The Void.

The school playground was where it started. Little Iris, Penny Landower’s daughter, was the first to spot it at lunchtime: a small patch at the far end of the junior playground where the ground should be, about the size of a child’s fist. Something didn’t look right about it. She kicked a little dirt at it, tried nudging it with her toe, but there was nothing there. Then her friends called out to her in the middle of their game, and she forgot about it, as children do. But being the curious, thoughtful child that she was, she returned to it at afternoon break, to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was there alright (or wasn’t there, if you get my drift) and, what’s more, it had grown. Now it was about the size of a dinner plate. Iris frowned and screwed up her eyes thoughtfully, trying to make sense of it. She crouched down and peered closer, turning her head to inspect it side-on, but she couldn’t really see anything. Jimmy noticed and came over to look. He wasn’t too sure what he was seeing, but he was a little less cautious than Iris. He took a long stick, the one he’d a moment ago been contemplating starting a sword fight with, and poked at it. He couldn’t see anything different, but his stick didn’t meet any resistance. It just sort of disappeared into the patch of ground that wasn’t there, so part of the stick wasn’t really there either. It was strangely unsettling but sort of fascinating at the same time.

When a few children had stopped their games and gathered round, Miss Worthing, the Year 4 teaching assistant in charge of lunchtime supervision that day, thought she’d better see what all the fuss was about. By that time a few kids had moved onto throwing things into it — pebbles, crisp packets, that kind of thing — experiments to see what would happen, I guess. Well, despite being fairly young and new to the role, Miss Worthing certainly had her wits about her, and they were lucky she did too. Straight off, she could see that something seriously wasn’t right, and she made sure all the children backed off right away while she sent Iris to go and get Mr Arndale, the headteacher. He took one look and you could tell he was alarmed, but he didn’t let it show, oh no, didn’t want to send the children into a panic. Instead he got straight down to business and brusquely ordered some of the more responsible Year 6 children to help round up the unrulier younger ones, with Miss Worthing guarding the area to make sure no one got any closer, and between them they managed to close off the junior playground and get all the children back to their classrooms ten minutes before the end of afternoon break.

The police were down pretty soon after that. By the time the children were sent home for the day they had cordoned off the whole playground and posted guards at each entrance. They’d put one of those tent things over the patch itself, the ones they use in the police dramas when they uncover bodies. It was all very dramatic. There was plenty of chatter and rubber-necking, it was pretty much the most exciting thing ever to happen at the school. But the teachers ushered the kids along, didn’t let them dally, placating the more persistent parents with the assurance that an email would go out later that day explaining everything.

The email, when it came hours later, did little to address the speculation. It simply stated that the school would be closed the next day and that parents should make alternative arrangements, apologies for the inconvenience, etc. etc. By that time, the local news stations had got wind of it. They interviewed Iris (seeing as she was the one who found it first), and she got to say her piece on TV, she was pleased as punch. But that alarmed people more than anything else. The prevailing narrative up until that time had been that it was probably some sort of unexploded bomb left over from World War II that had been unearthed somehow, or maybe a gas leak of some kind. Iris, bless her, was very articulate, she was a smart girl. But it’s very hard to describe something that’s, well, nothing. People hadn’t ever heard of anything like that before. So then came the more frenzied speculation, that it was something more nefarious. Maybe some novel technology that the Russians were trying out on our unassuming market towns (they have form, after all).

Anyway, by the following morning the whole school was cordoned off and the place was crawling with press vans and news reporters trying to get a glimpse. The bomb squad were down there too, you could tell by the number of heavily armoured vehicles being let into the school grounds. Plenty of police were on hand checking IDs and documents, absolutely no one was getting in without official clearance. The teachers had all been told to stay at home, but Mr Arndale was down there by the main entrance, fielding questions and trying to maintain a calm presence. They were all clamouring to interview him too, the BBC, Sky News, everyone. And in the meantime, it had grown. The tent was gone, they’d erected hoardings around the perimeter of the playground, like on a building site, so no one could get a clear view. But a few chancers tried boosting each other up to get a closer look, right around the far side when the guard wasn’t looking. They managed to get a few seconds of blurry footage on their mobile phones before the police spotted them and chased them off, but what they filmed went right around the world in a matter of hours. All of a sudden it wasn’t a local story anymore, it was a matter of national security.

By the next day, even the hoardings were gone. The army was called in and an evacuation was ordered for anyone within a half-mile radius. A relief shelter was set up at the leisure centre for those who didn’t have anyone to stay with, and families camped out on the sports hall floor with only the belongings they could carry with them. The cordon advanced, armed personnel with guns enforcing the perimeter, taking short shrift with the milling reporters. Razor wire was hastily laid. There was no sense trying to hide it anymore. One day the school was there, and the next day it just wasn’t.

It’s hard to put into words exactly what you see when you’re looking at nothing. It does something to your brain, I think. It just can’t put the puzzle pieces together, like trying to imagine the world in four dimensions or something. It’s not a hole, exactly. It’s not dark — you’re not seeing blackness like when you close your eyes or peer into a dark room before your eyes have adjusted. It’s more like a bit of the world just isn’t there. Like no matter how closely you scrutinise it, you can never look directly at it. Your gaze just slips off, and your brain has no idea how to fill in the missing piece. So you can imagine just how terrifying that’s going to be to a lot of folks.

When the first casualty came, that’s when the panic set in. He was one of the armed guards, and I guess he’d been on patrol for a long time, probably tired and looking forward to finishing his shift and getting away from there. They didn’t factor in how rapidly it was expanding. By the time he realised he was cornered up against the razor wire, if he ever did, it was probably too late. He was there, and then he was gone.

People started leaving town in droves. The roads were clogged with traffic, everyone was just trying to get away however, to wherever, they could. We had 24-hour news coverage, helicopters and drones circling overhead, monitoring the situation. They hardly needed the new evacuation order by that point, so desperate were people to get away. The question was where would be a safe distance? Everyone could see it was getting bigger and bigger. Where would it stop? Would it finally deflate? And still, who had done this, and why? No one had any answers.

The armed forces tried to maintain some semblance of order, setting up checkpoints, trying to prevent chaos descending. There were attempts to evacuate vulnerable people, the ones in hospitals, care homes, all that, but they were just as stuck in traffic as everyone else, and I’m sure some of them perished in the attempt. The only people entering the jurisdiction were journalists (what they could possibly report on at this point, I don’t know — the situation was visible far and wide, and no more information was forthcoming) and scientists, the brightest minds specialising in chemical weapons, quantum physics, you name it, flown in by the government, no expense spared.

After five days it had swallowed the town, the temporary evacuation centre long since gone, everyone simply trying to find a way out with little thought of what would come next. Reports of tens, hundreds of people missing. The details were hazy — were they lost in the chaos, or did they fall into the bubble (as we were calling it then)? Many were trampled, crushed or mown down by fleeing vehicles. And still no one had answers. All the scientists could agree on was that the rate of expansion was accelerating.

You become a different person when everything you’ve ever known, the place that’s formed your identity, is obliterated. Erased. Wiped from existence, as if it never was. It didn’t take long for the country to become ungovernable. By the time it reached London, we’d already lost several major cities, countless small towns. Motorways were gridlocked, travellers abandoned their vehicles and resorted to making their way on foot. Those that remained in the far reaches of Cornwall, the ones who hadn’t had the wits or resources to leave while it was still possible, were all but abandoned, entirely cut off. Their only hope was to escape by sea, if they could. There was simply no time to formulate an evacuation plan and muster up the resources, not when half the government had already deserted.

By the time the official announcement came through, there were few left in the south of England to receive it. Much of the country was already lawless. Most of those whose communications devices hadn’t been left behind, looted or stolen had lost power, with no means of recharging them. But a few had managed to hold onto enough backup power to hear the alert when it came: Essential government personnel had relocated to a secret underground bunker. Probably in Scotland, people guessed, or offshore somewhere. Everyone else should gather what resources they could and get away by whatever means possible. No more help was coming.

In those first three weeks we had no idea how many were lost. Those that didn’t flee to Scotland and the North instead made for the English Channel, appropriating any vessel they could find, whether seaworthy or not. Alarmed by the influx of refugees, the European nations began locking down their borders. The French coastguard’s ships patrolled the channel, attempting to turn back any who tried to enter their waters, only rescuing those who were clearly in danger. It was as futile as trying to hold back the tide. Some boats made it, but thousands of people drowned. And still it kept expanding.

“The Void”, we called it by then. Because it felt like a bubble no longer. Just a yawning emptiness, an endless nothing. And once they could see it drawing ever closer across the water, once they knew beyond a doubt that this maw knows no respect for borders (physical or notional), and that bombs or weapons of any kind had no effect, one by one those countries fell too.

What was it like for the people on the last scraps of land with nowhere to go? Did they hug their children and tell them everything would be alright? Did they go to sleep in their beds knowing that they would not wake up? Did they close their eyes and walk in willingly, knowing that if they had nothing else, they at least had that choice? I contemplate this as I sit here in my hammock in the Australian outback with the world growing smaller around me. It’s quiet here, as the void closes in from all directions and the world falls silent. Peaceful, almost. A gentle sunset. The animals don’t seem to notice the void, even as it swallows them. A mercy. I envy them their obliviousness, their capacity to accept the here and now, and never look beyond.

I might be the last witness to the end of everything. If there is nothing more than this, what is my life worth? What are any of our lives worth? It will be as if we were never here. And maybe that is as it should be. On a cosmic scale, this was always our fate, after all. We are a feather caught on a thorn, clinging for a moment before being swept away on the breeze. But there is a freedom to be found in knowing when to let go. When the breeze comes, I will let it take me, and I will go with my eyes open.