What would you do if you woke up one morning and the day was cancelled?

The whole internet had a 401 code. You switch on the tv to find only one channel with a standby for broadcast notice followed by the following statement.

“All citizens unless previously instructed otherwise are to stay indoors until further notice. This is compulsory, martial law is in place, anybody found to be moving around without the correct transponder credentials will be shot”.

You go to the radio and the same message is playing across all stations. Next you pick up your mobile to find no service. Do you take notice of the warning, or do you go outside and see if anyone else is on the street?

I live in a western democratic country I thought , what is martial law and why would the government enact it without warning, it didn’t make sense.

I decide to go to a Neighbour and see if some crazy technical glitch or hack job is targeting me. I knocked on the door, the car is still in the driveway, they should be home. There is no answer. I look through a window George and Marg are frozen in front of the tv which is displaying the same warning. I knock again, louder, more insistently and finally George approaches the door. Who is it? He said.

Mike from across the road. I replied. I was just checking to see if you were having the same tech issues as me. You shouldn’t be outside he said, the tv says so said George with a tremor in his voice. Go away.

Wow, I shook my head and as I walked towards the intersection at the end of the street, I imagined two skeletons sitting in front of a tv waiting for somebody to tell them what to do next.

It was eerily quiet for 7am usually there would be traffic noise. There was nothing. I approached the intersection of my street and a major rd which has traffic 24 / 7 . There was no traffic and as I looked up the street saw no traffic lights. I guess something big has happened.

I walked home pondering, for years now I had been following podcasts which talked about a secret military action taking place worldwide to bring down a satanic cult which pulled the strings of all government and corporate entities. There was always a new twist on that story, secret islands and locations where the elites gathered to do weird rituals and some real nasty crap involving kids. There was always warnings that soon there would be 10 days of darkness where everything would shut down and special broadcasts would reveal the true nature of reality. Could this be that, was all that stuff true or had a cabal of global totalitarianism moved out into the open and taken ultimate control.

I went into my kitchen at least power was on. I made a coffee and went back to the living room. The tv was still displaying the same message. Was this like in 2020 when the whole covid bullshit had everyone locked down and unable to move around freely. Even then we still had communications, tv, internet nothing was switched off.

Maybe overnight we had been hit by an emp or a solar flare or something. My mind was racing now I looked out to the sky half expecting to see Chinese paratroopers raining from the sky. Were we in a red dawn or tomorrow when the world ends scenario.

Suddenly I heard a loud beeping and I started awake, oh shit I was in a dream. I shook my head somewhat relieved but still feeling the stress of the dream That had seemed so real.

I lay there thinking about times throughout history where revolution and war have interrupted the lives of millions and until recent times when there was no tv or internet. There would have been no warning only waking up to the reality of the situation .

I better get up and start my day , I guess .

I crossed to the window to open the blind to see an armored vehicle with very scary looking armed soldiers walking down the street.

Fuck was the only word that came to mind.