The Day The Internet Died

HONK! HONK!

“Move buddy! I got somewhere to be!” Sonya honked her horn in agitation at the mass of soon-to-be protestors clogging the road, making it impossible to go any further.

“Just my luck…” Sonya mumbled as she attempted to pull off to find a place to park. Opening the car door, Sonya stood on her tiptoes to scan the crowd. Jesus, with this many people here it’ll be impossible to find her. Begrudgingly, Sonya mixed into the crowd and made her way towards the Telecom building. Every once and a while, she stood on her tiptoes to see if she could make out anyone in the crowd, but without success.

The crowd grew denser and denser the closer she got towards the final destination. Already, she could sense the agitation in the crowd. People were starting to shove to get by one another, and several times she was shouldered by a passerby. This is stupid. This is so stupid. Why am I here? What if she isn’t even here? What if I’m the one who gets swallowed by the crowd?

With great effort, Sonya extended herself again to scan the crowd, looking for something, anything, that could help. She saw now that she was almost at the Telecom building, and could make out a dozen or so policemen planted in front of it. Drawing her attention back to the crowd, she scanned again, looking back and forth and back and forth. Finally, her efforts paid off.

Is that? “Katie!” she yelled! “Katie!” As she screamed Katie turned to talk to the person next to her, confirming to Sonya that it was in fact her, but the crowd was already so loud that she didn’t seem to hear. Beside her, she saw what appeared to be the back of Alex’s head. Fucking hell. They are here.

Sonya attempted to move closer towards them. “Katie! Alex! Excuse me! Sorry! Excuse me! Hey, I need to get by you please!” She heard someone from the front of the crowd shout something at the cops, which in turn riled up everyone else. After that, the pushing and shoving seemed to increase tenfold, as everyone in the crowd tried to compact towards the front.

CRASH!

Sonya heard what sounded like glass breaking, followed shortly after by another. The crowd erupted even more in response. One of the policemen raised a megaphone. “ATTENTION! THIS HAS BECOME AN UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY! DISPERSE NOW, OR YOU WILL BE FORCED TO DISPERSE!”

Shit. What did I get myself into? At this point, the crowd was so compacted that it was almost impossible for Sonya to make any progress. Sonya tried to extend herself again to scan the crowd, but was swiftly knocked over by a person rushing past her. Barreled over, Sonya clutched her injured side. What the hell is going on?! How am I going to get to them? With great effort, she tried once again to scan the crowd. This time, she saw that Katie was only a few yards in front of her.

At the top of her lungs, Sonya yelled, “KATIE!” Finally, Katie turned around and made eye contact with her. Tears were streaming down her face. After taking a moment to realize who it was, Katie yelled something back in response, but Sonya couldn’t hear her over the crowd. Sonya looked around her and noticed Alex wasn’t there. “Katie!” The crowd jostled Sonya back and forth. “Katie! Where’s Alex! Katie—”

BOOM!

From off to the side, a police car erupted into flames.