Ever heard the expression, “Don’t cry over spilled milk?” Well, sometimes, you should cry over spilled milk. In this story, you will learn how the spilling of a glass of milk set off a chain reaction that destroyed the entire universe in a matter of days.

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It was April tenth. A normal day. It all started at breakfast. I had just woken up, and my family was still asleep. I was eating pancakes. They were very good pancakes (especially considering that I made them) and just as I was reaching for more, my arm moved, and I knocked over my glass of milk. As the glass was falling, I caught it mid air. However, this threw me off balance, and I fell off my chair with a thud and, in the process, dropped my glass of milk, which spilled all over the floor. This may seem insignificant, but we lived next to a construction site and a nuclear power plant. The construction site was so loud that if one more decibel was emitted, the power of the sound waves would destroy the plant. The whole neighborhood was forced to wear headphones to block out the sound. The sound emitted, when my glass fell to the ground, added that extra decibel. You can probably guess what happened next. In the few seconds that followed, I ran down the stairs to my family’s basement and threw on my gas mask (everyone in the neighborhood was given one in case of this situation.) Sweat poured down my face in the rubbery mask. I started hyperventilating, just thinking about how many people I had just killed. Suddenly it came, like when you know you’re just waiting to throw up, but it still comes somehow unexpectedly.

BOOM!!!

I was thrown against the wall and the ground at the same time. Everything hurt. When I finally gathered enough energy to look up, I saw that the roof of the basement had been obliterated, along with just about our entire city.  When this completely dawned on me, I fainted.

I woke up about 13 hours later. It was becoming hard to breathe. The air was very stuffy. It was like sucking on a sweaty pig. The filters on my mask were starting to fill up. I wasn’t sure where we kept the spares. If they were upstairs then I was screwed. I might as well look for them. I began to grope around the basement. Black smoke had clouded the sky, and the lenses of my gas mask were fogged, so it would be hard to find the extra filters. I crawled along the floor until I reached a door. I stood up and fell down. My legs were shaky and weak. I slowly heaved myself off the ground. I leaned against the door and felt for the doorknob. The supply closet! If it was, I was saved. If not, well, let’s just say I was already having trouble breathing. I slowly turned the doorknob. I peered through the lenses of my mask. I could make out an oddly shaped thing in the middle of the room. I walked in. As I felt for a wall, I stumbled and fell into a tub of some sort. Of course! This was the bathroom.

I was doomed now. I had almost no air left. I struggled to stand up in the tub, and then I fell again. I hit the edge of the tub with my chin and bit my tongue. I could taste blood. I carefully crawled out of the tub and slithered out of the bathroom. I began to feel around in a last attempt. I collapsed from a deprivation of oxygen. My head clunked against a box.

I turned around and saw a cardboard box with nuclear stuff scrawled onto it. I remember writing that! I flung off the lid. Yes, the filters! I quickly exchanged my mask for a new, less fogged one.

I then folded myself into a ball and cried. I cried and cried for my family, for my friends, for everyone that I killed.