“What?” Penny said groggily as she opened her eyes.
“Aw, man! No! We missed the best part! This DVD must be scratched. I’ll try to rewind. Sorry, you missed your, like, favorite part. Oh my gosh,” Stephanie yelled as she fiddled with the remote. Eventually they figured it out and rewound to the part where Peeta and Katniss kiss in the Arena’s shelter, just before she leaves to get medicine to heal his wounds. They watched the rest of the movie, shed a few tears, and danced to the end credits’ songs. Penny set down the popcorn bowl, which was now full of the always unwanted un-popped kernels.
She turned on the news, and a reporter, a young blonde woman with crazy, bright red lipstick, appeared. “We have reports from all over the world; car crashes, planes falling from the sky, surgeons falling asleep during operations, and high death tolls from roadwork and machinery crews. Theories are pouring in on what happened to humanity from 8:00 P.M. to 8:03 P.M. During those three minutes, the world slept and nearly 15% of the population was killed, leaving another 30% badly injured. More to come on this as-yet unexplained international crisis. I’m Chelsea Taylor, and this is Channel 5 News.”
Once the report ended, Penny changed the channel, and then changed it again, and again, and again, until she was holding down the “channel up” button. Every single station – Disney, Bravo, Hallmark, Nickelodeon, HBO – every single station – had reporters; Disney stars, Kim Kardashian, all freaking out about whether their loved ones were okay.
“This is a joke, right? This has to be a joke,” Stephanie scoffed in disbelief.
“A joke the whole world is playing along with?” Penny snapped.
They each tried to hold down the fear rapidly growing inside of them, both refusing to bring up the elephant in the room; neither knew where their loved ones had been the moment the world fell asleep.