I slept Through the Apocalypse

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Chapter Two: Breakfast of Champions (And Possibly Radiation

By Day 14, I'd established a routine.

Wake up at noon. Check the sky for new moons. Greet the raccoon who may or may not be my new landlord. Forage for slightly expired food like a sentient coupon. Then, most importantly: avoid doing anything remotely heroic.

Because let's be clear—just because I was the last person on Earth didn't mean I suddenly became the protagonist. No sir. I was not about to discover mysterious powers, fight off rogue robots, or stumble into a chosen-one prophecy written on the back of an Arby's receipt. I just wanted to survive and maybe figure out how to microwave a burrito using solar power and spite.

So when I found the bunker under the old pet store, I wasn't expecting much. Maybe some dusty cans of tuna and expired jerky. Instead, I found a fully stocked prepper paradise.

Shelves lined with supplies. Clean water. Blankets. A working TV powered by a suspiciously glowing hamster wheel. And, most glorious of all—an unopened box of strawberry toaster strudels still frozen in a magical, humming fridge.

Was it nuclear? Probably. Was I going to eat them anyway?

Absolutely.

I did what any reasonable man would do. I took one, sat cross-legged on a pile of novelty cat beds, and bit into the strudel while staring at the flickering TV screen, which was currently displaying what looked like a news broadcast hosted by two sentient ferns.

"Good morning, what's left of Earth!" one fern chirped. "Our top story today: Dave the Moon has returned from sabbatical. That makes a total of four moons now. Please update your calendars and horoscopes accordingly."

The second fern twitched enthusiastically. "In sports, the Squirrel Basketball League is down one nut. Tensions are high."

I blinked.

"Right. Definitely not hallucinating," I said, taking another bite. "Definitely just having a balanced breakfast in a bunker with fern news anchors."

At this point, I wasn't even surprised anymore. My bar for weird had been recalibrated somewhere between "vending machine birth ritual" and "traffic lights that blink Morse code for 'RUN.'"

I made a mental note to check on my robot posse later. The grocery store bots had started a community garden. I wasn't sure if they actually needed vegetables or were just deeply committed to the concept of sustainability, but it was sweet.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone—or something—was watching me.

Maybe it was just the taxidermy owl mounted above the bunker fridge. Maybe it was the fact that the TV ferns started addressing me by name during the weather segment.

Or maybe it was the note.

It was stuck to the inside of the fridge door, written in Sharpie on the back of a promotional flyer for "Dog Yoga Wednesdays."

It read:

"If you're reading this, you finally woke up. Took you long enough.

Do not trust the pigeons.

See you soon. – M."

I stared at it for a long time. I even flipped the note over to see if there was more, but all I got was a drawing of a cat doing downward dog and the words "Namaste or whatever."

Naturally, I panicked in the healthiest way possible: by making toast, locking the door with six different improvised locks (two of them were just brooms), and stress-napping for five hours straight.

When I woke up, it was dark outside. Which meant one of three things:

It was night.

The sky was temporarily turned off again.

A giant interdimensional wombat was blocking the sun like last Thursday.

Either way, I was hungry again. I grabbed a can of "Chicken-Like Soup" and decided to eat it cold while checking the rest of the bunker for clues.

That's when I found the radio.

It was old, crackly, and humming with static—but every so often, between the hisses and pops, a voice came through. A voice humming—yes, still—Bohemian Rhapsody.

I held the radio up like a divining rod. "Hello?" I said. "Is this real? Or am I hallucinating a Queen cover band from another timeline?"

There was silence.

Then, through the fuzz:

"Is this the real life… or is this just fantasy…"

I dropped the can. My soup groaned and slowly oozed away.

I stared at the radio. It blinked at me.

Well. Not blinked, exactly. But you know when something blinks at you.

The voice on the other end coughed, then muttered, "If you're out there, Nap King, don't go near the pigeons. I repeat: do not go near the pigeons. They remember."

I blinked.

"What does that even mean?" I asked the soup puddle. "What did I do to the pigeons?"

Unfortunately, the soup did not answer. Rude.

Later that night, I sat on the bunker's rooftop with a blanket, a pair of binoculars, and a deep sense of unease. The moons were aligned in a way that spelled out "YIKES" if you looked at them sideways. The air smelled like nostalgia and barbecue chips.

And in the distance, standing perfectly still on a rooftop… were at least forty pigeons.

All facing me.

All wearing tiny hats.

One had a monocle.

I did the only thing that made sense: I waved awkwardly and went back inside.

That was the night I decided to keep exploring. The world had changed. Mutated. Gotten weird in ways my brain didn't know how to categorize.

But maybe, just maybe, I wasn't the only one left.

Maybe there were others—napping through it, hiding in bunkers, or humming rock ballads across the frequencies.

Maybe I'd find M.

Maybe I'd finally figure out what happened.

But first, I had to restock the toaster strudels.

Priorities.