Most people now call it Redemption Day, that moment when the
entirety of the human species experienced something that defied all
rational and scientific explanation. Nothing about that day makes any
sense but what everyone remembers is that at 5:17pm EST on June 2nd
of 2026 Jerusalem, Tehran, and seven other cities in the Middle East
were hit with a nuclear attack.
At that very moment, I was in my kitchen washing dishes and
listening to the live news feed on my cell phone. The talking heads
doing their usual banal analysis speaking a lot of words but never
saying anything significant. That’s when I heard the host scream
and everything fell apart.
The conflict that would engulf the region in nuclear fire started
just like all the others in the past. Irrational ancient hatreds
combined with current geopolitical “realities” had once again
boiled over with the usual result of innocent civilians suffering.
This time though instead of cooler heads forcing a ceasefire there
was an accident at some level of the chain of command. Jerusalem and
Tehran got nuked with the other cities following within minutes
after.
What side pushed the button first? The simplest answer is that no
one really knows. Both Israel and Iran had been on hair trigger alert
for decades. Their jets and missiles ready for launch at the first
hint the other side was about to attack. But after years of searching
blasted command bunkers and the ruins of radioactive cities, whatever
record that existed as to who gave the order is now dust.
Where things got weird was that at 5:18 something happened
that was instantaneous no matter what part of the planet you lived
on. When reality began working again it was 5:19pm on the same day
with everyone finding themselves exactly where they were when the
news was announced.
The problem being that while no one had any memories of events
after the attacks, the entire human race somehow knew over five years
had passed. Millions around the world were unable to reconcile the
reality of the days that followed June 2nd to what subconsciously
they knew to be completely wrong. The reality was broken but humanity
had to logical way to explain what happened.
The worst of the panic eventually subsided, with most realizing
that while something with reality had gone fundamentally wrong, life
still had to go on. Especially since nine cities from Israel to Iran
were still burning with millions dead and untold millions more to
follow. National governments that at 5:17 were seconds away from
launching their own nuclear arsenals stood down and began organizing
rescue and relief efforts.
It was a drastic and for once welcome change in human behavior.
But few had the opportunity to dwell on the sudden move away from
global nuclear Armageddon because much of the Middle East was now
radioactive molten glass. More than a year would pass before there
was the barest attempt to understand Redemption Day.
Of course, the three main monotheistic religions were quick to
claim that it was their god that reset the world. That “He” was
not ready for the world to end. But strangely enough, there was none
of the insane, rigid certainty that usually dominated the more
extreme members of the three. It was as if nearly all of their
followers were suffering from a collective shock. Guilt probably
played a part in their willingness to abandon notions of jihad or
crusades.
The big three had each instigated centuries of conflict that
ultimately lead to the nuclear exchange. But the main reason all
three went silent was the purely instinctive knowledge that something
much worse had occurred and that over five years had passed before
the “reset”.
That left explanations for Redemption Day to others who offered up
answers that satisfied none.
For years some had speculated that our universe could be explained
as an unbelievably complex simulation on a god-like computer. That an
entity or entities managing the simulation didn’t want our world to
be destroyed. Of course many asked the question as to why wouldn’t
such all powerful programmers push the reset back before the first
two cities were destroyed?
Hundreds of others proposed their own ideas as to what happened.
But they all lacked any supporting evidence. But most didn’t dwell
long on finding a reason, the level of destruction was just too
great. This situation began to change at 8:21am EST on October 15th,
2031.
Within a few days of the 15th there were reports began flooding in
that people around the world were now suffering from horrific dreams
of events that took place between 2026 and 2031.
No one wanted to call them memories, first because no one had a
clear and total recollection of those missing years. But secondly,
and the most important was that in reality none of those events and
actions had ever taken place.
The dreams all had one central feature. That minutes after the
mushroom clouds erupted in the Middle East the major powers launched
their strategic arsenals resulting in a global holocaust. The common
factor in all of these dreams were individuals trying to survive in a
nightmare world where humans had abandoned any pretense of rational
and moral behavior.
As the dreams continued numerous people committed suicide. They
left notes confessing to crimes they knew they didn’t commit but
were unable to deal with the guilt and shame they felt because of
them. The strangest reactions came from those that weren’t
suffering from the nightmares. While millions around the world had
some sense of a long period of missing time, those not suffering from
the graphic nightmares were mostly unaffected by the perceived reboot
of reality.
The overall situation took another surreal turn when people began
to encounter someone in real life they knew from those bizarre
dreams. Total strangers would see each other and feel a surge of joy
and relief at being reunited with a lost loved one. While others
might see an individual and suddenly lash out in bloody revenge for
atrocities that happened during that missing time.
It was a mass mental health crisis unlike anything the human race
had ever endured. The only good thing was that as the weeks and
months passed these events began to fade. Almost as if the
subconscious feelings the dreams provoked were being overwhelmed and
washed away by real memories. As fast as the crisis began people set
about trying to try and move on with their lives. The explanation
that those affected did their best to accept was that the missing
time was just a symptom of global hysteria brought on by the nuclear
exchange on June 2nd.
I am happy for those people who in some way can sweep away or
ignore their dreams. Because while I don’t remember everything that
happened during those missing years, I clearly remember enough to
truly understand how bad things got. The phrase “the living will
envy the dead” was a sick and twisted understatement to what the
survivors endured.
Where I begin to question my sanity though is that I clearly
remember who triggered the reset. It was me, I reset the world. How
out of all the weary, sick, and tortured inhabitants of a ruined
world I came into the position to give our sorry species a second
chance, I don’t remember.
Where things become crystal clear though is that I was part of a
group trying to get to some facility in Utah. The sky was grey and
while it was midday, there was barely enough light to see. Dressed in
salvaged coats and rags, the October cold didn’t seem to have any
effect on us. We were all hungry, our bodies covered in sores and
burns. We looked more like walking skeletons than living beings.
While I can’t remember names, the group I belonged to would have
died for each other. We had a goal, a reason to continue living while
many of the survivors we encountered would just lay down and die. The
one hope of those desperate to die was for their nightmarish lives to
end before the wild dogs or feral humans reached them.
Somehow a woman in the group, her head bald from radiation and a
long, unhealed scar down the left side of her face, found the energy
to joke that we had to be the very last living humans on Earth that
held some hope for a better tomorrow. Not one of us offered any
response, humor was such an alien concept by then it was almost like
she was speaking a long dead language.
A short time later a guy in our group collapsed to the ground. I
saw him make an effort once to get back up but failed. I had to step
over my fallen colleague to get past him. I saw that he was fully
conscious but his body had reached his limit. He just gave up and was
totally silent as we left him behind.
The terrain we had to cross to reach our goal was harsh before the
holocaust. A bleak desert where mostly long haul truckers traveled
moving goods east and west. A few scattered towns could be found
along the way, their chief reason for existence being the truck stops
that offered rest and refueling to tired drivers.
At that moment during the missing time black radioactive soot fell
from the sky. We all knew that mixed in that ash were the remains of
millions of people who had been incinerated in the nuclear blasts.
During our journey in this hellscape, I remember we would see huge
piles of bones, all picked clean. It was the ultimate symbol in the
fall and disgrace of the human race.
While civilization was utterly destroyed the day of the holocaust,
humans were still social animals that needed the minimum of food and
water to survive. Barely a month after the nukes fell and while
fallout still rained down, the feral groups began to appear.
They moved like wolf packs devouring any supplies they found and
when they were exhausted, they became cannibals. Any survivors they
encountered would be consumed. Of course, the ferals were
male-dominated and attractive and uninjured women would sometimes be
offered membership in the group. But unless a male had a critical
skill the group could use, all husbands, boyfriends, fathers,
brothers would end up cooked up on an open spit. There were
absolutely no exceptions when it came to children.
Somehow my group made it to the facility we were trying to find.
That morning the group was down to three individuals, and none of us
had more than a day left before we would succumb to all the
conditions brought on by the holocaust.
The fence surrounding the facility had already been thankfully
torn down. We would not have been able to climb over what had been a
ten-foot fence topped with razor wire. Crossing over it, I happened
to glance down and see a sign that said something about it being an
agricultural research station.
Somehow we knew which of the twenty or so cinder block buildings
was our goal. Like some adventure movie, we walked into one of them
finding a door leading down to a tunnel. My companions and I at this
point did something very dangerous, we began to entertain hope.
The underground complex we found was a maze and it took hours
searching for something that was supposed to save the world. The two
others in my group, exhausted and by now delirious, found medical
stretchers in a lab, crawled on top of them and went to sleep. They
both promised me they would begin searching again after a period of
rest. We all knew that was a lie, they would never leave that lab.
I have no idea what pushed me, but I continued still not having
any idea what I was looking for. Through the exhaustion and despair,
I had enough energy to feel like an utter fool. The world had ended
and humanity was on the fast track to extinction. And here I was
spending my last few hours of life and a post-doomsday wild goose
chase.
About to give up, that’s when I felt the vibration. The complex
still had enough power to provide emergency lighting so I pushed
deeper into the maze. Curiosity and that spark of stupid hope giving
me the will not to fall to the concrete floor and die. The tunnels
were actually warm, so much that I had to shed my coat and some of
the rags I was wearing.
I traced the vibration to another room, clearly a laboratory
filled with complex devices that defied any explanation. In the
center of that room was a square glass display case with what looked
like a metal sphere about the size of a volleyball floating in the
middle of the cube. Traces of light ran along the surface of the
sphere. The patterns looking similar to blood vessels on the human
body. Which I somehow knew to be signs of conscious thought. I also
knew deep down that this thing was scanning my mind.
It saw all the horrendous things I had done in the five years
since the holocaust. Shame and guilt had died that day with me
determined to live, but I felt those emotions again. As this happened
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the display case glass. My
face was scared, and under the remaining rags I wore I saw tattoo
marks on my arm. They were marks that ferals wore to signify the
number of people they had butchered for their group. I saw at least
thirty, and somehow even now I remember the faces of each of those
men, women, and children.
What I don’t remember is what caused me to abandon the cannibals
and join the group looking for the facility. Because if you became a
feral, they would never let you leave. Those that tried ended up on
the spit. Few ever attempted because by the time a person became a
feral they had become so debased that the bloody rituals and
abandonment of individual thought and reason was a welcome release
from the waking nightmare.
But the strange artifact forgave me. It told me that it was almost
as old as the universe itself and that human barbarity, while
terrible, couldn't compare to what it had seen over the eons. And in
a way that surpassed all the other bizarre and unspeakable events
since June 2nd in that reality, the sphere sang to me. The music was
the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced. No human could ever
create something so profound. The sphere could have been an angel for
all I knew.
For most of my life I had never believed in a human soul. But as
the sphere roamed around in the dark and terrible places in my mind,
it found the broken pieces and stitched them back together.
With my mind and spirit somewhat mended, I began begging the
sphere to help humanity. The thought was barely formed when I found
myself back home knowing it was 5:19pm EST on June 2nd, 2026.
I was laying on my kitchen floor listening to the people on the
news feed now asking each other what the hell happened. News of the
nuclear exchange now superseded by something exponentially stranger.
The thing that scared me the most was that my body felt normal. I
rushed to the bathroom to look in the mirror and all I saw was a
person healthy with no scars or burns. The memories of the missing
time were fading fast with the pieces not returning until October.
But before they left completely, I looked down at my right forearm
expecting to see something that somehow would make me a monster.
I can’t describe the feeling of looking down at my forearm, and
as expected, finding nothing.
Epilogue:
Ten years have passed since Redemption Day, and despite everything
the human race endured and experienced, the world is again slowly
moving back towards the nuclear abyss. It’s human nature I guess,
we’re a fatally flawed species that on some level wants extinction.
I never offered my story to any of the chroniclers that
universities and governments dispatched to try and figure out what
happened. Frankly, there are already Missing Time Deniers who say the
dreams were nothing but a global mass hysteria brought on by the
nuclear war between Israel and Iran.
I also went into hiding after reading stories about individuals
seeing someone from their missing time dreams and taking revenge. The
faces of the thirty individuals I slaughtered while I was a feral
have never left me. Call me a coward and self-serving, but I was the
reason the world reset and was given a second chance. I want to enjoy
the life I have because I understand how badly things can get.
But curiosity did eventually get the best of me, and I traveled to
the site where the sphere was kept. I wanted to see if I felt its
presence. You dear reader can’t imagine my surprise having arrived
at the exact site where the station existed in the missing time and
finding nothing. There was nothing to suggest that any facility or
building ever existed on that site. For as far as my eyes could see
it was all flat, empty desert.
That brings me to the sphere itself. What was it? Alien being or
alien device? Or did the sphere come from someplace other than the
universe we understand. The one thing I know for certain, it was not
of human origin. The music it sang to me to restore my humanity could
never have been produced by us naked, insane primates. What then?
Supernatural, I have no idea.
The one thing I’m
sure of is that it is gone and if humans have a second holocaust
we’ll be completely on our own.
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