Very nice! Lots of tension here without overdoing it.

I hope they took Isaac along! Well written, especially that scrumptious last sentence.

AH! I love this! Perfection!

MORE PLEEEAASSEE!

The first line is a marvelous way to create tension, even in a punny way. And the last line is veeery nice, grandiose and final. As soon as I read the tags I knew it was going to be a neat little story.

(Also, as a heads up, because Ficly doesn’t really give you these, I responded to your comment on Xibalba.)

Quick and intense. Suspenseful and mysterious. Nuclear war? Whatever is happening I’m hooked.

I like how you didn’t really say whether she picked up the baby so the cynical reader can ponder this little absence of detail. XD

Oh wow…uhm, sorry, but I’ll burst that bubble. I thought it was implied that they brought the baby with them. Hahah. No, I don’t ever write stories where babies are left to suffer at the merciless hands of some mysterious apocalypse. Not my style.

When I read the first sentence, I thought he was suspended above the kitchen floor. :) And I loved the last sentence. Good job!

I figured they took the baby but it was just something I noticed. Lol

Very exciting without having to go into the details of the disaster. It could be anything, but what matters is the loss of that home and the dream that goes with it.

Also interesting is that they’d already packed and they had a bag for the baby just to hand. Something not entirely unexpected but no less final for it.

Quick, direct and action-packed. Like it.

Always leave the diaper bag packed! It’s just so much easier!
However, knowing that impending doom is, impending, the smart parent would have had it packed anyway. :)

The last line is great.

Hope they remembered the baby! This is brilliant, would like to know more about the situation

Great story!

I like to assume they grabbed the baby. I wonder what form of Apocalypse this one is based on. Personally an earthquake comes to mind.

Seems like they knew this was coming. Hmm…

I tend to start by picking up on writing faults. I couldn’t find any, so some writing compliments I guess. I love personification of inanimate objects, especially machines. Your angry PWS really drew me in on that front. You also have a way of not letting us know exactly what’s going on. No speech directives for the dialogue mean that we don’t know who’s talking, so we don’t know who has the power. My money’s on the narrator being spoken too, our agape protagonist doesn’t seem the alert, prepared type in this.

As to the apocalypse, I’m guessing aliens. Very well written, I too would like to see more of this story line.

GAH!

The “This can’t be happening” mindset in a time of crisis really tears me a wrong one. That said, it creates a strong emotional picture.

Great as a stand-alone. You capture a moment, like a snap shot, in the middle of a crisis. I enjoyed the vagueness: we don’t know how it began, how it ends, or who is involved (other than baby Isaac) which I think only intensifies the emotion and action.

That last line was definitely my favourite. Great tone of bitterness in there. If I’d written it, I’d have put it in first person to add to the uncertainty, but that’s just me. Third person means we know she survives.

Thanks for entering the challenge =)

Even though it’s obvious from the comments that you didn’t intend it, I too thought the couple left the baby. I like the last paragraph as the colors sort of emphasize the “American Dream”. Two people with a baby during a catastrophe is ripe with potential.