Chapter 1

It was an insane time of anger and fear. There were mass sea-mammal beachings as they either lost their direction or fled the orgy of violence the seas had become.

Close loving families with protective parents, practitioners of eastern meditative philosophies, Paladin type personalities, Genuine Mensch’, healers and empaths and the devout emulators of Jesus- all had some defense and resistance against the madness having a core, direction, or guidance beyond the magnetic.

Some who were only ‘born again’ as sort of an insurance policy against damnation, thought they had been ‘left behind’ by the rapture as unworthy, so decided ‘why not’ and joined the madness. Others had a better grip on right and wrong, and so were able to find a pathway through the madness, but for most it was a murderous spree of fear fueled rage and violence by all species against all others.

The other thing about magnetic pole reversal is it didn’t take very long, in geological terms. Just three days. Every other volcano erupted no matter how long dormant or supposedly extinct, creating a ten year winter. Imagine if there weren’t stored preserved food and nine of ten humans dead of violence from each other or their pets or livestock or ‘nature’.

The rage was such that weapons were not much used, mostly it was tearing at each other with tooth and nail. (and beak and fang and claw and hoof and stinger) It is incredible how much rage humanity is capable of. That Life is capable of.

So it isn’t likely that the sane survivors were untouched by violence, that would have taken a genuine miracle with all life except for a small percentage of humans and an even smaller percentage of dogs going berserk. (Some were service animals who’s client also managed to find an internal guide, or certain breeds of good family dogs protective of small children.)

Nor were they untouched by violence, certainly some had to defend their small charges from maddened violent parents. The truly non-violent unfortunately didn’t make it, since the very meek only inherited the compost they became as entropy claimed their remains. (imagine hiding in a light-less basement or attic then hearing the scrabbling claws of fear enraged rats.)

The good thing about being a sane survivor in the aftermath of the madness was that probably any one you encountered was most likely a very good person, either much like an enlightened one or they had a very strong set of values of some sort, even a devout atheist or perhaps someone with a hyper-active sense of justice, duty or over protectiveness.

If you made it through the madness whole, it was because you had an internal guide that provided direction and guided choices when the unnoticed support and prop of the magnetic field was kicked out from beneath us. With out an internal guide, most resorted to terrified animal state (including the animals themselves) and unable to navigate well enough for flight, well, the fight was on. (The focus of violent fanatics was violence, so it didn’t protect them. Even most sports fans had a fallback setting of violence.)

There were a good number of suicides as the madness passed, and people became aware of the horror they had either committed or witnessed; and despaired.