June 15, 2018. A relatively normal day by most people’s standards. Newscasters reported the weather, politicians played their various roles in the governing bodies of the world, street vendors sold their goods, the sun followed its daily path across the sky, and life continued to follow the same general path that it had been following for quite a while. That was until around noon. Nobody noticed anything at first, for there wasn’t much to notice. It was virtually impossible to see the movement of the sun over the course of a few minutes. Eventually, people began to notice that although the time had moved, the sun hadn’t. This, as you can imagine, was very stressful for the majority of people that noticed. Those who didn’t notice immediately, whether that was because they were inside or didn’t really care about what happened overhead, were soon informed through the news.
Of course, people were frightened. Religious leaders saw the end of days, scientists worked furiously to figure out what had happened, and flat-earthers were utterly flabbergasted. All manner of people turned to their respective leaders, crying out for answers. Politicians and military leaders scrambled for answers. The UN erupted into chaos as countries blamed each other and nobody had any idea what to do. After all, no one had designed a protocol for this situation; nobody thought in a billion years that our planet would ever stop spinning.
Yet it had happened, and humanity was utterly helpless. A day was lengthened to the time of a year, every point on the planet getting about a half-year’s exposure to the sun consecutively. One side of the Earth baked while the other froze. Conventional agriculture became virtually impossible, and many parts of the planet started to experience huge shifts in weather patterns. Much of the Internet broke down, as it relied on geostationary satellites based on the Earth’s old rotation. Governments could do little to quell the mass riots and looting as people scrambled for resources as they became increasingly scarce.
As global weather wildly fluctuated and nations began to break down, any ideas that could have saved us were squashed under the panic that enveloped the world. The vast majority of the population, especially those nearest to the equator, died in the panic, unable to cope with such a drastic change and lack of resources. Small, isolated groups survived near the poles, where the change was somewhat less extreme, and many retreated into underground northern shelters that were mostly unaffected by the climate, and they were able to grow crops under artificial circumstances.
Humanity had been reduced to a mere husk of its former self, and despite our amazing ability to adapt to change, this was far too drastic for most people to live through. Such an unnatural event was beyond the scope of our preparedness. Perhaps, had we taken measures to ready ourselves, there would have been a more favorable outcome, but, as most know, we never expect the unexpected.