“It’s over,” Leo said, his voice raw. “The apocalypse isn’t a party. It’s not a rave. It’s not a metaphor. It’s the end. And we are standing in the middle of it, pretending to have fun because we’re too scared to face the fact that we’re already dead.”
“Hello to you too,” he whispered to no one. To everyone.
He took the bottle but didn’t drink. “Look up, Mira.”
The countdown hit zero three hours ago. Not to the end of the world—but to the end of the party. Apocalypse Partys Over-HI2U
Inside, the bass was still thumping.
It had caught them three days ago. They just refused to notice.
The shockwave hit then—not as a blast, but as a long, deep groan, like the earth itself was sighing. The building swayed. Glasses shattered. People held onto each other not for pleasure, but for balance. “It’s over,” Leo said, his voice raw
Then he turned off the lights.
“I’m tired of pretending,” Leo said.
A girl with glitter smeared across her cheekbones stumbled out onto the balcony. Her name was Mira. She was holding two half-empty bottles of something expensive. Her eyes were wide, not with fear, but with the manic glow of someone who had decided that terror was boring. It’s not a metaphor
“So what? We go inside, we dance faster. We make out with strangers. We pretend.”
“Leo,” she slurred, handing him a bottle. “You look like a funeral. The party’s not over.”
A man in a tuxedo laughed, a hollow, breaking sound. “What do you want us to do? Cry? Pray?”
The room gasped. People froze mid-grind, mid-laugh, mid-kiss. The silence was absolute, save for the distant, low rumble of the shockwave still making its way across the continent.
But at least they stopped pretending the party was the point.