Celebration

Celebration

I had no idea what I’d walked into, and I was a little afraid to find out. I wasn’t given the chance to ease into it, however; the moment I crossed the threshold, I was handed a noisemaker and a red, plastic cup full of strong alcohol.

“PAR-TEEEEEEE!” someone shrieked from across the large, packed room. The bass was thumping, and soon my heartbeat matched it perfectly. The mass of humanity swayed with the rhythm of the song, and I was pulled right to the center.

“What’s going on?” I yelled over the music to the person nearest me. She looked me up and down, rolled her eyes, and pointed with a long, talon-like fingernail to the large, digital clock on the wall.

“The world’s gonna end at midnight,” she yelled back. “We’re all gonna die anyway, so we’re going out with a bang. Literally.”

“Literally?”

“Literally. There’s a bomb in the basement.”

My heart stopped in my chest. “A bomb?” I repeated. “But..but we’ll die!”

“That’s kind of the idea,” she said, rolling her eyes again as she walked away. I stared after her, jaws agape. I wasn’t ready to give up, but there was no time to make any other decision. The oxygen reserves were depleted, and the artificial sun on Planet XC423 was dead. Time had never been on our side. Not when the first explorers landed, and certainly not now.

The clock read 23:57.

Sumayyah Talibah © 20 October 2017