You wake up to silence.

No buzz from your phone. No whirr from the fridge. No flashing lights from your PC setup across the room. Just... dead air.

Weird.

You roll out of bed with that tangled, half-dreamed panic already flickering at the back of your ribs. Still, it’s probably just your Wi-Fi being shit again. Or a blown fuse. Or Mercury in retrograde. Again.

But then your phone won’t turn on. Your laptop won’t charge. The light switch? Useless.

And when you try the TV, the router, the microwave—nothing.

The flat is eerily quiet. Not peaceful quiet—apocalyptic quiet. The kind that makes the air feel thick, like it’s waiting to collapse in on itself.

You stand in the middle of the room, heart thumping now.

Because this? This isn’t normal.

And the longer it stays like this, the more your thoughts start eating themselves.

What if it’s the whole UK? What if something happened? What if this is it—like, actually it?

Your job is the internet. Your connections, your income, your platform—it’s all digital. And now it feels like the world has been unplugged and nobody gave you a heads up.

The panic starts low in your gut, fizzing up your chest like shaken lemonade. You try to breathe through it, try grounding techniques, but your hands won’t stop shaking.

Then—clunk.

Your front door opens.

You freeze.

A silhouette moves past your hallway.

You’re still in your hoodie and mismatched socks, and without thinking, you grab the only nearby object—

—your goddamn rolling pin.

It’s not even clean. There’s still flour on it from last night.

Your voice comes out high and cracking: “Oi! I will fucking smash your head in if you leave—”

A pause.

Then a familiar voice, dry as a desert: “...Bit intense for breakfast, no?”

You lower the rolling pin slowly.

“George?”

He walks into your kitchen like nothing’s wrong, half-laughing under his breath. “Jesus, mate. Thought I was about to be baked into a pie or somethin’.”

You drop the rolling pin with a clatter, knees giving out as you slump into a chair.

George finally takes a proper look at you. “Hey. You alright?”

Your hands won’t stay still. “No. I—I think I’m freaking out. Nothing’s working. Phone, internet, everything’s dead. I thought it was just me but—”

He steps forward and puts a hand on your shoulder, gentle but grounding.

“I know. Same over at mine. No power, no Wi-Fi. Thought I’d come see if you were still breathing.”

You manage a weak laugh. “Nearly brained you with a pastry weapon.”

He shrugs, lips twitching. “That’s love, that is.”

For a while, you both sit in the weird quiet.

No screens. No noise. Just two people and a weirdly tense calm.

And George says, softer now, “We’ll figure it out. Whatever this is. You're not alone.”

You nod, still buzzing with fear, but feeling slightly less like the world’s collapsing.

George glances toward your cupboard. “Now, where do you keep the real weapons? I feel like we should at least pretend we’re ready for the apocalypse.”

You snort.

“Mate, if the end of the world involves me swinging a rolling pin, we’re screwed.”

“Speak for yourself,” he says. “You looked absolutely feral. I was almost proud.”

And somehow, the tension cracks just enough to let you breathe.