Apocalyptia

By Alyssa Hubbard

A star. It hadn't been a war, a government takeover, or even an earthly disaster. It was a star that had ended the world, with Crystal right at the heart of it, and all that stood between her and instant death was a desk.

Her chances at survival were slim, but she did it. Despite her luck, the world did not receive the same fate. With a man she's only just met, Crystal must continue to survive. Determined to reinstate her old way of life, Crystal must come to terms with more than just physical loss, but the chance of losing herself in the process.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alyssa Hubbard
• Release date: Nov 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310157585

Alyssa Hubbard

Alyssa Hubbard is author to Humans and Their Creations, An Austrian March, and the Apocalyptia series. Her poetry has been featured in Crack the Spine and scissors & spackle. She was born in a small town in Alabama, where she spent more time writing and reading than playing outside. Her sister is a two-time cancer survivor, and she is her greatest inspiration. She attends the University of Alabama for a BA in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Alyssa spends most of her time reading, writing, re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing, and re-writing... She loves blogging and singing in public. Follow her if you dare.

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Apocalyptia

by Alyssa Hubbard

Copyright © 2013 Alyssa Hubbard

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781310157585

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this, once again, to my brother and sister. Without them, all I could ask of this world, is,

Does it really matter?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I, once again, am honored to have a cover by Jessica Richardson of Cover Bistro, and also to have this book edited by the fabulous Kelly Lynn Thomas. Thank you both for all your help and hard work. I couldn’t have achieved any of this without you two.

CHAPTER 1

Crystal never saw it coming. Sure, every religious venue and church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had been talking about it, but she wasn't devout. She didn't go to church every Sunday or read the Bible every day before she went to bed, but she did believe there was more than just her world. Regardless, when the churches began their uproars about the coming of the savior and the rapture, Crystal would be a liar if she said that she hadn’t turned a deaf ear to their voices. It was just all too much to believe. Besides, how could a human being know something like that? Maybe she was right, but maybe she was wrong, too.

It wasn't until August that the news on the rising tension over what the state of the world actually was began to pick up. Scientists with names Crystal had never heard before were coming on television and discussing the odd frequency of meteors breaking through the layers of Earth's atmosphere and the anomalies occurring with the star Betelgeuse. It was a super-giant star, a part of the Orion constellation, and one that scientists stated, would have enough power to obliterate Earth's atmosphere, allowing for space debris to pass through with little obstacle. Of course, such a statement caused Crystal some pause, but the scientists would always follow up with statistics and studies, which were supposed to comfort and tell everyone that there was little chance of an apocalypse ever happening in a single lifetime. Crystal only understood the bare minimum of what was actually said, but, then again, she was just a history major. It also didn't help that every professional they put on to discuss it spoke in a monotone that had Crystal tuning out half of what was said. They didn't seem to be worried, so neither was she.

And on a regular August morning, the last thing on Crystal's mind was Betelgeuse and the boring scientists. She had a test in History 203, and as she jumped in the shower her mind was running through dates and names that had something to do with the civil rights movement, but it was all swimming together. The bleariness wasn't clearing as fast as she liked. She groaned with the pressure and cursed the fact that she had scheduled an 8 a.m. class when she lived thirty minutes away from the University of Alabama. Crystal wasn't a morning person.

Still, she pushed on, or trudged on, depending on which task she was pressed with to make herself look somewhat presentable for regular society. Crystal had lived life as a tomboy, and it wasn't any different in college. The night before, she had good intentions. She laid out the straightener and blow dryer before bed, but in the morning she had to choose between more sleep or straight hair. Sleep usually won out. Then she'd jump out of the shower, stare at the disgustingly pink straightener and blow dryer set her mother had gotten her on her fourteenth birthday, sneer, pull her hair into a wet knot, and back to the bedroom she'd go. Good intentions could only go so far.

Her dressing habits weren't any better. A T-shirt, a hoodie, a presumably clean pair of jeans, and her Converse. She couldn’t care less about anything she wore, but her Converse were something else. They were black high tops, and something about them just clicked with her. If she had a style, it would be lazy, but the Converse felt like they made her seem more laid-back than lazy. It was an embarrassing thought, and she often felt it silly, but she couldn't help smiling when they slipped onto her feet. They felt familiar and just like they had two years ago when her mom had bought them for her. It was one gift her mom never questioned getting for her upon request. Crystal thought it was because it was the only article of clothing she had shown any remote interest in, and her mom had been dying for her to take an interest in being a girly-girl. Her interest in the shoes was the extent of her girliness, though.

Once they were on her feet, she was set and ready to go. Crystal walked through her trailer, passing through the hallway and the living room, then pausing in the kitchen long enough to grab her key off the counter and to shoulder her bag balanced on the bar stool. Her home was sparse and run-of-the-mill, but it was hers. With one last look to make sure everything was in order, she opened the screen door, opened the main door, and stepped out onto the porch. She turned back long enough to lock the door, but the second the lock turned, she bounded down the steps of her little half-porch, all the while clicking her Volkswagen Beetle's unlock button. Along with her shoes, it was one of the few feminine staples in her life. She drove a bright green Volkswagen Bug. It was twelve years old, the air conditioning worked only half the time, and she was almost too tall for it, but it was too cute for her not to have in her life.

Crystal bounced up to the car, opened the door, and flung her bag into the passenger seat before sliding in and putting the key in the ignition, bringing the car to life. She silently prayed as she flipped a switch on the dash, then sighed in relief when air began to flow out and circulate through the car. It felt like a good day, and as she pulled out of the driveway the worries of the world and the test seemed to fade away into the background, replaced by the whirring of the cool air in her car and the quiet melody of whatever song was playing on the radio. She never saw it coming.

The drive was dull, though Crystal's mood was significantly better than it had been when she woke up. The monotony of life always stood out the best on the drive up to school. It was thirty minutes of silence, except for the air and the occasional honk from a passer-by Crystal barely recognized. She hardly ever left the radio on for longer than a few minutes. One of her pet-peeves was talking radio shows. Radios were for music, and she didn't care enough about celebrities and their bad habits to listen to radio shows. It was just one more reason for her to not be a morning person: morning radio talked too much.

Thankfully, with very little morning traffic, Crystal's drive didn't drag along, but she did find herself gazing up at the sky. It was somewhat overcast because of the early morning humidity, but there was a strange heat sweltering outside and making everything look like an oasis. Images that should be stable and concrete seemed to physically waver in the morning light. Crystal lived in Alabama, and it could get up to 110 degrees easily, but not even a summer morning could create so much heat as to make everything visibly move. The voices of those scientists suddenly seemed much more prominent than they had before in Crystal's mind, and it was so distracting that she had to stomp on her brakes to catch the turn in to the Little Caesar's parking lot, which earned her a few more not-so-friendly honks from the drivers behind her.

She tried to brush them off as best she could, but a blush still managed to rise up and heat her face. She wasn't one to make mistakes so easily, and she mentally shook herself for allowing herself to be so easily distracted. With a huff and a renewed sense of concentration, she pulled into the parking lot and chose the spot farthest from the pizza place. It didn't really matter because her car would end up smelling like pizza anyway, though Crystal still didn't understand how that was even possible. Regardless, she couldn't afford the $600 parking decal, and the next best thing was to park twenty-five minutes off campus and walk. When she had first come up with the idea, she had told herself, It won't be a big deal. I need to walk more. It'll keep me healthy. But as time went on and she got further and further into the Fall semester, she became willing to sell her left kidney for a parking space, and the thought of having to get out into the uncomfortable heat had Crystal questioning whether or not it would be worth a $500 parking ticket just so she didn't have to walk all the way.

In the end she decided to push forward with the walk, mainly because she didn't think her kidney would be worth even $200 and she couldn't afford a parking ticket on her record, anyway. She could barely afford her car insurance as it was. With an unenthusiastic sigh, she reached over to the passenger side and pulled her bag into her lap before yanking the key out of the ignition and kicking open the driver-side door. It was all very robotic and well-rehearsed, and it only got worse when she stepped out of her cool car and into the morning heat. It hit her the second she made it all the way out of the car, and she found herself gasping for breath as her lungs tried to adjust to the completely different air temperatures. It was jarring, but when she threw her bag over her shoulders, she was all business.

She pulled out her phone to check the time: 7:32. She had about three minutes to spare before she'd have to book it to class. Just enough time to walk instead of jog in the heat, and she made sure to take her time, too. Sweat had already begun to pour down her forehead, and she hadn't even gotten completely out of the parking lot. Once again her thoughts went back to the scientists on the TV, but something else began to intrude her thoughts. It was a silence, and on a Monday in a college town, silence shouldn't have even existed. Even the sound of birds and squirrels fell away into the deafening silence. She paused and turned to face the road, surprised to find cars stopped in the middle, but there was no hollering or screaming. Not even horns were blaring. Instead, people were getting out of their cars, all in a quiet hum that fell away to the silence.

Crystal couldn't tear her eyes away from the strange sight. Everyone was out in the road, cars abandoned even if they were still running and with doors left wide-open and inviting. No person looked exactly like the other, but they all pointed towards the sky in one way or another. Some with outreaching arms, others with only their eyes and their faces, but everyone looked to the sky. Everyone except Crystal, but then something clicked in her. Despite the rising heat and the sweat that dripped into her eyes, her legs quivered with the need to run and to get away. But her eyes met someone else's — a man standing maybe three feet away from her on the road. He turned his face away from the sky long enough to meet her eyes, and his mouth opened as if to call out to her, but the instant his voice began, another sound, one even more deafening than the silence, erupted.

It was a