John Hedley

Hushed

When people predicted what the apocalypse would be, they often said we would go out with a BANG… They could not have been more wrong. The end of society came as quietly as the silent void of space. Some think it was virus, others think it was a government experiment gone wrong , but everyone agrees it was hell. I guess it didn’t really matter how it started, but we called it The Hush. One day, before I was born, people started waking up with progressively worse hearing until they went completely deaf. Governments tried containing it, but no one could figure out how it spread. Eventually, the whole world had been affected, and not a single person was left with the ability to hear. At first, society adjust easily with their sophisticated technology, but things soon deteriorated. The 3rd world countries were the first to fall as people went mad from the silence. Soon enough others around the world began losing their minds too. Most lost their minds in the loneliness and they committed suicide, while others went so crazy they became maniacal killers. The latter would form groups of savage animals we called The Maniacs, they’d go around taking all their rage out on other people, even their own. However, a small percentage kept going trying to carry on what was left of society, my parents included.