year-olds on his headset, telling them how bad they were at virtual slaughter, and receiving retorts that he was a ‘hacker’. I know that wasn’t true, because the only two things Alex touched were the Cheetos and his controller. Just as he began his familiar rant on how the accuser needed to ‘get a life, maybe a job’ the solar flare managed to hit the power grid. The resulting surge knocked power out of everything, and sparks flew from Alex’s Xbox, electrifying the Cheeto dust in the air. Alex watched in wide eyed (and wide-loaded) horror as the screen faded to black, tearing him from his reality. He heard a window crash above him, and his father’s voice trailing, “No power! I’m free! Free!”
Alex’s body trembled like jello on a jackhammer as he realized the screen wasn’t coming back on. He would have to survive in a harsh new world, a real world with no cheat codes or healing potions. His primal survival instincts kicked in, and after six tries, he got off the couch. Trembling with fear at what lay beyond that door, and not being used to actually using his legs, or any part of his body, Alex walked made his way up the steps toward the door. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.