The promised day had come. Armageddon, the apocalypse, the end of the world as they knew it. There was no how or why, the world was going to end and everyone knew it. Most blamed terrorism: a few of behind on the times global warming.

And as the world prayed until the last, fated day, when it was at the last hour of the last few minutes, a spaceship appeared out of nowhere.

Sadly, it also disapproved all conventional rules of quantum physics light-travel spaceship theory as it was quite round, and quite, awkwardly, saucer-shaped, complete with square glossy submarine-windows, flashing lights and lasers: apparently the inventors needed to polish up their industrial design. Definitely not the conventional Noah's Ark.

Toby was only one of several others who had been called towards the ship, who had poked their heads out their doors, shuffled out towards the sidewalks to sleepily wait for one last chance for help. Everyone simply stood in odd, isolated gaps, looking upwards, silent, expecting. Somehow befitting of the situation, all of them were dressed in rather familiar uniforms: he could have sworn he recognized that dirty blonde kid dressed in neon-blue trimmed outfit somewhere...

A strange beam of light emitted down from the spaceship and yet, noone was surprised. Noone was even surprised when the purple-haired alien and their more feminine oranged-haired accomplice stepped out. Why said taller alien lit up a smoke was beyond Toby at this point.

"All right, we're leaving." said the cigarette-smoking purple-haired alien. "And no, we're not taking you with us."

"Oh," but the orange-haired one cooed, "But can't we just take a couple they would be so adorable..."

"No ******** humans. Period."

There was an awkward moment of silence as everyone just stared, shuffled awkwardly.

Said alien didn't seem to notice. He discarded the remainder of his cigarette on the ground, grinding it to the floor with well-polished shoes. "Don't feel so glum. You still have thirty seconds." The spaceship was gone.

Stunned silence. Then people started yammering all at once: thirty seconds, they had thirty seconds. What on earth could he do in thirty seconds: he couldn't even think, couldn't even breathe, oh god, it took just two seconds to inhale, oh god oh god, he was wasting every second it was going to be over, he was too young to die-

- And as he woke up in one gasping breath, eyes still darting back and forth in panic, hands clenched to his bedsheet, he was still ticking down the seconds. Second.

Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven...

It was hard to tell if he was alive or dead if the whole world was just as silent.