One night, I was awakened by the sound of distant thunder. As I opened my eyes… Darkness, all I saw was the pitch black ceiling above my head. It was rather strange since I remember leaving my bedroom light on for the night. ‘Boom’, another rage of thunder struck again. I was jolted this time. I sat straight on my bed, facing the window across my bedroom. Flashes of lightning started flying across the horizon outside the window. It was as if we humans had angered the thunder gods above the clouds and they had casted a spell in Earth.
I suspected that the thunderstorm outside caused a blackout in the house since I was unable to switch on the television in my bedroom. Disgruntled, I decided to go down to the basement where I could check out the power box. I tried my best to tip-toe down the staircase as quietly as possible without causing a riot when waking up my parents and I was successful.
The power box in the dark and somewhat scary basement had many buttons, I didn’t know where to start! I tried turning on this switch and turning off that one, but nothing happened. At last, there was a red button to the left that caught my eye instantly. I pressed it, out of curiosity. Suddenly, the ground beneath me started to tremble. Little cracks began appearing between the floorboards in front of me. The little cracks soon got bigger and bigger, and I just remained still beside the power box shivering with fear and astonishment. As the ground was shaking violently, I lost my balance and fell through one of the cracks. I fell and fell in what seemed to be an endless pit to Hell, but to my surprise, the surface I landed on in the end was not hard at all, in fact it was soft… Clouds!
I opened my eyes and the most stunning and unbelievable sight appeared in front of my face. A gigantic middle-aged man holding a thunderbolt in his hand was seated on a large golden chair in the middle of a Greek-style room. The room was filled with ancient Greek artifacts, from intricate paintings hanging on the walls to magnificent statues of naked people situated in every corner of the room. Frightened as I was, I did not dare to move or say a word.
‘Welcome to the Kingdom of Olympus, the home of Gods!’ the man boomed. ‘I am Zeus, God of thunder and sky, and the king of Gods.’
Numerous question marks popped into my head, but there was one question that needed to be answered at once. ‘What do you want from me?!’ I blurted out.
‘Ha! You humans are so clueless!’ Zeus smirked. ’Don’t you see what has happened to the Earth? Famines in Africa cause thousands of children to die; wars in the Middle East cause innocent people to suffer; pollution all over the world cause global warming to worsen… You humans are deemed too impure and irresponsible. Therefore, the Gods of Olympia had made a unanimous decision to destroy the human population by starting floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters in every nation! In other words, it will soon be the end of the world!’
‘What?! You can’t do that!’ I retorted. ‘Please have mercy on us. Humans are not that bad…’
‘Boom’, I was awakened by yet another rage of thunder. I sat straight on my bed, breathing a wonderful sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness it was just a horrible nightmare.’ I whispered to myself. The thunderstorm outside had significantly calmed down by now, though it was still drizzling. ‘Tap… tap… tap…’ Tiny raindrops started splashing on my window pane so gracefully, they looked like small angels falling from heaven.
As I was having trouble with regaining my sleep, I switched on the television in my bedroom out of boredom. ‘Today’s weather will be rainy…’ I changed the channel, from the weather forecast, to the international news.
As soon as I changed the channel, something rendered speechless. A news reporter in black read the headline in a somber voice. ‘Multiple floods, tornadoes and earthquakes had devastated different parts of the world, resulting in heavy casualties in Japan, China, France and other populated countries, with the death count reaching a horrifying 40 million. We will have an update after 3 hours.’
But then, the news reporter said something that immediately sent chills up my spine. ‘May the Gods be in favor of you since it might as well be the end of the world.’