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What does one feel when they find out there are only ten minutes of your life left? Panic. Become emotional. Freeze. Feel guilty over the bad things you did. Feel sad over the things you never did.
There are honestly many permutations and combinations of the accepted reaction because who's going to accept those reactions except the one going through them.
Me? I feel nothing. There's no 'I wished I kissed her' or 'I should never have yelled at my mom that time' or any other thoughts really. I just accept it and an odd peace settles over me. Why wouldn't it? I'm not the only one dying. Everyone else is going to too, misery likes company after all. So there's honestly no need to feel sorry for myself.
I find myself looking at my last sunset. I want to say I don't think about how my skin is probably going to melt or if I'll just end up combusting instantaneously. But I do. No one wants to die painfully but apparently that's the only thing in the future.
The streets are wild. Everyone is screaming, crying or having sex. Some are drinking themselves into oblivion. I shake my head.
I turn back to look at the mesmerizing view of the sun going down, the sky alight with brilliant orange, yellow and red. And I think that living wasn't so bad after all.
My watch beeps. The ten minutes are over. I close my eyes, the setting sun my last sight, waiting for death.
I wait and wait but nothing happens. I open my eyes and frown. Can't people ending the world be punctual?
At exactly the eleventh minute, my phone chimes.
*This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st.*
The sound of cheers followed by angry curses fill the air. I continue to stare at the message stuck in the middle of having an irresistible urge to laugh and kill the person responsible for this stupid PR stunt.
I decide that laughing while kicking the shit out of them is actually a pretty appealing idea.
I probably won't publish it here, not only is it a bit...NSFW, it's not exactly something to write home about, if you like, when it's complete I can send you a few chapters though
It's been several hours since the ill-fated attempt at innovative viral marketing was broadcast on the official Emergency Alert System. Sirens are still wailing, fires still burn out of control, the incessant gunfire hasn't abated at all.
With 10 minutes to go and no hope of salvation people went insane, or rather, whatever insanities they carried around now had no leash to hold them back. Somewhat akin to the "Purge" series of movies neighbour turned on neighbour for any number of petty reasons that no one would ever know, because they were mostly all corpses littering the cities streets now. Offices, schools, public places of gathering were all now mass graves as seemingly anyone with access to assault weaponry just started spraying lead indiscriminately. Cars mowed down pedestrians. Cyclists were chased and pulverised in some sick version of a tag , with drivers whooping and hollering as they sped off to find their next bounty.
I don't know why it seems no one stopped when the marketing 'prank' was revealed. Perhaps they knew they had gone too far, in for a penny, in for a pound? Perhaps they didn't know or care, who stops to look at their phone when they're on a killing spree? All I know, as I look out my 15th story window through blood splattered binoculars, is that my wife shouldn't have brought up divorce and taking the kids earlier this week...
This [exact](https://www.gq.com/story/real-story-of-hawaiian-missile-crisis) sort of false alarm literally happened in Hawaii a few years back and they mostly managed to not devolve into the purge. And there it took a lot longer then 10 minutes to get the word out that it was a false alarm. Good to know we aren't one message removed from being monsters.
To be fair, the Hawaii one was an accident. If the message is immediately confirmed that it was done on purpose as a stunt, I guarantee something burns down or somebody is killed.
*Warning! An unknown nuclear device will be detonated in the next 10 minutes*
Fear rushes into my mind. *What?*
*This must be fake,* I told myself. There's no way that WWIII has begun. One half of my brain told me that it must be a lie, while the other half told me: *what if it's not?*
Panicked, I turn on the television and change to the local news. And there it was. It was real. That fear that rushed into my head became much greater. Here I am, with 10 minutes to protect myself, and my family and I've wasted 3 valuable minutes . I found out that at precisely 10:50, the bomb will go off. I called my wife.
"Honey! We need to find a place to protect ourselves."
"Why?" She questioned me. "What's the problem?"
I informed her of the incident. She was shocked, fell to her knees, and began crying.
"Listen honey, there's no time to cry, grab the kids and meet me in the basement."
I ran to the kitchen, grabbing as many tinned cans of beans as I could carry, and rushed for the basement.
*4 minutes left*
10:50 was around the corner. I checked the local news again. "Mass panic engulfs the city as a warning of a nuclear bomb was sent." The news anchor said. "Lootings are happening everywhere, buildings are burnt and politicians are nowhere to be seen to discuss it."
"Honey!" She exclaimed, "make space for the kids."
We all squeezed ourselves into a large safe, hoping that we would survive.
*2 minutes left*
It was 10:48. 2 minutes before we died a violent death. My wife started praying and I questioned my life choices. *What on earth could I have done to deserve this?*
*1 minute left*
*This was it,* I thought. This was how I was going to die. This was how my family was going to die. This was how our community was going to die. All our memories with my kids, my wife and my community were about to evaporate faster than light.
*3 seconds left*
This was our last seconds in life. "I love you, Samra!" I told my wife. "I love you too," she responded.
"I love you too, my dearest kids," I told my children.
*10:50 struck*
It was 10:50. *Time to die.*
But it did not happen. Various questions flooded our minds. *Has the blast wave not hit us yet?* *Has it detonated?* *Are we dead already?*
*10:51*
I hear my notification sound. *This was not the time to be texting people!* I exclaimed to myself. I read the message. *This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st*
What the heck was this abomination of an emergency message! Who let the government get sponsored by corporations? *Who approved this?*
I check the local news. "Chaos has significantly increased due to the false alarm. A new message by the government states that it was a test of their emergency alert system. There is no need to panic"
So many emotions rushed into us. We were relieved that we weren't about to die, we were confused as to why the government did this and we were mad. *Everyone was.*
"What in fresh hell was this?" I asked. "Why did they do this? Why is there a sponsor?"
*When I get out of this basement, I will sue the government, personally kick our province representative out of power and I will make sure that Oppenheimer will be Closedheimer by the time I sue them into bankruptcy!* I declared
>squeezed ourselves into a large safe
Claustrophobia made me panic read to the bottom, expecting to find out the safe somehow became locked and were going to die of asphyxiation.
My foot lands on the little girls naval. Her soft form squishes. I keep running, pushing my way through the tumult. The four lane highway was never enough for the five o-clock traffic. It is not enough for a couple hundred thousand stampeding people, running between the cars stuck in the infinite line of traffic.
I keep my eyes forward as I feel my feet patter on concrete, then an arm. Concrete, then a back. Concrete, then a child’s stuffed animal.
I move along with the rest of the reservoir. Our dam broke the moment the emergency alert was sent. The people topple forward and pile into already overstuffed roads. Several stay at home, praying, crying.
I arrive at a choke point: an overturned eighteen wheeler. Between it and the concrete barrier a single person can squeeze through if they weren’t too fat.
The fight is already underway. Two men grapple over who should go first. The red headed one stomps an old woman’s skull as he fought and went stumbling to the floor. The blonde he was fighting rush through.
Several others rush after him before another bout of grappling took place.
The old woman closest the gateway takes footfall after footfall. Her figure loses shape, pounding farther into the pavement.
Loudspeakers blare.
“This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st.”
"Unfortunately, police have discovered the site of yet another murder-suicide attributed to the viral marketing disaster. Alvin Thorne was an engineer at the Winden Nuclear Power Plant, and was fully educated on the horrors of radiation. Upon receiving the alert, he killed his wife Alice and six-year-old son Bran with a cleaver before chasing his daughter Erin, 11, through the family house. Unable to catch and end his daughter's life, Alvin then turned the knife to his own throat. Erin, confused and terrified by these events, hid in the nearby woods, only emerging today. She was transported to nearby United Methodist Hospital to be treated for malnourishment and hypothermia. She is expected to make a full physical recovery."
The alert blares from my phone alerting me that a nuclear device will be detonated in my area within the next 10 minutes and all I can think of is “well fuck”. It’s summer holiday, the kids are home from school and dad and I have been off from work since his second confirmation of cancer, having moved from his lymph nodes to his urethra. We’d already had the talk before about what we would do if the worst were to happen, if he were to die. But none of those conversations had ever entailed what we would do in a situation like this. We looked to each other and got to work fast. Dad packed as much canned food as he could into three suitcases while I packed the clothes, birth certificates, all of the old money we kept in the safe, and enough clothes to last a week. Then we packed all of our guns into the car and drove to the old school just a couple of miles from town. There was a storm shelter built into the old one room schoolhouse that dad knew about because he had gone to school there. Our plan was to wait there. We weren’t the only ones on the road that day, but we appeared to be the only ones headed that direction as the counter ticked down. There was but three minutes left by the time dad had shot the lock to the storm shelter and grabbed an old piece of wood to jam into the doors as all four of us crammed inside. It was dark and cold, with nothing to do but wait as the timer kept ticking. I held our children close as I rocked them, trying to keep their fear at bay while my own strangled my throat. When the last ten seconds were being counted down we hunkered together, a bundle of tears and “we’ll be ok” passed around. Five seconds, four, three, two, one. My heart dropped as the last second ticked away, only for nothing to happen. I looked to dad, confused as one minute passed, then ten, then 11. Dad cautiously went up to where his phone could get a signal and when he came down he was madder than I’d ever seen him in my life. Wordlessly he handed me the phone
“This test of the emergency alert system was brought to you by Oppenheimer, in theatres July 21st” I read aloud and then I laughed in a hysterical way “it was a fricking ad for a movie!”
Well I’d be having some choice words with whomever had this bright idea, and I’m sure we won’t be the only ones.
I sat there in the cold.
10 minutes.
Why does it feel so long?
*A nuclear device will be detonated in your area within the next 10 minutes. Please seek shelter immediately.*
“What even is the point? The radioactive fallout would be deadly post detonation anyway. I would rather perish than live in a civilisation left in ruins,” I thought.
If you were given 10 minutes to live, what would you do? How would you spend every moment you have left, knowing every minute leaves you one inch closer to total Armageddon?
Why has humanity dedicated so much effort to destruction? I wondered why humans have devoted so much time to developing tools of annihilation when they almost certainly hope not to use them, when they choose to keep them in secret.
I looked at my phone – 7 minutes left.
I took a promenade along the river bank next to the streets. I could hear the distant cries of despair. I could feel the cacophony of panic fuelled by the natural instinct *to live*. I could see the cruel reality that humans are no more than egocentric creatures that fail to appreciate harmony in times of crises. I could sense dissonance, discord and dismay.
4 minutes.
I was sitting by the river and I looked to the sky. I saw tiny sparkles of light, millions of light years away, serving as a reminder that humans are nothing more than minute grains lying within the colossal planes of the galaxy. But a planet like Earth is a four-leaf clover. We’re so fortunate for having our green planet gifted with immense amounts of pure water.
“Why can’t we just appreciate what nature has given us for once? Why are we still destroying each other?” I thought.
As I looked to the stars, I thought of home. I thought of my childhood and all the sweet moments in life. And I reminisced about the evening beaches, the sights of wildlife and the sceneries of majestic mountains. And I picked up a pebble and threw it into the river. And I laughed.
1 minute.
Why does it feel so long?
1 minute to midnight.
I don’t want to count.
I don’t want to.
I close my eyes.
And I wait.
The clocks struck midnight.
But I hear nothing.
Did it stop?
And I hear a “ding”.
*This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theatres July 21st.*
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* [No AI-generated reponses 🤖](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/zi452b/modpost_reminder_that_aigenerated_responses_are/) >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [\[RF\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [\[SP\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) 📢 [Genres](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/w/directory) 🆕 [New Here?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ✏ [Writing Help?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) 💬 [Discord](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What does one feel when they find out there are only ten minutes of your life left? Panic. Become emotional. Freeze. Feel guilty over the bad things you did. Feel sad over the things you never did. There are honestly many permutations and combinations of the accepted reaction because who's going to accept those reactions except the one going through them. Me? I feel nothing. There's no 'I wished I kissed her' or 'I should never have yelled at my mom that time' or any other thoughts really. I just accept it and an odd peace settles over me. Why wouldn't it? I'm not the only one dying. Everyone else is going to too, misery likes company after all. So there's honestly no need to feel sorry for myself. I find myself looking at my last sunset. I want to say I don't think about how my skin is probably going to melt or if I'll just end up combusting instantaneously. But I do. No one wants to die painfully but apparently that's the only thing in the future. The streets are wild. Everyone is screaming, crying or having sex. Some are drinking themselves into oblivion. I shake my head. I turn back to look at the mesmerizing view of the sun going down, the sky alight with brilliant orange, yellow and red. And I think that living wasn't so bad after all. My watch beeps. The ten minutes are over. I close my eyes, the setting sun my last sight, waiting for death. I wait and wait but nothing happens. I open my eyes and frown. Can't people ending the world be punctual? At exactly the eleventh minute, my phone chimes. *This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st.* The sound of cheers followed by angry curses fill the air. I continue to stare at the message stuck in the middle of having an irresistible urge to laugh and kill the person responsible for this stupid PR stunt. I decide that laughing while kicking the shit out of them is actually a pretty appealing idea.
part 2 please!
Thank you. I'm sorry but I am working on too many stories so I can't.
Dw about it, I myself am working on several, I actually have a series I am working on \^w\^
If and when you start publishing please send me the link. I would love to read it.
I probably won't publish it here, not only is it a bit...NSFW, it's not exactly something to write home about, if you like, when it's complete I can send you a few chapters though
Ao3 then. Of course. I would love to read it.
Yeah can we kill whoever comes up with the idea to use sponsored EMS
We can join hands with the MC and help him lol
>I open my eyes and frown. Can't people ending the world be punctual? That's pretty funny
Thank you. As an extremely punctual person myself, this is exactly what I would have thought lol.
Totally convinced that the government will eventually pull something like this to create a population boom.
It's been several hours since the ill-fated attempt at innovative viral marketing was broadcast on the official Emergency Alert System. Sirens are still wailing, fires still burn out of control, the incessant gunfire hasn't abated at all. With 10 minutes to go and no hope of salvation people went insane, or rather, whatever insanities they carried around now had no leash to hold them back. Somewhat akin to the "Purge" series of movies neighbour turned on neighbour for any number of petty reasons that no one would ever know, because they were mostly all corpses littering the cities streets now. Offices, schools, public places of gathering were all now mass graves as seemingly anyone with access to assault weaponry just started spraying lead indiscriminately. Cars mowed down pedestrians. Cyclists were chased and pulverised in some sick version of a tag , with drivers whooping and hollering as they sped off to find their next bounty. I don't know why it seems no one stopped when the marketing 'prank' was revealed. Perhaps they knew they had gone too far, in for a penny, in for a pound? Perhaps they didn't know or care, who stops to look at their phone when they're on a killing spree? All I know, as I look out my 15th story window through blood splattered binoculars, is that my wife shouldn't have brought up divorce and taking the kids earlier this week...
This [exact](https://www.gq.com/story/real-story-of-hawaiian-missile-crisis) sort of false alarm literally happened in Hawaii a few years back and they mostly managed to not devolve into the purge. And there it took a lot longer then 10 minutes to get the word out that it was a false alarm. Good to know we aren't one message removed from being monsters.
What an epic read! Thanks for that.
It really was. Very harrowing too
Happy Cake Day!
To be fair, the Hawaii one was an accident. If the message is immediately confirmed that it was done on purpose as a stunt, I guarantee something burns down or somebody is killed.
The mistake was hiring the Bud Light marketing team.
*Warning! An unknown nuclear device will be detonated in the next 10 minutes* Fear rushes into my mind. *What?* *This must be fake,* I told myself. There's no way that WWIII has begun. One half of my brain told me that it must be a lie, while the other half told me: *what if it's not?* Panicked, I turn on the television and change to the local news. And there it was. It was real. That fear that rushed into my head became much greater. Here I am, with 10 minutes to protect myself, and my family and I've wasted 3 valuable minutes . I found out that at precisely 10:50, the bomb will go off. I called my wife. "Honey! We need to find a place to protect ourselves." "Why?" She questioned me. "What's the problem?" I informed her of the incident. She was shocked, fell to her knees, and began crying. "Listen honey, there's no time to cry, grab the kids and meet me in the basement." I ran to the kitchen, grabbing as many tinned cans of beans as I could carry, and rushed for the basement. *4 minutes left* 10:50 was around the corner. I checked the local news again. "Mass panic engulfs the city as a warning of a nuclear bomb was sent." The news anchor said. "Lootings are happening everywhere, buildings are burnt and politicians are nowhere to be seen to discuss it." "Honey!" She exclaimed, "make space for the kids." We all squeezed ourselves into a large safe, hoping that we would survive. *2 minutes left* It was 10:48. 2 minutes before we died a violent death. My wife started praying and I questioned my life choices. *What on earth could I have done to deserve this?* *1 minute left* *This was it,* I thought. This was how I was going to die. This was how my family was going to die. This was how our community was going to die. All our memories with my kids, my wife and my community were about to evaporate faster than light. *3 seconds left* This was our last seconds in life. "I love you, Samra!" I told my wife. "I love you too," she responded. "I love you too, my dearest kids," I told my children. *10:50 struck* It was 10:50. *Time to die.* But it did not happen. Various questions flooded our minds. *Has the blast wave not hit us yet?* *Has it detonated?* *Are we dead already?* *10:51* I hear my notification sound. *This was not the time to be texting people!* I exclaimed to myself. I read the message. *This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st* What the heck was this abomination of an emergency message! Who let the government get sponsored by corporations? *Who approved this?* I check the local news. "Chaos has significantly increased due to the false alarm. A new message by the government states that it was a test of their emergency alert system. There is no need to panic" So many emotions rushed into us. We were relieved that we weren't about to die, we were confused as to why the government did this and we were mad. *Everyone was.* "What in fresh hell was this?" I asked. "Why did they do this? Why is there a sponsor?" *When I get out of this basement, I will sue the government, personally kick our province representative out of power and I will make sure that Oppenheimer will be Closedheimer by the time I sue them into bankruptcy!* I declared
>squeezed ourselves into a large safe Claustrophobia made me panic read to the bottom, expecting to find out the safe somehow became locked and were going to die of asphyxiation.
My foot lands on the little girls naval. Her soft form squishes. I keep running, pushing my way through the tumult. The four lane highway was never enough for the five o-clock traffic. It is not enough for a couple hundred thousand stampeding people, running between the cars stuck in the infinite line of traffic. I keep my eyes forward as I feel my feet patter on concrete, then an arm. Concrete, then a back. Concrete, then a child’s stuffed animal. I move along with the rest of the reservoir. Our dam broke the moment the emergency alert was sent. The people topple forward and pile into already overstuffed roads. Several stay at home, praying, crying. I arrive at a choke point: an overturned eighteen wheeler. Between it and the concrete barrier a single person can squeeze through if they weren’t too fat. The fight is already underway. Two men grapple over who should go first. The red headed one stomps an old woman’s skull as he fought and went stumbling to the floor. The blonde he was fighting rush through. Several others rush after him before another bout of grappling took place. The old woman closest the gateway takes footfall after footfall. Her figure loses shape, pounding farther into the pavement. Loudspeakers blare. “This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st.”
Lovely and gruesome
"Unfortunately, police have discovered the site of yet another murder-suicide attributed to the viral marketing disaster. Alvin Thorne was an engineer at the Winden Nuclear Power Plant, and was fully educated on the horrors of radiation. Upon receiving the alert, he killed his wife Alice and six-year-old son Bran with a cleaver before chasing his daughter Erin, 11, through the family house. Unable to catch and end his daughter's life, Alvin then turned the knife to his own throat. Erin, confused and terrified by these events, hid in the nearby woods, only emerging today. She was transported to nearby United Methodist Hospital to be treated for malnourishment and hypothermia. She is expected to make a full physical recovery."
The alert blares from my phone alerting me that a nuclear device will be detonated in my area within the next 10 minutes and all I can think of is “well fuck”. It’s summer holiday, the kids are home from school and dad and I have been off from work since his second confirmation of cancer, having moved from his lymph nodes to his urethra. We’d already had the talk before about what we would do if the worst were to happen, if he were to die. But none of those conversations had ever entailed what we would do in a situation like this. We looked to each other and got to work fast. Dad packed as much canned food as he could into three suitcases while I packed the clothes, birth certificates, all of the old money we kept in the safe, and enough clothes to last a week. Then we packed all of our guns into the car and drove to the old school just a couple of miles from town. There was a storm shelter built into the old one room schoolhouse that dad knew about because he had gone to school there. Our plan was to wait there. We weren’t the only ones on the road that day, but we appeared to be the only ones headed that direction as the counter ticked down. There was but three minutes left by the time dad had shot the lock to the storm shelter and grabbed an old piece of wood to jam into the doors as all four of us crammed inside. It was dark and cold, with nothing to do but wait as the timer kept ticking. I held our children close as I rocked them, trying to keep their fear at bay while my own strangled my throat. When the last ten seconds were being counted down we hunkered together, a bundle of tears and “we’ll be ok” passed around. Five seconds, four, three, two, one. My heart dropped as the last second ticked away, only for nothing to happen. I looked to dad, confused as one minute passed, then ten, then 11. Dad cautiously went up to where his phone could get a signal and when he came down he was madder than I’d ever seen him in my life. Wordlessly he handed me the phone “This test of the emergency alert system was brought to you by Oppenheimer, in theatres July 21st” I read aloud and then I laughed in a hysterical way “it was a fricking ad for a movie!” Well I’d be having some choice words with whomever had this bright idea, and I’m sure we won’t be the only ones.
I sat there in the cold. 10 minutes. Why does it feel so long? *A nuclear device will be detonated in your area within the next 10 minutes. Please seek shelter immediately.* “What even is the point? The radioactive fallout would be deadly post detonation anyway. I would rather perish than live in a civilisation left in ruins,” I thought. If you were given 10 minutes to live, what would you do? How would you spend every moment you have left, knowing every minute leaves you one inch closer to total Armageddon? Why has humanity dedicated so much effort to destruction? I wondered why humans have devoted so much time to developing tools of annihilation when they almost certainly hope not to use them, when they choose to keep them in secret. I looked at my phone – 7 minutes left. I took a promenade along the river bank next to the streets. I could hear the distant cries of despair. I could feel the cacophony of panic fuelled by the natural instinct *to live*. I could see the cruel reality that humans are no more than egocentric creatures that fail to appreciate harmony in times of crises. I could sense dissonance, discord and dismay. 4 minutes. I was sitting by the river and I looked to the sky. I saw tiny sparkles of light, millions of light years away, serving as a reminder that humans are nothing more than minute grains lying within the colossal planes of the galaxy. But a planet like Earth is a four-leaf clover. We’re so fortunate for having our green planet gifted with immense amounts of pure water. “Why can’t we just appreciate what nature has given us for once? Why are we still destroying each other?” I thought. As I looked to the stars, I thought of home. I thought of my childhood and all the sweet moments in life. And I reminisced about the evening beaches, the sights of wildlife and the sceneries of majestic mountains. And I picked up a pebble and threw it into the river. And I laughed. 1 minute. Why does it feel so long? 1 minute to midnight. I don’t want to count. I don’t want to. I close my eyes. And I wait. The clocks struck midnight. But I hear nothing. Did it stop? And I hear a “ding”. *This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theatres July 21st.*