Five Minutes Remaining

The air smelled burnt long before the sky changed.

Nobody in the town spoke normally anymore. Voices had become whispers. Doors slammed shut faster. People carried sacks of clothes and bottles of water through the streets as if they were preparing for war, but no one actually knew what was coming.

Some said it was a flood.

Some said fire.

Others said the government had hidden something from everyone for years and that tonight it would finally reach us.

Whatever it was, fear had already arrived first.

Inside our house, the fans spun lazily against the heavy heat while my father sat on a chair near the doorway, wrapping a band around his leg. Years ago, he had torn a ligament, and even now he exercised it every morning and evening like he was fighting against time itself.

“Pack only what matters,” my mother kept saying.

But nobody knew what mattered anymore.

Jewelry?

Food?

Documents?

Memories?

I stood near the gate and looked at the street. Every house was alive with panic. People moved like ants before rain.

Then someone screamed.

Not loudly.

Just enough to make everyone look up.

The sky had begun to burn.

A black-brown cloud stretched across the horizon like a giant sheet of paper curling in fire. Its edges glowed faintly red beneath layers of smoke. It moved slowly, unnaturally, swallowing the evening light piece by piece.

For one terrible second, the entire town froze.

I remember thinking:

This is what dying feels like before death actually comes.

Then every phone in the street vibrated together.

An emergency alert.

Thirty minutes remaining. Evacuate immediately.

My brother grabbed the cycle before the notification even disappeared. I climbed on behind him while our cousin rode ahead on another bicycle, weaving through terrified crowds.

The roads were chaos.

Children crying.

Dogs barking.

Shop shutters half-open.

People dragging bags bigger than themselves.

Nobody looked at each other for long.

Fear had made strangers dangerous.

As we turned near the market in front of our house, a man wearing enormous black glasses walked past us. His clothes were dark, almost blending into the smoke-filled evening.

He smirked at me.

“Where are you going with your boyfriend?”

My chest burned with anger.

“He’s my brother, idiot!”

The man laughed softly and kept walking.

Something about him felt wrong.

Not drunk.

Not crazy.

Just empty.

We returned home minutes later after realizing we had forgotten supplies. The market was louder now, flooded with desperate people buying whatever remained on the shelves.

My mother stood near the shopkeeper arguing over batteries. My sister held onto my aunt’s arm tightly while my father leaned against a wall, exhausted but pretending not to be.

And then we heard crying.

From somewhere left of the market.

A young girl and her mother were hiding between two closed shops. The girl’s sobs were uncontrollable, sharp enough to cut through the noise around us.

People noticed.

But nobody moved.

That was the worst part of the dream.

Not the sky.

Not the warning.

The silence of everyone else.

A bike engine suddenly growled behind us.

A man dressed entirely in black stopped near the road. Black jacket. Black pants. Black helmet hiding his face.

Slowly, he removed the helmet.

My stomach dropped.

The glasses.

The same man.

He pulled a gun from his jacket.

For a horrifying second, I thought he had come for me.

But he walked past us.

Straight toward the crying sounds.

Nobody stopped him.

Nobody even spoke.

The market had become a graveyard filled with living people.

I grabbed the small child standing near us and pulled her against me instinctively as my family backed away toward home.

Then a gunshot cracked through the air.

One shot.

The crying stopped instantly.

My ears rang.

The man walked back through the market calmly, holding the helmet under one arm. His eyes moved across every face slowly, almost curiously, as if memorizing who had watched.

Who had stayed silent.

When his eyes met mine, my entire body locked with fear.

Then he smiled faintly and disappeared into the smoke.

We ran home and slammed the gate shut.

Inside, nobody spoke.

Outside, the town sounded like it was collapsing.

Phones buzzed again.

Five minutes remaining.

LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT PART 2