The Fall

Terrorist sabotage was suspected as the cause, with fingers pointed at Pakistan. Pakistan denied any involvement, while a meeting of the Israeli cabinet followed an emergency meeting of the Knesset, viewed as a war council. Meanwhile, Syria and Cyprus demanded international censure of Israel as well as financial reparations, and Iran declared that the vampire curse was also obviously Jewish in origin.

Pakistan’s president and prime minister, believing that the reactor meltdown was an excuse for Israel to launch an attack, led the parliament to authorize a preemptive nuclear strike of six warheads.

Israel countered with their second strike capability.

Iran bombed Israel and immediately claimed victory. India launched retaliatory fifteen-kiloton warheads against Pakistan and Iran.

North Korea, spurred on by fear of the plague as well as an extended famine, launched against South Korea and sent its troops across the thirty-eighth parallel.

China allowed itself to be drawn into the conflict, in an attempt to distract the international community from its own catastrophic nuclear reactor failure.

The nuclear explosions triggered earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Tons and tons of ash were injected into the stratosphere, along with sulfuric acid and massive amounts of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Cities burned and oil fields ignited, consuming many million barrels of oil daily, fires that could not be extinguished by man. These continuous chimneys lofted dark, blanketing smoke into the ash-saturated stratosphere, cycling over the planet, absorbing sunlight at levels reaching 80 to 90 percent.

This cooling soot grew like a cowl over the Earth.

It impacted every human settlement, bringing further chaos and the certainty of the Rapture. Cities degenerated into toxic prisons, highways became gridlocked junkyards. The Canadian and Mexican borders were closed and illegal U.S. citizens crossing the Rio Grande were met with decisive firepower. Though even these boundaries were not to last.

Above Manhattan, the massive radioactive cloud lingered, the sky turning crimson until the atmospheric soot blotted out the sun. The dusk was artificial, in that clocks said it was still daytime-and yet it was all too real.

At the shore, the ocean turned silvery-black, reflecting the sky above.

Later came a rain of ashes. The fallout wiped away nothing, only making things blacker.

Soon the alarms faded and hordes of vampires emerged from their cellars… to claim their new world.

North River Tunnel