End of Time

The End of Time

         One day, Jake Lee, a scientist at Cal Berkeley and an expert on the Earth's magnetic fields, made a startling discovery. Using AI to review millions of articles on the magnetic field, he discovered that the magnetic field was about to flip from the north pole to the equator region, and the Earth's rotation would stop. This would flip the world into two zones—a sunlit zone and a dark zone.

          The sunlit zone would bake at an average temperature of 38°C (100°F), with peaks at 60°C (140°F), with 24/7 daylight. At the same time, the dark side would flip into permanent darkness and cold temperatures averaging -18°C (0°F). What was more amazing was that time, or the perception of time would speed up, with the days passing by at light speed
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         Jake Lee called the White House for an urgent meeting. He outlined his findings, before he published them. The change, as it was called, happened almost overnight. The change ended with a new normal. Half the world—the eastern half—lived in the sunlit zone and suffered from high heat, high humidity, and constant monster storms. But people adapted and only 50 percent of the public died off.
The western half—the Americas—sank into darkness and a new ice age. Seventy-five percent of the world’s people died off.

         The world’s leaders struggled to deal with this civilization-ending event. The change was soon dubbed by the media, which went into full “the world is ending” mode. This was not an exaggeration; the world was ending.

         The survivors huddled together in domed cities or underground shelters. With the collapse of civilization, climate change came to an end, but after the change, The world struggled with the new normal.

         Jake Lee and his family managed to snag one of the apartments in the new San Francisco, built under a dome in the now totally dark zone. People grew food in underground farms or fished in the dark oceans, which were teeming with fish life. Life on Earth adapted to the new normal.

         Elon Musk and his billionaire friends launched a successful colonization of the Moon and Mars. Eventually, over 5 million people lived off-world, while 2 billion people survived on Earth.


We're halfway through January already! Write a story or poem in which time speeds up. What causes the phenomenon? How fast does time pass? What happens to those who experience it?