Blue sky radiated peacefully on the world below; the warm, comforting light dodging clouds to reach the ground.  The denizens of the cities bustled hurriedly along their paths, their streets, their sidewalks, unyielding in their respective quests.  Every man and woman, every person possessed what they believed to be a significant purpose.  There was a reason for everything they did.  There was order, there was structure, there was ease; it was life as they knew it.  The dark clouds slowly passed across the sun’s field of radiance, blocking the light from cascading the ground in its bright gaze.  The sky darkened dramatically as a result, seemingly without warning.  Many people stopped their actions.  Men, women, children, they all stared innocently at the sky, unaware of the change that had occurred.  They tilted their heads, squinted their eyes, and stood gawking with their mouths open; there were a thousand different expressions all proposing the same question: What?

The clouds passed, revealing a sky that was no longer blue.  All familiarity had become extinct, as the heavens had changed into a sea of pale red.  Like a faint light in a sandstorm, the sun sparkled through the red sheet.  Everything seemed covered in shadow; the overhanging clouds cast their darkened veils over the city and the black silhouettes of the people, still awestricken, seemed to reach ever further with each passing moment.  What?

The citizens noticed them then.  Thousands of them like stars in the red sky, thousands of fiery orbs plummeting towards them.  Eyes widening, the people struggled to identify the objects.  Were they getting closer?  How large were they?  How quickly were they approaching?  The objects were like a hundred-thousand miniscule suns, all careening towards the people at a serene, almost leisurely pace.  

No sound.

Then there was pain.  Their eyes watered, burned and itched.  Pain.  A few began to scream.  No sound.  A face contorted, its mouth widening in unfathomable anguish, the tongue writhing around like a slug anchored by one end to the ground.  Pain.  No sound.  Their eyes hurt with a stabbing pain unlike anything they had ever felt, then began to split slowly from the iris outwards, a white ooze slowly dripping from the newly opened slit.  Everyone screamed in agony.  No sound.  Death without the grave, demise without the death.  Pain.
 
Papers, purses, briefcases, wallets all hit the ground as the people unconsciously refused to hold them anymore.  With their feet firmly locked in place, the inhabitants of the world all stood: screaming and sightless with every muscle tense.  No sound.  Man, woman and child all stood, powerless and tortured.  The fireballs had reached their destination, crashing into the earth.  A loud shriek ripped through the silent atmosphere and the objects impacted with force enough to tear the world in two.  In the very moment of the impact, time stopped.  The pain went away and the sight had returned.  The people remained ever motionless.  A voice spoke to them as they stared wide-eyed at the ominous shape that had collided with their world.  The voice was barely a whisper, yet intensely deep; distant yet looming; soft yet dangerously malicious.  

“Time is the escape.  There is no escape.”

An instant had passed, and in that same moment, time resumed its initial pace.  Blinded, pained and shrieking once again, all the sound in the world screamed fatally in their ear as the world was consumed by flame, destroyed by pain and vanquished through torture.

-The television set’s static lines rippled rhythmically down the screen as its viewer silently watched, stunned.  Every channel, every station, every language was broadcasting the same thing.  All the viewer could ask was simple yet intricate at the same time: What?

No sound.