2:39 p.m.
It began like a strange rerun – an alternate scene from Ghostbusters. The four originals stood in a deserted construction yard, clutching a containment unit that looked ready to burst.
I hovered unseen, a floating witness. Venkman grinned and said something reckless – that he could re-contain the ghosts into a flimsy greenhouse bolted to the unit. Before anyone stopped him, he released it.
The greenhouse filled instantly with silhouettes – faceless bodies pulsing behind plastic walls. One figure pressed close, its features suddenly human. For a moment, it looked at Venkman, then tore through the wall. The rest followed.
A storm rolled in from the west – not weather, but a sentient mass of black cloud laced with lightning and eyes. Thousands of them. Things with wings circled in the static. It was night again, and the world ended right there.
The others glared at Venkman as he fell to his knees. I remember thinking, We’re all fucked.
Then the scene shifted. I was underground with my mother, inside the old Cambie School, tunnels leading toward No. 6 Road. Debris blocked the exit, and from the darkness a one-eyed monster with three tongues snatched people, one by one. It played with them first – lifting, dropping – before smiling wide and swallowing them whole.
We stayed calm, moving west through the chaos, eventually emerging near King George Park. I held my mother’s hand tightly, too tightly, as we passed firefighters, police, and crowds of terrified civilians. The farther west we went, the quieter it became.
By morning, clouds still hung low. A boy on a dirt bike waited by a muddy field, staring into a break of light. He led us to what he called a safe place – a tractor tire half-buried in the muck, covered with weeds and a potato sack. “You can hide under here,” he said. His eyes looked hollow. I refused. “Take us to the fort,” I told him. “I’m not letting her die.”
He only nodded and pointed east. We walked toward the old community centre, avoiding a few firefighters who didn’t seem human anymore.
This was the part that gutted me. My hand still held hers – but when I looked down, it was a child’s hand. I was small again, though my voice was adult. In Cantonese I said, “If anything happens to me, there’s a bank account. The code is – take it when this is over. There’s not much, but it’s yours.” She only nodded.
I wanted to tell her I loved my brother and father, but instead I said, “Brother’s selfish, but he helps when it matters. Dad’s getting old and grumpier every day. You know what to do. Take care of yourself. You didn’t raise us just to carry us forever.”
My hand trembled in hers. I was terrified – not of dying, but of failing to keep her safe.
I don’t remember what came after. Only that when I woke, the feeling stayed – that strange displacement, like coming home from a long trip and finding everything familiar but slightly wrong.
The image that haunted me most wasn’t the monster or the eyes in the sky. It was that quiet moment in the park – the small hand inside the older one, holding on through the end of the world.
