Jill

16

The sun rose and everything fell. Societies, civilizations, infrastructure. As the great orb of celestial light climbed toward its zenith in the sky, the empire of humanity crumbled into ruins, leaving only a few desperate souls to fend for themselves among the decaying abyss.
Alex woke up to the sound of his alarm and, more distantly, the sound of feral dogs ripping apart sinners in the street.
“Boy, I sure am glad I shared that Share If You Love Jesus Ignore if You Want Bad Luck Forever post last week,” Alex thought to himself, casually brushing his teeth as lava rained from the sky.
“I mean, who would’ve thought that the only ones spared from eternal damnation are those who consistently shared every social media post they saw that threatened bad luck?” he mused, fondly reminiscing about a grainy image of starving African children encaptioned “1 like = 1 prayer share or die” that he retweeted one fine summer’s day in 2011.
Alex picked out one of his pairs of plaid cargo shorts to go with his bright red JanSport® T-shirt. Casually grabbing a box of cereal from his desk, he walked through his dark, empty house. He missed his family sometimes, but he knew that if they really cared about their own survival, they would've taken social media a little more seriously.
In the week since the apocalypse set in, Alex had begun to think about his life. He wondered what his future would look like, and how many others were spared from total destruction like he was. He considered his new role in restoring humanity as he watched the falling brimstone blanket the streets outside his house. He had eaten 12 bags of Doritos in the past 3 days.
Alex considered going outside to see if anyone else were alive, and working to form a new society, to restore order unto the dying Earth, but he pulled out his phone instead.
“Ha! I have all the time in the world!” he remarked, to no one.
Disappointed in his lack of social media notifications, Alex rolled his eyes. “God, why did all my followers have to die in a fiery inferno? Sharing pictures isn’t even that hard” he mumbled, scrolling through his Facebook feed.
Alex remained this way for hours, sitting on his couch, scouring Facebook, mindlessly devouring cocoa puff after cocoa puff, when suddenly, a picture appeared on his screen. It was a watermarked clip-art drawing of a shooting star.
Someone had captioned it “This is a shooting star! share 2 make a wish & ur dreams will come tru!!1! scroll past and regret it 4evr!”
Alex knew what to do. It was just like a thousand other posts he had seen a thousand other times. But As he moved his finger toward the “share” button, there was a loud crack of thunder in the sky. Alex jumped, and his finger hit the “newsfeed” button instead. The page refreshed and scrolled to the top.

“NOOOOOOO!” Alex cried. He had scrolled past the post without sharing it. It had disappeared into the endless stream of images and statuses that filled his phone’s small screen.
“NONONONNO-” he repeated, desperately thumbing his way through the facebook app, trying to find the post again, but it was too late. The thunder grew louder and the house began to shake.
“PLEASE!” Alex called out. “IT WASN”T MY FAULT!” but the thunder continued to grow. He could hear screams now, inhuman, rising all around him, and he fell to his knees, cocoa puffs flying in all directions, as the earth shifted and rocked below him.
Suddenly, everything went silent, and the house was still. Alex looked around himself, sobbing, trying to collect what was happening. He rose slowly from his knees when he heard it.
3 loud knocks at his door.
Alex felt the hairs on his neck stand up as he turned to face the door. He swallowed.
3 more knocks, louder this time.
Alex began to walk, slowly, toward the knocks.
3 more knocks, and the door began to shake, its hinges rattling.
Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.