Robert yawned. The remaining sleep on his face cracked, crumbled, and gently fell away as he did so. The morning sun was shining in through the window behind his computer, creating cheery areas of orange and yellow as well as areas of dark, mysterious shadow in the room.
Robert sipped thoughtfully on his steamy, bitter cup of morning coffee. It seemed unusually quiet. It was around seven, people should be up, out and about. Cars should be honking. Dogs should be barking as their owners take them out for their first dump of the day. Robert squinted and tried to shade his eyes as he looked out the window. He peered down on the street below him, next to his apartment building. It appeared deserted. A single piece of paper skittered down the pavement, riding a gentle morning breeze, just like deserted streets were in the movies.
"Weird," mumbled Robert.
As he did every morning, he sat in his desk chair, woke his computer up, and brought cnn.com up to check the morning news. The gigantic headline startled him.
EVERYBODY IN WORLD DEAD BUT ROBERT J. COLE
WORST DISASTER IN EARTH'S HISTORY. DEATH TOLL AT 6,378,544,345
Robert gulped, stunned. Then he read the next headline.
'Death toll likely to rise,' says one official.
"Well, shit," Robert mumbled.