I stared down at the waves roiling below me, as I stood high above New York City, on the perch of the Empire State Building. Rubble and debris floated among the bodies and former buildings as the Atlantic Ocean flooded into the once great citadel.

So many things had led to this moment, this moment of suspended time on December 21st, 2012, and almost all of them could have been avoided. If someone had just pointed all those problems out, all those tiny problems, and big ones, like global warming, toxic fumes from factories or the use of nuclear bombs...tried to fix it...if some had just...

No. Not someone. Anyone. Everyone. How many people realized this? How many knew this was going to happen? How many didn't lift a finger?

I shivered. This date had been long awaited, and everything that had been suspected of this day had happened. The Mayas had been correct. Now I was the last person on earth, it seemed, looking over what used to be a great land turned to rubbish in a matter of hours.

Now, a wall of water was surging toward me. Unbelievably, there was enough to overtake the Empire State Building. As I saw it approach, I tensed. This was my last stand. Jump, into the tossing, turning depths, or let it hit me. It was a choice.

Would I just let go, just give up to fate and let the water swallow me up as it had my entire world? Or would I jump, making one final decision, one last stand? Decide my own fate, suicide instead of homicide? I was practically the walking dead; I would be gone either way. All I had to do was choose how I went, of my own accord or fate's.

Before I could choose, the black wall hit me like a ton of bricks, shooting me impossibly far into its murky depths. Suddenly, for a moment the water was stilled, holding me suspended as I peered into this amazing abyss. It seemed to hold nothing, and yet it held everything. Every human folly, every tiny mistake made by billions of arrogant, ignorant and idiotic people, floating bare for all to see. Then, just as suddenly as it had stopped, the tide turned again by the will of the moon, and I was sent sprawling into mounds of cement and concrete, and bodies of my fellow human beings.

I blacked out.

I suppose, in the end, not even a single human could decide his or her fate. I suppose we're all pawns to fate, and there's nothing we can possibly do to change the course of it, or try to carve our own destiny. It is simply impossible, so why try? There is nothing we can do.

Right? That's how it is, right? Nothing can be changed?

Right?