Achromatic Doomsday

2030

The wind gently brushed Roden's hair back as he walked through the dense forest, his footsteps crunching in rhythm with the woodland wildlife. His gaze drifted from tree to tree - not searching, but merely acknowledging. As he wandered down the winding path, he passed by a remnant of the life before; a single traffic light post, wrapped in vines and sprouting grass from its various orifices. As his eyes ventured up the post, an ornate and friendly bird landed on the post and chirped at him.

It had been five years. Five whole years since the "end of the world". Everyone had assumed the ending would be horrible and destructive, like nuclear armageddon or a virus outbreak. It was none of those. What had actually happened was much more surprising.

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Oct. 12th, 2025

Roden was late for work once again. He lived in the bustling metropolis of New York City, where the term 'thriving' was relative. Roden was not thriving. His bills were behind, his car needed many expensive repairs, and his love life was deteriorating. As he sat at the 17th stoplight on his commute to work, he picked up his phone and pressed the home button. The screen lit up with three different blue notifications:

NEW MESSAGE from Trinity

Hello, Rodin, your balance today is -$23.41.

REMINDER: need to do laundry

On many different occasions Roden had reached out to his bank, informing them that they'd misspelled his name. It had an e, not an i. Every time he did this, they would acknowledge the update request, only to find the next morning that they had not actually changed anything at all. One would think that a person's name, for the files of the bank, would absolutely need to be 100% correct, would one not? Roden knew he should never have signed up for the experimental facial recognition feature that allowed him access to his bank accounts. Since they always verified him by his face, his name wasn't really important.

Upon reaching that conclusion, Roden realized the profundity of that thought. His name wasn't important. Nobody's name was important anymore. Technology had developed at an unprecedented rate in the two decades past, and within the last few years, connecting faces with accounts had become a very common thing. Due to heightened security, identity theft was brought down drastically. Even the credits in movies were no longer a list of names in white text scrolling up on a black screen, they had been replaced with a collage of the faces of the cast and crew who made them.

The traffic light Roden was stopped at finally flashed the much anticipated green bulb, and traffic began flowing once again. Roden turned his eyes back to the road, his hands at 10 and 2 o'clock on the steering wheel. He had always been a safe driver. He lost both his parents in a car accident at age 12. The one thing that burned in his mind about their death was that they had a friendly family bet to see which of them Roden would take after more as he navigated his adolescence. He struggled with guilt and resentment at the fact that they never got to see it through.

BZZZZT! BZZZZT! BZZZZT!

Roden was startled as his phone violently demanded his attention, slamming its metaphorical fists against his thigh.

"Answer me! I demand it!" Roden always imagined his phone pleading whenever he had it set to vibrate. He didn't even need to look at it to know who was calling; Trinity.

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2030

Nearly missing a thorn-covered tree, Roden snapped out of his reminiscence and exited the wooded glade he was traversing. He came upon a lake, calmly rippling with the slightest waves. A sigh of awe escaped his mouth as he took in the majesty of the body of water. He felt so at peace, he could almost jump for joy at how happy he was. There was an intense feeling deep down inside of him, fueling him with this dream-like bliss. Everything was so calm, his awareness began to fade away from his surroundings.

Suddenly from across the lake, a single figure emerged from the trees. Roden's breath caught in his throat. He felt something he hadn't felt in the last five years; fear.

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Oct. 12th 2025

Roden slipped his nagging phone from his pocket and checked the screen. To his surprise, it wasn't his estranged wife calling him. It was an unknown caller labeled 'Private,' and thus had no actual numbers displayed. It simply said:

CALL INCOMING FROM ---.

ANSWER?

Roden hesitated, due to a built in fear of call-based scams, which was still a possibility in today's age. He tapped the red 'Decline' button and set his phone down on the seat beside him. Only a few seconds later it rang again, displaying the same cryptic message as before. He felt anxiety creeping up within him. It could either be a scammer or something urgently important. He decided on the safest route, which was to turn his phone completely off. He refocused on the 18th stoplight, from which the bright red bulb was glaring menacingly at him.

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2030

The lone figure noticed Roden from across the lake and broke into a run around the body of water, seemingly in a wild scramble to reach Roden. Unsure of whether to turn and run or stand and confront the bizarre creature, Roden glanced behind himself to ensure an escape route was clear. Just as his legs tensed and began to turn him around, he heard a shout from the creature that sent an icy chill down his spine and froze him in place;

"RODEN!! Wait! Don't run away!" The voice that drifted towards him over the lake was surely female. This struck him as odd considering Roden's very limited experience with women. The creature from whom the cry had come finally reached him, and he immediately wished he had run.

Before Roden stood a woman covered in a pulsating growth from head to toe. The sight of the growth alone was nauseating to him. His disgust must have been apparent, because she immediately tried to scrape it off, stopping quickly upon realizing her action's futility.

"Look, we don't have much time. I know you have no reason to trust me, but everything you're seeing is a lie," she quickly blurted out, repeatedly peering over her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist with incredible speed. Roden had no time to pull his hand away before she thrust a small object into it.

"I know you don't believe me, but if you open this and press it against your left eye, you'll see what I mean. Once you can see, follow my footsteps!" She opened her mouth as if to say more, but her eyes drifted past Roden and her face distorted into a look of undisguised terror. Roden slowly turned around and tried to see what startled her, but the only thing he saw move was the vibrant bird from before, still chirping its merry song. As Roden gazed upon the bird, he was filled with a sense of peace and serenity, and nearly forgot about the terrified woman standing in front of him. He turned back to her to ask what she was babbling about, but when he turned to confront her... she was gone. She had completely vanished from his field of sight, aside from the bits and pieces of the growth enveloping her body that now littered the ground before him. Roden looked into his hand and held his breath; it was a small heart-shaped locket flecked with the noxious fluid that strange woman had oozed. He was strongly tempted to throw it away, to get as far away from it as he could, but he felt a twinge of something else he hadn't felt in years: curiosity. As he stared at the locket, a dark realization arose in him. He became overwhelmed by feelings he hadn't experienced in many years, feelings that seemed almost foreign to him now. The more he considered this epiphany, the more his hairs stood on end.

How had that woman known his name?

What *thing* inside him even confirmed them as female?

Why had she told him these things, of all people?

That last thought finally broke the blissful stupor he was unknowingly trapped in. She could speak. To confirm his fears, he slowly opened his mouth and tried to say some words, but nothing came out. The level of fear in his system spiked. What was going on?? Why was this happening to him?? He whirled around as whistling and chirping sounded from behind him.

That strange bird was there again, reprising its peaceful melody. Roden breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the serene bliss flow over him once again, and his entire body relaxed. As his hands fell open, he felt something small drop onto his foot.

It was the locket. As soon as his eyes locked on it, he felt the peace and bliss disappear. They were replaced with his fear, anxiety, and most importantly: his questions.

The woman's words still rang in his head; "...open this and press it against your left eye..." Roden looked down at the locket, and though his hands trembled, he opened the tiny compartment. Inside, it was pitch black. Though this should have terrified him, it instead sparked a new question; What was blackness, and how had he recognized it? He slowly brought the locket up to his eye, and the shrouded answer began forming in his brain. As the inside of the locket met his open eye, he was hit with what felt like a lightning bolt straight to the top of his head.

Colors.

Colors. He had forgotten about colors. That's what the answer was. That is what was keeping his mind clouded. He didn't know what colors he was looking at. As he brought the locket down, he made an inaudible gasp at the familiar yet completely new world around him. After all, nothing had changed; Roden could just see the colors now.

The lake was a putrid brown, which invoked a wave of disgust in Roden and nearly made him gag. The 'grass' he was walking on shot a blackish-yellow tint at his eyes, and felt slightly sticky under his feet. His entire body tingled with revulsion as he remembered all the times he laid in it and rolled around. The trees were a nasty shade of brown, but what truly scarred Roden's mind were the leaves; they were white, like paper. They were just plain off-white, nothing vibrant about them.

All of a sudden he heard whistling again, this time to his right. He turned, and what he saw broke his heart. The beautiful little bird was a dull steel contraption. Perched and blaring out canned audio with a built-in speaker. As soon as it noticed Roden's inability to appreciate its song, two little lights flared red and it flew off.

Roden was surrounded by awful colors and dead silence. He felt drained. His happiness and bliss were gone, replaced by confusion, fear, and a sense of defeat. What had been the point of this? Sure, Roden could see the truth now, but why not just let him live his life in peaceful ignorance? Why open his eyes if nothing pleased them?

Roden's knees buckled and he began to cry. His tears fell to the ground as he looked helplessly around him, wishing that it would all go back to the way it was, but knowing it would not. He dropped his head, and tears stopped rolling down his face as his awareness was drawn to the ground before him.

There, a few feet beyond where he sat, he saw something that made even less sense than all he'd just witnessed. It was grass, not the blackened yellow grass, but GREEN healthy grass. He reached down to touch it, but he wrenched his arm back in sudden fright. His skin was a pale grey, devoid of any life or color. He looked over his whole body, which shared this same dull shade... except for the hand that held the locket. That hand was a soft pink, and it registered in Roden's brain that this used to be the shade of his skin. He looked up and saw the same patches of lush green grass dotting the bank of the lake, marking the footsteps of the mysterious female who had freed him. Roden arose with newfound strength and began to follow the footsteps. Though he was unsure of what he would find, he was confident that anywhere was better than here.

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Oct. 12th 2025

Roden finally made it to work. Since he needed his phone to do his job, he turned it on. After the boot-up sequence, he was greeted with one ominous blue notification:

REMINDER: Answer the call.

This confused Roden, since the only way a 'Reminder' notification would pop up was if he had made it himself. He clearly remembered NOT making this reminder. As if to add to the mystery, the phone rang again, showing the mysterious unknown caller on his screen. Roden, feeling rushed, decided he would answer it and hang up immediately. This would give him the ability to mark the number as spam and prevent it from calling him again. The moment his finger touched the green 'Answer' button, however, the screen flashed the brightest light Roden had ever seen, which blinded him. Sitting alone in his car, Roden let out a terrified scream, not sure what on earth was happening. His eyesight remained a pure off-white for a horrifying moment, then slowly, it dissolved. As it faded away, Roden's ears were greeted by what was an unfamilar sound in New York City; birds chirping. His eyes were now met with a light that bathed him in warmth, and he lifted his hand to cover up the sunlight that was blinding him once again. He was sitting in a clearing surrounded by lush trees, all impressively tall and pointed toward the sky. As Roden took in his surroundings, he realized that for a moment he couldn't remember how he got there or where he was a few seconds ago. Anxiety began to boil inside of him, but right before he could scream for help, three birds landed on his outstretched legs. They were the most opulent birds Roden had ever seen, and the song they sang was so heavenly, he felt immediately at peace. He breathed in as much of the wonderful air as his lungs could hold, and looked around himself with renewed vigor.

He still wasn't sure how he got there, or even where he was before, but this land was alluring and so vibrant with... something, and Roden decided it was his original desire to walk these lands and acknowledge everything he saw.

This is how the world ended. Not with bombs or flesh-eating creatures, but with confusion followed by comfort. This is how everything ends.