The end of the world as they knew it came on a Tuesday afternoon.

Not with the apocalyptic imagery of their great-grandfathers, however. There had been no frantic, world-wide broadcasts of images of mushroom shaped clouds spreading over the great cities of the world, or huge, alien craft in the skies.

Eventually, the world was brought to its knees by a single act of well placed pressure. It could even have been accidental. The explosion itself had been small, in a relatively obscure corner of the country. That first day, there had been only a few localized fatalities. Then, without warning, it gathered momentum, and no one could reign it in.

So frightened people did what their animal brains were still trained for. They fought to survive, to be the ones who lived another day.

And so Rome burned.

When it was all done and dusted, Gregor had sat in his apartment, looking out over the rubble of the great achievements of his kind, last cold beer in hand and mused flippantly, “but I’d got the hang of Tuesdays.”