The Great Switch-Off

There were only 3 of us left – the only three left alive in the world.

Standing in the middle of the street and surrounded by lifeless bodies, I looked over my shoulder at Derek, running his hands through his hair in frustration. We had been running across the city all day in search for another walking soul, but in vain. The only people left alive were us.

Shoulders slumped, we slid down the wall in defeat. There was no point.

—

It all started in the morning when the three of us woke up in Derek’s room, still hungover from the party last night – to an eerie silence. No dogs barking or children rushing to get to the school bus. If not for the blazing sun above our heads, I would’ve sworn we had woken in the middle of the night.

As we walked outside, the nightmare was just beginning.

We saw a man slumped forward awkwardly – a copy of the New York Times slipping out of his hands – and Sophie walked over.

“Ahhh! He-isn’t-breathing!” she shrieked.

I walked over to take a look at him while Derek moved to search for help. There he noticed the local addict – cigarette still in hand – and shook his head grimly.

Not. Breathing.

Goosebumps flooded my bare arms as we all ran in different directions in search of living humans. Yet, we all reached the same conclusion – we were surrounded by dead, lifeless bodies.

Confused and scared, my hands shivered as I reached my phone to dial 911

The silence that met me was deafening.

As we walked, we found ourselves counting the dead. It had become second-nature – serving as a curtain to our awareness. When we reached a girl who had collapsed in her own balcony, Derek screamed – “It’s the plague! It’s coming for us!”

Seeing my soulmate in so much agony only twisted the knife in my heart.

“No…” Sophie reasoned sadly, “If it were the plague, it wouldn’t have killed us all together.” Yet, there were no signs of any struggle or anyone rushing to the others’ help. It was as though everyone had simply lost the energy to live.

“But that begs the question, though. What happened?” I whispered.

—

Walking about the city, we saw more clearly the effect of the Great Switch-Off (as we agreed to call it). Cars crashed into each other as their drivers fell, in a myriad of smashed metal and human flesh as blood continued to drip out of them. We soon found ourselves tip-toeing to avoid stepping on the fallen bodies.

The sun was setting when we reached Central Park – a place that held so many of our cherished memories and where we had spent the best part of our lives. Walking past our bench, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Staring back at me with a smile still etched on their faces were three lifeless bodies – Us.

– Srishti Goel, Fresher, EEE Department.

_{Srishti is a Fresher from the EEE department at IITG, who loves to hear and tell stories (and what is science if not a story of the world around us?). Through the above piece, she calls on the readers to fill their own blanks about what they feel was going on all along, because that’s where the fun lies, isn’t it? Srishti can be found on Instagram.}