There was no way to predict that saying no Davy Carter’s over-the-top promposal would lead to…you know. Everyone dying.
Cat Montague was a normal girl with normal—okay, mostly normal—goals. She wasn’t going to prom, but as President of the Botany Club? She was going to sell a lot of boutonnieres as a fundraiser. Just as soon as she figured out how to make them.
Then Davy Carter and his live-streamed promposal happened.
And Cat? Well. Cat said no.
Suddenly, she was the villain. Her principal? Posted a video on AllFacts.com where he called her a “low-value female” and then her best friend tried to defend her back and look, you never want to be the Internet’s Main Character for the day. For several days.
At every point where Cat could have avoided ending the world—lying to her best friend or doing that cable-news network interview, for instance or, say, not throwing the contents of that mysterious fridge her dad, a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control, had hidden in the basement—she chose wrong.
And every mistake was broadcast for the entire world to see. Including breaking all the vials in that hidden fridge—at the angry mob outside her house.
Everyone saw her end the world.
Now Cat’s all that’s left. Maybe. New Zealand might still be there and has anyone heard from Iceland recently? Because Cat’s immune (thanks to her dad) and if they want to make a vaccine? Come get her. She may have ended the world—but she’d sure like some help saving what’s left of it.
CW: on-page light assault by an older man, cyber bullying, vomiting, traumatic scene of a cat death, murder and attempted murder, suicide ideation, blood drawing in a medical setting and, of course, mass extinction event. But, like, in a funny way.
Excerpt
Prologue
*taps mic* Is this thing on? Anyone reading?
Ahem.
So, like I said, I did not end the world.
Okay, okay—let me back up because I get that I’m talking to the survivors in, like, Iceland and New Zealand and Guam (shout out to Guam!) and…
I haven’t heard from Ireland recently. Did you guys hold the line? Hope so.
Anyway, shout out to my international survivors, proud of you guys! Especially you, New Zealand, you guys are freaking brutal! Please don’t kill me![1]
So, anyway, I realize anyone who’s still out there may not be the most up-to-date on American high school traditions so…
Yeah, let me start at the beginning.
Hi, my name is Cat Montague and, according to most of North America, South America and large swaths of the rest of the globe, I single-handedly ended the world.
How, you people who live in a world without live feeds, might be asking?
It started with Davy Carter’s Promposal from Heck.[2]
Now. I know what everyone saw. But just in case you were offline for the last…six, eight months and have just emerged from a long winter hibernation,[3] let’s do a quick recap!
What the entire world[4] watched happen was this—me, hidden behind a huge pile of boxes stumbling not-cutely toward a red carpet strewn with roses,[5] then two members of the flag team snagging and de-boxing me[6] before pointing me onto the red carpet.
You saw, in all those videos[7], from every single angle[8], me looking around in confusion as I took in the flag team lined up with the pom squad along the rose-strewn red carpet, flags held like swords overhead, pompoms waving, the band—the whole freaking marching band!—playing a weird instrumental version of that classic Swiftie hit “Love Song,” as they all ushered me, clueless and stunned, toward where Davy Carter stood flanked by the choir[9] and the cheerleaders doing wild aerial flips and stunts.
And then?
Davy gets down one knee as the entire drama department framed him in a living heart made out of a wildly impressive number of roses [10] and, eyes sparkling with hope, the choir and the band all pause on cue as he says, “Catherine Montague, will you go to prom with me?” as he nails me with an absolutely blinding smile and then everyone—the choir, the band, the flags, the cheerleaders and the entire freaking school[11] who’d dropped everything to watch this spectacle—hit their mark to sing/scream, “Baby, just say yes!” in one unified, ear-drum shattering roar of noise that I still hear in my nightmares.
And you’ve all seen me open my mouth, close my mouth, repeat that super-smooth move a few more times,[12] and then go, “No?”
And that was the beginning of the end of the world.
Yeah, I wouldn’t believe it either, except I was there for the whole terrible, awful, no-good, very bad[13] everything. A series of events so unfortunate, so unlikely, so implausible—it shouldn’t have been the death of…everyone.
But it was.
It was.
So that was how it started.
And ended.
But! I think I’ve figured out how to save what’s left of the world.
Seriously, New Zealand—don’t kill me.[14]
[1] Like, seriously. Please do not kill me. It’s in everyone’s best interest. I mean it.
[2] Does anything great ever start with a promposal?
[3] And happen to be a bear? Did I accidentally save the polar bears? Fingers crossed!
[4] Probably, can’t confirm, but it sure felt like it!
[5] Those poor roses!
[6] And pulling off my mask! The nerve!
[7] Both the live streams and the edited versions. I mean seriously, there were some quality edits out there. I’m not, however, including anything AI related, because that slop is…slop.
[8] Including at least four different drones, I mean it was a lot. A LOT a lot.
[9] And if you thought “Love Song” sounded weird in marching band format, you haven’t heard anything until you’ve heard it arranged for choir!
[10] Literally thousands of dollars worth of long-stemmed red roses, just ridiculous amounts of money!
[11] Yes, this includes the teachers and principals. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.
[12] An embarrassing number of times, honestly.
[13] Cannot stress how bad ending the world is! Super don’t recommend!
[14] Please?
