The day was July 3, 2029. The crops in all the neatly procured, subsidized fields lining the highway were starting to pop. Where the fields were healthy, the corn was definitely knee-high, and the soft, bushy rows of soybeans were definitely looking super bright and green. The stretch of roads was quiet, like always, as I raced my black 2008 Ford Focus to my mom’s house. She raised my two older brothers and me on her own since I was barely sixteen. “Come on, Katherine!” I shouted at my with frustration, “Can you drive any faster!” No matter how fast I drove, it didn’t seem fast enough.

When I started my usual shift at my totally normal, not embarrassing, soul-sucking, lifeless job, nothing really convinced me the world was going to end. That something more lifeless than my soul would start rising from the grave. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was convinced the world was ending in the middle of my shift at 12 pm, even when the store was practically dead save for my co-workers, who were too busy and distracted by unloading and stocking the truck as I was. I wasn’t sure if the world was ending when I punched.

It was when I was walking to my car that I felt like something was off…

Stepping out of work, I was once again met with a beautiful, bright blue sky, clear and vacant, with no sign of clouds in sight. The sun still hung high in the sky, still kissing the earth with its heat, when my nose was assaulted by the sickly sweet scent of what I could only describe as something dead and decaying hanging in the air, faint but still there, cloying at the roof of my mouth, making my stomach twist and turn. The miserably humid July heat made the smell all the more suffocating. Looking towards town, a black cloud of smoke billowed, carrying the acrid smell of burning flesh that seemed to burn my lungs. It took every bit of willpower in me to hold down the sloshing contents in my stomach as I rushed to my car to escape the horrid, godawful smell. Whatever was going on, something was wrong. Very wrong.

The dead, for as long as I could remember, were buried; there were quiet wakes or visitations for the day to remember them by. A proper funeral where family members saw their loved ones one last time, dressed all nicely and lying peacefully in the casket, before the poor vessel that contained their soul was lowered into the ground to rest. Some bodies were sent to a crematorium where their bodies were incinerated in large, hot ovens, returning their bodies to dust, but never… never had I smelled them burned. Never had I smelled them burned. I might’ve been able to miss certain cues from time to time, but now human instinct was screaming at me loud and clear: nothing good ever came of people burning the dead in the streets, and in broad daylight.

I walked to my car as quickly as I could, practically sprinting with adrenaline and fear, flinging the driver's door open and tossing my black shoulder purse as if possessed by a rabid canine. The last thing I remembered before racing home was a brief glimpse of my sixty-year-old coworker, Brad, stepping out of the building. His face went pale, and he looked older as a look of dread fell upon him before I flipped the keys in the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot.