What if the world ended? - Episode 3

What If the World Ended… But No One Told You?

No sirens. No headlines. Just silence.

It didn't happen all at once. That’s the part no one talks about when they imagine the end.

There was no flash in the sky. No missiles. No global countdown. The power didn’t even go out right away. Things just… slowed.

The coffee shop on the corner closed for “maintenance” one Monday and never reopened. The grocery store started running out of small things first—salt, peanut butter, batteries. At first, you shrugged it off. Supply chain stuff, maybe. It was happening everywhere, after all.

Then the buses stopped running. No announcement. No press release. You just waited at the stop one day and nothing came.

You Still Went to Work

Because what else would you do? Your phone still turned on. Your job still paid you. So you kept showing up. Even as more desks emptied out. Even as the lights flickered more often than they used to. Even as your manager’s emails turned into copy-paste boilerplate.

Eventually, there wasn’t even a locked door at the office—just an absence. No security. No explanation. No one left to tell you why.

The News Stopped Trying

At some point, the anchors stopped smiling. The stories got shorter. Then there were only reruns. Then nothing.

You’d think that would spark panic. But most people didn’t notice. They were too busy scrolling the same recycled outrage. The same doom-loop of updates without action.

When the apps stopped updating altogether, that’s when it hit you:
There’s no one left to update them.

No Alarms. No Closure. Just Decay

You kept expecting something dramatic—a presidential address, a riot, a blackout, a final warning. But it never came.

Instead, the end unfolded like dust settling on a room you forgot to clean.
Quiet. Inevitable. Easy to ignore until it was too late.

People didn’t run to bunkers. They didn’t fight in the streets. They just… stopped going outside. Stopped checking in. One by one, doors stayed shut. Streets emptied. Dogs went unwalked. Cars sat idle, dust collecting on the windshields.

The end wasn’t an event. It was a lack of one.

Would You Notice?

That’s the uncomfortable question.
If everything fell apart quietly—without the spectacle, without the permission of a breaking-news chyron—would you even realize?

Would you trust your instincts… or wait for someone to make it official?

And when no one did, would you keep showing up? Keep living like the system still worked, even after the bones started showing through the skin?

Maybe the end of the world doesn’t come with a bang.
Maybe it just stops calling you back.

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