Yuke stared blankly at the traffic light, its signal shifting to bright red being the only moving thing in the darkness of the early morning. The cool breeze from the nearby coast sent chills down his sweaty spine after a long shift of unloading beer. Sitting at this gas station at the bottom of a hill felt like rock bottom, but it was all he could manage right now.

  “Want one?” a chipper voice rang beside him.

  Yuke’s tired eyes glanced up to meet Van sitting on the curb next to him. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth betraying his boyish bowl cut. He offered a soft pack towards Yuke.

  “Nah, you know I quit.” Yuke said dismissively.

  “Dude, why? Your life sucks, may as well.” he quipped.

  Yuke’s eyes narrowed at him through his unkempt bangs.

  “Got my ass on that one” he smirked, reaching for the pack before they both burst out laughing.

  The laughs were partially from delirium but mostly from some form of primal necessity. Some days it's the only thing that keeps you moving forward, especially if you’re at the bottom with little else. The moment the sun rose he would be headed to the next job. How many days had he been without sleep? Three? Four? Part of him feared that if he slept now he’d never wake up. Another part of him sort of longed for that.

  Van skimmed the stock market on his phone. It showed its usual sea of red except for the odd pump and dump scheme filled with people trying to not get stuck holding the bag. He was one of those people. A gambler. Though it was much easier to be one when you don’t have a lot to lose.

  “Whelp, my shift is over. Gotta clock out” Van said before taking his last drag.

  “I should probably get going too,” Yuke groaned, forcing himself to his feet.

  This had been their routine for months and it had formed a strong makeshift friendship in that time as the world slowly crumbled around them. Old institutions tried to maintain order while resources dwindled globally. The inherent quest of humanity for capital gain had reached its apex. There were no lands left to conquer, and that fact hung heavy over everyone but the wealthy few. In this moment though, a single cigarette felt heavier than that.

  “I need a change” Yuke thought aloud as he fumbled for his lighter.

  The beat up white box truck sat there waiting for its next route. The pay was pitiful even in this economy but people still needed their beer. The alcohol market wasn’t doing badly on account of the global despair but the profits did not trickle down enough to keep drivers so he ended up taking on most of the routes. The work was hard, the hours were long and it had hammered down Yuke into a slab of iron.

  As they began to head their separate ways an ear splitting sound bellowed like thunder through the streets. The reverberations knocked the breath out of Yuke and sucked the smoke out of Van’s. A blinding purple light erupted out of the air, violently swirling like a malevolent cosmos.

  They both stared at in stunned silence, the unlit cigarette tumbling from Yuke’s open mouth.. Cars screeched, running off the road left and right. Drivers ambled out of their cars and yet no one uttered a word. Their gaze was transfixed on what had appeared before them out of the ether. Little by little the street became littered with droves of people.

  Van’s phone buzzed wildly with incoming notifications.

  “Dude, these are popping up all over the world! Sweden, Brazil, Thailand, England! What the hell is happening?” he stuttered, now fully shaken from his stupor.

  “It looks like a portal. Maybe a hologram?... or the North Koreans are trying some kind of cyber attack again?” Yuke replied, equally confused.

  “I dunno, but I’m getting all of this. Maybe I can sell it to the news!” Van said, zooming his phone camera into Yuke’s haggard face.

  “Stop messing around.” Yuke said, swatting at the phone.

  The unmistakable shrieking sound of metal on metal filled the air. They whipped around just in time to see a Tractor-Trailer flying down the hill. It skidded into the intersection as the people that had gathered jumped out of the way before colliding into the purple rift at full force. The last few minutes had made the police response feel like an eternity as they finally arrived to frantically tape off the area and inspect the wreckage.

  The sheriff teetered back and forth next to the portal, perplexed at how it lacked any depth from this angle. He measured it with his thumb before shrugging and walking away as an army unit arrived to take the reins from his ill-equipped investigation.

  “Bro, look at this.” Van gestured to his phone.

  Yuke stared down as he repeatedly brushed over his footage of the crash as the driver of the truck flies through the windshield”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I don’t want to watch this man, bad taste…” Yuke grimaces

  “No, seriously watch!” he demands.

  On another viewing Yuke notices that there is no gory aftermath that he had been dreading. The driver disappeared through the portal, not making contact with anything.

  The world had already changed, and just as the gravity of that had begun to set in for the witnesses, the growl of a blue WRX Subaru cut through the ambience like a blunt knife as it whipped into the parking lot. A girl with a shaggy blue-haired pixie cut stepped wearing a light blue skirt, a grey sweater and black boots. She stomped over to a bewildered Van as Yuke continued to gaze into the abyss.

  “Can I get 20 on 3?” She said, to a wide-eyed Van.

  “You don’t care about the…?” Van trailed off, limply pointing to the portal.

  “Eh, I mean that’s great, but I have an 8 o’clock class and they didn’t shut us down for the last bomb threat so I doubt they’ll care about this shit.” She said, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, well what about this?” he said, showing her the video from earlier.

  “Hm..weird. Gas please.” She said entirely unphased.

  “Alright I guess..” he mumbled as he walked inside to ring her up, nearly stumbling over the curb in his bewilderment.

  The girl plopped down on the curb next to Yuke and cracked a can of iced coffee. They stared at the chaos unfolding before them.

  “So, what are you in school for?” He asked, trying to make small talk.

  “Civil engineering” she replied curtly.

  “Ah, sounds... what do you want to do with that?” He asked.

  “Well, really I don’t want to do anything with it. I do not dream of labor…but I’m good at it so I'll go wherever the highest bidder is” she answered pluckily.

  Yuke laughed at her bluntness.

  “Okay then. In your begrudging expert opinion, what do you think that is?” He gestured towards the portal.

  “Hmm, well if it were some type of projection they’d probably have found the source by now” she said, glancing toward the police who were gesticulating wildly at onlookers to move back as the soldiers patrolled the area closer to the portal.

  “If I had to guess, it's some kind of portal like you’d see in a fictional book about magic.” she said, smiling at him.

  Yuke blushed at her gaze before quickly looking away from her.

  “You don’t think that's a little far-fetched? When has humanity ever seen anything like that?” he stammered.

  “Well, we still don’t know where black holes go but presumably it's the same concept right? Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Plus there's that whole theory that we’re living in a simulation anyway.”

  “You seem to be taking either possibility oddly well,” Yuke nodded.

  “Well I’m fine with the latter, just don’t unplug the power” she said making a mock prayer motion to the heavens as she walked to her car.

  “What’s your name?” Yuke called out to her.

  “Ava, what's yours?” She asked, not turning to look.

  “It’s Yuke,” he yelled back.

  “Oh!” she said, turning and jokingly air strumming a nonexistent Ukulele at him as she walked backwards toward her car.

  “She’s so hot” Van’s voice suddenly mumbled from behind Yuke.

  “Dude!” Yuke loudly whispered with a motion to hush over his lips.

  “You think every girl is hot,” Yuke continued.

  “What's wrong with that?” Van grinned.

  “Good point honestly” Yuke admitted, peering up at the girl as she leaned against her car while it filled up.

  All of the sudden a high pitched alert rang from all of their phones.

  Emergency Alert: Cruise Missile Threat Inbound. Seek Shelter Immediately.

  They all stared at their phones, unable to grapple with the surreal reality of the moment.

  “Oh my god!” A woman screamed from the intersection.

  This broke them out of their stupor as they looked at the woman, visibly shaking even from this distance. She was pointing at the coast where a glowing light rapidly approached from the horizon.

  A wave of horror began to wash over the crowd. Some of the soldiers, previously holding onto a stoic facade began to openly weep.

  “Why?” mouthed Van silently as he stared at their approaching fate.

  Ava frantically threw the gas nozzle on the ground, spewing an endless stream of gasoline on the ground as she dove into the driver’s seat.

  “Wait!” Yuke screamed, jumping in front of the car.

  “Get in then!” She screamed, nostrils flared.

  “That’s not what I mean! Look.” he said, pointing to the soldiers.

  “If the guys who know what that missile is have already given up hope that means we can’t outrun it. Traffic is blocking every way out of here anyway.” He continued, gesturing to the streets crammed with empty cars.

  “So what do you suggest we do?” She demanded.

  Yuke’s eyebrows raised as he looked toward the portal.

  “Uh uh, no way. We have no idea where that thing goes.” She said, horrified at the unspoken suggestion.

  “Where did that truck driver go?” Yuke said, cocking his head to the side.

  She paused to think for a few seconds which felt like a lifetime.

  “Fine, let's go.” she said reluctantly.

  Yuke waved Van in and they sped off towards the portal.

  “Holy shit, this thing is a manual?” Van asked as he watched her effortlessly flick the car into gear.

  “Might be the wrong time for that,” Yuke said, pointing towards the missile. It had closed an incredible distance since it came into view. They likely only had a minute until impact.

  The crowd blocking the way quickly fled to avoid getting run over as the car squealed to a halt at the taped off intersection. A stocky police officer ran towards them.

  “You can’t come through here!” he snarled through the open driver side window.

  “Everyone here is going to die unless they go in there!” Yuke screamed back.

  “Absolutely not! You got no clue what that is, and I get a mountain of paperwork if I let you by!” he replied in a huff.

  A small circle of people had begun to surround them and see what the commotion was. Yuke glanced up at the traffic light as it switched from green to red again. A fire began to spark in his heart for the first time in a long time. He smirked.

  “RUN IT” he yelled to Ava.

  She gunned the engine, the car’s RPMs redlined as it roared for the last time, jerking forward at a rapid speed. Servicemembers jumped out of the way as they flew through the barricades that had been erected. They jumped out and sprinted towards the portal. The crowd poured into the perimeter in their wake, desperate. Falling over each other, pushing, shoving. Anything for just a chance of survival.

  But, like in all aspects of life, there are only a lucky few that ever truly succeed.

  Holding hands tightly enough to almost break their own wrists, Yuke, Van and Ava marched nervously through the portal as it whirled violently before them.

  The explosion claimed the rest.