The Haddox house is quiet, but not silent. There are a cacophony of small sounds coming from the neighboring rooms, Ajax’s notices, beginning with Xina’s air purifier, which whirs and mists the air with lavender oil. Above that is the hum of the television coming from Dex’s room. She’s taken to watching cooking shows in which chefs compete for money, and at least one meal erupts in flames. And underneath it all, are the faint and frequent squeaks and squawks that come from Maddox’s room. He likes to exercise at all hours of the day. Right now, he’s doing P90X and sweating like a maniac.

There’s no going back to sleep, and Ajax knows it. He glances at the clock and groans.

11:15.

Restlessness tingles through his limbs. There’s no going back to sleep now. He throws off the comforter and exits his bedroom. Out in the hallway, the subtle noises are louder. They chase him down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he stubs his big toe on the wall corner. The house is still unfamiliar to him. To all of them, really. His head still hurts from the thought of how quickly life can change, as if he has a lingering case of whiplash.

Ajax carefully moves towards the living room, where he finds the remote sitting atop the coffee table. He grabs a wooly blanket from a basket that still smells like retail store, and plops onto the couch that is too stiff with newness. He turns on the television and doesn’t know the channels, so he navigates through the guide until he lands on the History Channel. A documentary about the Mayan civilization is playing. Ajax hopes the mono-drone of the narrator’s voice lulls him to sleep. Normally, it would fall to his father to tell him to go to bed, but his father is somewhere in Mexico with a woman who isn’t his mother.

The Mayans followed a Long Count Calendar, says the narrator. Unlike other ancient calendars, the Long Count calendar has a reset point. Scholars have calculated it to be December 21, 2012. Doomsday theorists are convinced that the Mayans are trying to tell us that this is when our world will end.

Wait, did he hear that right? The end of the world?

Ajax throws off the blanket and pads to the kitchen. A calendar hangs next to the fridge. He tracks the red slashes on the previous days until his gaze lands on the unmarred date. Today is Friday, December 21, 2012. But it’s already 11:30 PM. The world had all day to end, and it didn’t – or maybe it’s just waiting until the very last second, when the clock blinks midnight and the world carries them into nothing.

There’s something so tragic about that, the world ending on a Friday. “What are you doing?”

Ajax almost screams. He didn’t see Dex, his older sister, creep around the corner. He puts a hand to his chest and feels his heart thundering underneath.

“Nothing.”

Dex’s eyes flash. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”

There is a divergence in Ajax’s timeline. There is Before the Divorce and After the Divorce – A.D. Many things have changed, and Dex is one of them. B.D., their father’s nickname for Dex was Sour Patch, because she could cut you down with one hand, and help you up with the other. But recently, there has been no helping hand, only the hand that pinches or slaps him whenever he gets on Dex’s nerves. The worst, he thinks, is when she has no reaction at all. Dex is the oldest of them. Next year, she’ll be going to college. That’s what Ajax keeps thinking: next year, she won’t even be here.

11:34.

“What are you doing downstairs?” Ajax asks.

Dex smiles. Her canines look incredibly sharp.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Ajax nods. Dex takes his hand and pulls him into the garage. The walls of the garage are lined with shelves that contain Xina’s canning efforts. A.D., Xina went through a drastic change. When the divorce was finalized, she took up an intense exercise regime of weight training 4 times a week, alternated by 5-miles runs. She follows a raw food, high-volume diet. In total, she’s lost 50 pounds; each of the kids lost 15 pounds each. They spent this summer suffering through farmers’ markets and driving out to the middle of nowhere to buy organic meat. Towards the end of summer, Xina took all the produce that rainbowed the counter—peaches, apples, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, Swiss chard—and canned it. For weeks, a mist of boiled water and vinegar hung in the kitchen. Now, the garage is filled floor to ceiling with Mason jars of all different colors and textures. The garage more closely resembles a bunker.

Dex gets on her hands and knees and peers into the gap underneath the shelves. She tucks her fingers into the darkness and pulls out the unmistakable pastry box from Dunkin’.

A.D., Xina has enacted strict rules on what they can and can’t eat. Nothing processed, fried, and packed with artificial sugars. Doughnuts are definitely not allowed.

“If Mom finds out, she’ll be pissed.”

Dex opens the box. The doughnuts glisten with glaze. Sweetness fills his nose, and his mouth floods with saliva.

“Have one,” says Dex.

He reaches for a double chocolate doughnut with icing and sprinkles. He takes a small bite. The treat is soft and sweet, enough to knock his eyes closed. The second bite is bigger and fills his mouth to capacity. From there, his restraint loosens, and he consumes the doughnut, reaches for another – he doesn’t even see what flavor – and finishes it in three bites. He reaches for another, but he hits the waxy bottom of the pastry box.

“Sorry,” says Dex. “Couldn’t stop myself.”

He licks his lips and tastes the leftover sweetness. Already, the sugar is pumping through his veins and kicking up his heart rate. He feels hot all over. For a moment, he wonders if he’s allergic to doughnuts, but then he remembers that he used to eat them all the time, B.D.

“Do you do this a lot?” asks Ajax.

“No.” Then, “Yes. I go after school a lot.”

The perfect window of time when Xina is still at work and no one is home.

“Can I come with you next time?”

Dex shrugs like, Sure. But already, she is standing up, wiping the garage grit on her pajama pants. Picking up the box and moving away from him.

“Come on,” she says. “Help me get rid of the evidence.”

She takes the Dunkin’ box inside and puts it in the sink. Then, she grabs the lighter from the drawer and holds the flame against the box until it begins to burn. Once the cardboard catches, it can’t stop. The fire burns a hole through the logo and continues to consume it until the box is burning; the flame is high enough to threaten the curtains. Ajax reaches for the faucet, but Dex slaps his hand away.

The fire consumes the box and begins burning low, lower, lowest until it snuffs itself out. There’s nothing but cinders. Dex washes them down the drain.

Upstairs, a bedroom door unlatches. Dex and Ajax tense. There is still a hint of fire and burnt sugar singeing the air. If Xina catches them…but then, they hear the shared bathroom door close, and they know it’s Maddox.

Dex lets out a breath.

“Don’t tell Maddox.”

“I’m not a snitch,” says Ajax.

“Good,” says Dex. “Say nothing, and maybe I’ll take you with me.”

But already, she’s moving away from him again, disappearing into the shadow of the hallway. Walking up the steps. Shutting her door on him, on them.

11:53.

For the first time all night, he’s tired, as if the crest of the sugar high has come and gone, and now he’s crashing. His belly and body feel full in a way they haven’t felt in months.

He heads into the living room and fusses around with the blanket until he uncovers the remote. On the screen, the narrator drawls on.

The Mayans believed in making human sacrifices to appease their gods. It was a great honor to be chosen. For a week leading up to the ritual, the sacrifices were treated like kings, dressing in the finest fashion and eating the best food to cleanse themselves for the gods.

Ajax clicks off the television.

On his way upstairs, Ajax passes Maddox on the stairs. It’s past midnight, and in the bone-white of the light falling from the window, the shadows that live in the hollows of Maddox’s face make him look skeletal.

“Hey,” says Ajax.

Maddox jumps, as if he didn’t see Ajax on the stairs beside him.

“Hey,” says Maddox. His voice is like wind rustling through dry reeds.

B.D., Maddox had a knack for stillness. On family hikes, Maddox would quickly fall behind because he lingered too long to admire a mushroom, or Google the exact color orange of a newt. In this timeline, Maddox is manic. He’s always curling, cycling, squatting, running. Moving, as if there’s some bad energy inside him that he has to sweat out. He’s never still long enough for Ajax to get a good look at him. Here, on the stairs, is the most Ajax has seen of

Maddox in months. Maddox is a ghost of himself; that’s what Ajax concludes.

“What are you doing?” Ajax asks, but he already knows the answer, practically mouths the words in time with Maddox.

“Working out,” he says. And then he sweeps past Ajax and is gone.

Xina has turned the basement into a gym. Dumbbells that go up to 75 pounds, a barbell machine, weighted plates, a treadmill and an elliptical. When they first moved into the house, Maddox would sit downstairs with Xina, helping her load and unload the insane amount of weight she lifts. Now, he’s caught the fitness bug. He eats as clean as Xina as if trying to purge himself of impurities. He works out obsessively as if that will bring their father back. Sometimes, Ajax has the urge to grab Maddox and tell him this, but there isn’t enough of Maddox to grab.

Ajax hears the delighted chirp of the treadmill turning on and knows that his brother will run himself sick. From the bathroom, Ajax grabs a fresh towel and puts it on Maddox’s bed. Then, he retreats to his own room.

Xina has made many attempts to get Ajax to decorate his room, but every time they go to a store, Ajax looks at the décor and thinks, It’s all wrong, so they leave with nothing. The only personalized touch he’s added is the glow-in-the-dark stars that he took from their own home. They’re a relic from back when Maddox and Ajax shared a room. They had bunkbeds, so it was easy for Ajax to stand on the top bunk and stick the stars to the ceiling. When Xina announced they were moving, Ajax peeled the stars off the ceiling and put them in his pocket.

To hang them up in this new house had been a labor of love and danger. He balanced a step ladder on his new bed and spent an afternoon moving the ladder around and sticking the stars up one by one. Now, they glow alien green. He slips under the covers and spends a long time staring at them.

How will the world end, in fire or ice? Ajax thinks it will end in darkness. He imagines the stars will blink out one by one, like the closing eyes of gods. In the darkness, panic will ensue. Greed will blossom, and anyone who isn’t equipped to survive will be killed. Who needs fire and ice when humans can do the work themselves?

And his family, with no survival skills other than a few hundred cans in their garage, will fall like most of humanity. There is something comforting in the end of the world, like no more responsibilities or heartache. No more treading water.

11:59, reads the alarm clock next to his bed.

He thinks about his father in Mexico, starting all over again with this woman who isn’t his mother. He pictures the two of them beaming into the blasting sunset. He wonders if his father knew the world might end and left anyway.

Ajax reaches into the nebulous space between his nightstand and bed, grips the neck of the alarm clock’s cord, and yanks it from the wall. It dies with a satisfying beep!

But he doesn’t go to sleep. Ajax stays awake, staring up at the ceiling stars. At times, his vision goes blurry because he forgets to blink; forgets to breathe and then takes a huge gasp of air. Still, it feels like he’s suffocating.

He survived the end of the world, but what difference does it make? The truth is, the world is already ending, one night at a time, in this house.