1

I pulled the mixer lever and, almost as an answer, a thunderstorm burst violently outside. The rain beat down on the roof in an unusual way, a dissonant symphony that seemed to be fused with the water running over my skin. Immersed in the shower, wrapped in the isolation of my Plexiglas cabin, I had to make an effort to distinguish the chaos outside. Yet in that seemingly protected solitude, I could hear chairs screeching, voices rising, an extraordinary commotion that went beyond a mere thunderstorm.

A dull thud against the Plexiglas made my pulse quicken. A red mush slid quickly across the surface, reminding me of a bloody slime. That detail was enough to make me realize that something was wrong. But before I could process further, I felt a quiver of presence behind me, an icy sensation that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Turning around, I was confronted by two entities. They were shaped like worms, but they floated in the air as if governed by different physical laws. Small legs hung from their bodies, giving them an even more eerie appearance. But what really made my blood run cold was their ability to hover, defying gravity. In a rush of terror, I raised the shower door as a shield. When the creatures crashed into it, they dissolved into that same reddish mush.

The bathroom, in a short time, became an inferno. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of those floating worms materialized, passing through walls and floors as if they were immaterial. Every blow they struck against my shower made me tremble, every groan of terror I emitted echoed in the oppressive silence. It was clear that the Plexiglas represented an insurmountable barrier for them, but how long would it hold?

I could hear the commotion in the other apartments, and easily imagine what was going on.

After what seemed like an eternity, with my heart in my throat and my mind clouded with panic, I noticed that the creatures began to dissolve, one after another, until the bathroom returned to its original silence. I was alone, completely naked, in a bathroom that seemed to have been the scene of a Dantean nightmare.

The feeling of isolation was palpable, almost tangible, as if I were the sole survivor of a disaster of cosmic proportions. Yet, in that moment, one thing was certain: I had faced the unknown and come out alive.

I pulled myself up slowly with the Plexiglas panel acting as my shield and went to explore the house. There was no sign of those creatures passing through the house, not even a spilled piece of furniture, as if nothing had happened.

During the home exploration the thought that I had experienced everything in my head flashed through my mind a couple of times, but then the unnatural silence for that hour, suggested to me that, perhaps, what I had experienced was not the birth of my sick mind.

2

After dressing quickly, I clutched the shower door firmly in my hands, like a protective amulet. If it had been a hallucination, that Plexiglas plate testified to my madness. I would have waved it in front of a doctor’s eyes and begged to be committed.

Descending to the second floor, I noticed Mrs. Dagmar sitting on the stairs. Even from a distance, I could sense her unnatural stillness. As I approached, the details of her face became clearer: her closed eyelids twitched as if she were experiencing a nightmare, and every now and then a stifled moan escaped her.

The moment he opened his eyes was even more disconcerting. Her gaze shifted frantically, but she seemed not to see me. As her fingers danced in the air, as if she were trying to grasp invisible threads, a slow trickle of blood came out of her ears. The sound coming from her head was unique, like the buzzing of a trapped insect. It was clear: something, or someone, was eating her brain from the inside.

Her gaze met mine for a brief, terrifying instant before her eyes rolled back, leaving her in a blank state.

Panic took over, and I ran outside, hoping to find some form of salvation or at least an explanation. Yet as soon as I stepped outside, it was silence that greeted me. No sound, no movement, just deserted streets and the crushing weight of an unspoken tragedy. The world had become a phantom place, a theater of unseen and untold disasters.

3

Back up the stairs, my running was frantic and the Plexiglas door creaked against my body. Urgency pulsed through me like a fever. In front of me, there were creatures that defied all my understanding, operating beyond my narrow scope of knowledge. They, capable of traversing anything with impunity, had proved insidious adversaries. Except for the plastic, dammit, the very plastic I had always considered so insignificant.

Just inside the apartment, still in the throes of trying to form a plan, a sharp sound pierced my ears. I had become terribly sensitive to that buzzing sound. Running to the window, the landscape was clear and terribly real: not a thunderstorm, but a moving, threatening wall. Time was of the essence. Five minutes, ten at the most. I had to protect myself. But how?

An image crossed my mind. I had seen those creatures before. Tardigrades. Microscopic, indestructible creatures, but never of that size. My mind raced to put the pieces together, trying to find a connection, a logical explanation. CERN! I had read about experiments there. The anger of not understanding, of not being able to do so at that crucial moment, enveloped me. I was immersed in a nightmare, bereft of the answers and the time to search for them. Yet, I had to act, and quickly.

Every fragment of logic I clung to led me inexorably to CERN. Perhaps, in some obscure corner of the universe, they had broken through a barrier that we should never have touched. The idea that the end of the world could be caused by human error was chilling, but at the same time, strangely, reassuring. As if we were predestined to cause our own doom.

Our existence had always been surrounded by an abyss of ignorance, like swimming in a deep ocean without seeing what moves beneath. Now, however, that veil had been lifted. Creatures from the unknown had burst into our reality, showing us how insignificant and vulnerable we were. A bitter thought crossed my mind: perhaps our life is just a game of light and shadow, and in between, just an eternal search for meaning that we will never find.

But as I tried to shed light on the darkness of fate, a much more personal and familiar shadow began to darken my mind. A cold terror ran through me as I recognized its foreboding signs.

Epilepsy, my eternal enemy, was returning. In the midst of the apocalypse, my body was choosing that moment to betray me. Ironically, perhaps my fate was not to be consumed by those monsters, but rather to be helpless, revealing an even greater human frailty in the face of external chaos. A cruel manifestation of the human condition: always struggling, always trying to make sense, but in the end, always defeated by our own demons.

That was the end; I would be devoured by tardigrades shortly thereafter. In the moment before I passed out, a wry grin painted itself on my face: “In the midst of billions of people, humanity’s last hope is a worker with epilepsy. Just end it here.”

The shock came and I fainted.

…continued.