The Holocaust

After the holocaust, there was nothing. The world had come to an abrupt halt. Three and a half billions years of evolutional life just stopped by a mere few seconds and some over zealous politicians. The sixth and final mass extinction was finally triggered on Saturday March the 22^nd 2098, sometime around noon.

From point of impact, it all started with a dazzlingly bright white light, extremely intense searing heat from an expanding central rising fireball, a coherent electromagnetic pulse producing massive surges of energy, all quickly followed by the intense gamma radiation. Flash burns and blinding light formed by a vast thermal pulse instantly vaporized and started multiple fires. Firestorms raged as columns of hot gasses rose on the updraft of the blast wave generated from the four hundred mile an hour hurricane force winds. A vertical updraft forced the mushroom cloud of dust fused radioactive fission products and smoke to rise high into the sky, later returning to earth as local radioactive fallout distributed downwind emitting deadly gamma rays. The troposphere filled with intermediate fallout creating rapid global circulation of the gamma radiation. The day rapidly darkened to night as the atmosphere became obscured by the vast amounts of dust and soot thrown into the air creating global fallout in the stratosphere obscuring the sun, moon, and stars. The temperature fell as the presence of the sun was blocked and without sunlight and rainfall, the world turned over the nuclear winter solstice.

Luckily for mankind it was spared the ulceration of the skin caused by the Beta emitting radiation, damage to the retinas, corneas, skin cancer or immunosuppression all brought about by the ultraviolet radiation, the nausea, vomiting, hair and tooth loss, bone marrow depression, secondary haemorrhaging of the mouth, nose, lungs and bladder and boiling of internal organs.

Everyone was either instantly incinerated, vaporized or carbonized by the magnitude of the force that was let loose on the planet. Every living thing was gone in a slight blink of an eye.

Everyone seemed to expect that civilisation would be destroyed during a nuclear holocaust but the end had been slightly unexpected, not the fact that the world had come to and end, just the way it had all come about. The inevitability of it was enforced by the leading powers unwavering need to fight the threat of weapons of mass destruction by creating more deadly weapons of mass destruction.

It had been a Holocaust in all the true meanings of the word. A wholesale destruction and slaughter, annihilation, bloodbath, carnage, destruction, mass murder, devastation, extermination, genocide, and massacre. All in the instant of a second.

Almost a hundred years had past since America had started waging its war on terrorism and every American administration since had continued its unwavering fight against the enemy of the free world.

Contrary to the Americans popular belief, every act of counter terrorism did nothing more than spur more extreme separatists groups with a vehement hatred of America and the western world. Fundamentalist groups spread around the globe making it harder for them to be tracked and eliminated.

Eventually after many years of tit for tat strikes and counter strikes, the terrorist factions put aside any dislike for each other and united behind a common hatred of America.

On Monday, September 11^th of the year 2090, no less than seventy separate terrorist organisations took responsibility for over one hundred targeted attacks across the world. The following response was emphatic, every military personnel were pressed into service as a wide reaching and united campaign was initiated.

Unfortunately, years of a Vietnam style standoff ensued as the war was fought in inhospitable places and the armies were spread too thinly on the ground. America found that it had too many fronts to fight on and an ever-dwindling supply of allies.

Technological advances meant that technology had started cancelling itself out. Anything the modern army had in its vast arsenal, could be easily counteracted by anything the modern terrorist was capable of putting their hands on. The bravery of being out of range was no longer an approach that could be used in modern warfare; everything was up close and personal.

Finally, after years of burying their own, the Allies looked as if they were finally making a breakthrough and about to put and end to World War III when seemingly out of nowhere the first set of nuclear weapons were launched. The response was immediate. The Star Wars National Missile Defence System targeted the incoming warheads but failed miserably missing the intended targets before finally taking out some cities across Europe. Every nuclear nation pressed the panic button and within seconds, it all came to an end.

The surface of the planet was now formless and desolate, bleak and uninhabited. The water that once covered almost seventy percent of the planet was practically gone. The immense mountain ranges that helped define shape and interest were now all but flattened as the surface had been robbed of all texture, reducing the planet back to a lifeless dull dark sphere floating in a void of space.

Two tall, thin, ashen bipod shapes stood motionless on a floating platform as the surveyed the landscape afore them. In the skies surrounding their podium, huge construction ships floated, poised to start work.

Jerle turned to look at his colleague. “It seems you were right again, this time it only took a million of their years for them to evolve and put an end to three billions years of development.”

Kar laughed. “You still don’t seem to get it. I’m telling you that there is something in those atoms that will eventually evolve into destruction. We have been studying them for months now and every experiment ends with the same result. I think the conclusions we have to draw are that this substance is too unstable to use in any further developments. I think we should recommend that the company drop the compound from their list of authorised life initiating materials. There are only five planets that were developed in this way; we should attempt to find a cure for their upcoming problems.”

“You don’t think it could be the acceleration agent that is interfering with the tests?” Jerle asked.

“No, we have tried it with other compounds and not witnessed any adverse side effects. It’s a shame though Jerle, I liked watching these experiments, they were fun. How about one more for the road?”

“Yes, why not— how long do you think it will take this time?”

“About two weeks.”

“How long is that for them again?”

“About two billion man years.”

Jerle turned to the waiting contractors and talked into his communicator. “Let there be light…” the ships started to move and there was light. Jerle was happy with what he saw.