Like any other day, the family headed home fully loaded. Everyone's belly was bulging, meaning we could probably slack off and sleep for the next two or three days.
I fell into a deep sleep, serenaded by the thunderous snoring of Mom and Dad.
As night fell and the cave went pitch black, the dreams started again. It was another replay of the Quaternary extinction event.
Three days ago it was rising temps and melting glaciers;
two days ago, a super-plague;
yesterday, humans on the warpath.
What's on the menu tonight? A zombie apocalypse?
For some reason, my mind stayed sharp even while I was dreaming. I could feel myself mentally rolling my eyes at the cliché of it all. But I couldn't wake up. I was stuck like a spectator in a IMAX movie I didn't pay for.
I looked around. Thick, ink-black clouds were rolling across the horizon, choking out the sky until not a single ray of sun could break through.
What is this? The end of the world?
It was so dark that even with my cat eyes, everything was a blur. And then, in that dead silence...
CRACK!!
A bolt of lightning, tinged with a bloody red hue, ripped the sky in half. For a split second, the entire world was bathed in a violent, blinding light.
In that flash, I saw it—a massive, fiery cloud hanging over the distant horizon. When the lightning faded, that glowing red streak was the only thing left in the darkness.
BOOM—BOOM—
A roar like a thousand cannons shook the earth. It looked like a second sun had been kicked out of orbit and was hurtling straight for us. The scale of it was terrifying.
What... is that? A meteor?
As it got closer, I saw the tail. It wasn't just a rock; it was a massive comet.
A heavy sense of helplessness washed over me. You realize pretty quick how small you are when nature decides to throw a temper tantrum. Every living thing in North America must have been looking up at that same red streak. They didn't know what it was, but the panic was universal. Animals started bolted, running blindly into the dark.
The red streak crawled across the sky, dropping lower and lower until it aimed for a corner of the continent. My heart felt like it had been grabbed by a fist.
BOOM—
The world went white, then instantly black.
Total silence followed, but my eardrums and my brain felt like they were being put through a blender. I don't know how long I was out—blind, deaf, and senseless—but when I finally 'came to' in the dream, the scene was a nightmare.
The comet hadn't even hit the ground before it vaporized. The heat was so intense it turned massive chunks of the ocean and glaciers into steam instantly.
A tsunami hundreds of feet high swept across the plains, swallowing everything. A magnitude 12 earthquake literally tore the land apart. Volcanoes blew their tops, vomiting ash until the sky was a permanent gray shroud.
Wildfires raced through the forests, turning every tree and animal into charcoal. Every natural disaster you could name was happening at the exact same time.
"Nuclear winter..." I whispered.
That's exactly what it looked like. The ash blocked the sun, and the temperature plummeted into a deep, killing freeze. Without sunlight, the plants died. Without plants, the oxygen thinned out. The herbivores starved first, and the predators followed them into the dirt soon after.
It was a total system crash. The end of the line.
"Roar—"
I snapped awake, gasping for air.
I looked around the cave. Everything was normal. Mom and Dad were still snoring. I leaned back and tried to slow my breathing.
It came back to me then. That wasn't just a random dream; it was the Younger Dryas impact. About 13,000 years ago, a comet broke up over North America, triggering a 1,000-year cold snap that wiped out the megafauna—and probably the Clovis people too.
"This sucks," I muttered. "The curse of knowledge is real."
The curse is simple: once you know something, you can't imagine what it was like not to know it. Now, every night is a reminder of the extinction event waiting for us. I don't know the exact day or year it's coming, but it feels close. Like it could happen tomorrow. Or five minutes from now.
Living with that hanging over my head was exhausting.
I stared out at the stars for a long time, watching them twinkle through the mouth of the cave. Eventually, I forced myself to chill out.
Why stress? What happens, happens. You can't outrun a comet.
Climate change, plagues, human hunters, space rocks... the future is definitely "colorful." If I actually live to see the end of the world, at least I'll know if the scientists in future were right.
"Whatever. Staying alive today is hard enough."
I shook the thoughts out of my head, curled up, and went back to sleep.