4.25.3024:

The low droning noise steadily increased until it caught the attention of the seven billion inhabitants of the planet. It could be heard in the back of their minds, slowly calling for attention until the sound was so loud it demanded the captivity of the audience.

Words pursued the noise. A distorted, deep voice that typically was heard in movies when the person communicating didn’t want to be identified. Its reverbrance was metallic and had an undercurrent of maliciousness. But the tone wasn’t what caught the attention of Earth’s citizens. It was the words. Numbers, to be exact. 86400, 86399, 86398. And the countdown went on. 

At first people weren’t sure what the countdown represented. They didn’t even know that they weren’t the only ones experiencing the strange countdown. It had been communicated telepathically, see, to the individual person. But when the countdown didn't stop, despite headache medicine and slips into the realms of sleep and music being played obnoxiously loud, people started to confide in others about the strange count they were hearing in their head.

Now, reader, there is such a thing as a fear of being alone. A fear that comes from the burdensome knowledge of the vast universe stretching out infinitely, and humankind being but one single fleck. That this world is so much bigger than them. But what people don’t seem to understand is the crippling fear of something being out of our control. When the news spread, like wildfire, that the countdown was a global thing, people started to realize what was happening was beyond their understanding and power. And the fact that they were all experiencing this together was worse, in a way, then being alone.

Soon enough later, or, according to the countdown, 82,657 seconds later, people started to notice something that made their blood turn cold. There were exactly 86400 seconds in 24 hours. Something would happen in twenty four hours. Something big, something world wide. And humans, the neurotic and paranoid race they were, began to think it was the end of the world.

This is where the collective unit of humans started to splinter into a few differences. 

There were the prayers. The devout, pious people who dedicated their lives to a higher power, and in a moment of confusion and loss, grabbed on to that thread of thinking like it could lift them out of the situation. They confessed, they cried, they tried to negotiate. Anything to stop their imminent doom or secure them a place in heaven once it inevitably became a reality.

The risk takers were my favorites. They decided if they only had a limited time left, they would squeeze the most life they could out of it. People did the most impulsive and carefree things they had ever done in those hours. Some would be regretful, and some were exactly the kind of thing people needed but didn’t know they had needed. 

The majority group was logical. They seemed unable to explain why any of this was happening, but that didn’t stop them from questioning if it was real. The second “announcement” took care of this group of people. The counting stopped for a brief second, and in its place a robotic voice cut through the ominous silence. Enjoy all the time you have left. Exactly…. And then it kept on counting.

Cynicism clashed with optimists. Hysteria met reason. The world was upended, a clash of philosophies and emotion and complete and utter terror.

As the countdown continued, the sky began to darken. Not in the usual, nighttime way, but in a gradual dimmer fading into complete black. It was still dark the following afternoon, when only 14400 seconds remained. Four hours. 

Terror built within each passing second. More and more people began to believe in this message as they were confronted with the reality.

It seemed to me that there were five main stages each individual went through. I had hypothesized a similar pattern of behavior, but the evidence collected from the trend proved me right. 

First was denial. This was similar to the five stages of grief, but with a key difference. There was no delusion, for the most part, that something was happening. People heard the voices, and knew they couldn’t deny something bigger was going on. But nobody wanted to believe what the innate knew was true at first. That this countdown was an evil, terminating, definite thing. 

Second came bargaining. In each case what they were bargaining for varied, but a consistent pattern was present. Humans, selfish as they were, each believed they had the power to stop this countdown. That it was their purpose, their responsibility. Even the most blunt and selfless person failed to comprehend that they could do nothing. 

Moving on from that leads to immense grief. This is where the pattern differs from the typical known five stages of grief. There was not a widespread stage of anger, because as much as humans like to hate what they can’t understand, the fear of what would happen if they became indignant took hold. Nobody knew if someone was controlling the whole thing and would take offense to anger, and worsen the situation.

Following the grief came curiosity. The grief never really subsided, it stayed attached in everyone's mind. But people began to focus on what they could control. They wanted to find out who this mysterious being was, ( they were unable to imagine it was a concept bigger than what they were capable of understanding) and set out to find who it was. Anger inevitably followed when the question was determined unanswerable, but the anger was, ironically enough, directed inwards. As I said before, humans were selfish enough to think it was their responsibility to find answers. And they HATED that they couldn’t.

Lastly was a stage of happiness. I hadn’t predicted this one, in all honesty. My belief had been that humans were prone to sadness and evil and narrowmindedness. But this last stage proved me wrong. The word happiness is perhaps not the best word to describe the atmosphere during those final few hours. Nothing had changed, there was still the ever hanging possibility of ‘the end’. But the humans came to the realization that wasting the last few precious droplets of time was doltish. So they choose to meet ‘the end’ doing the things that made them happy.

In summary, my experiment was to see what would happen if the human race thought they would come to an end. It was my favorite science experiment we have done all year. It was thrilling and unexpected and interactive. The technology aspect was difficult, I had to design the perfect mind programmer to enter in all the humans minds simultaneously. Then I had to make sure to erase their minds of the last twenty four hours, since we weren’t allowed to cause any permanent damage to the subjects of our experiment. I realized humans were a beautiful creation, and for all their flaws, they became wordfully united and serene in the final moments of complete chaos. I highly recommend offering this experiment next year.

Baylee Arias,
 Class of 3025.