Dreams of the Thinker

Three years after its first near miss pass of the earth during the 6th seal quake, the comet was now on its return trip. This time it was on an intercept course with the earth. The comet, which scientists were now calling ‘Wormwood’, became visible to the unaided eye. As the third year of the tribulation ended, the comet was now on its outbound course moving away from the sun, tail first. Unlike other comets that circled the sun in a counterclockwise direction like the planets do, this one circled the sun in a clockwise direction.
Already the people were expressing concern of a possible collision with the earth and a repeat performance of its last visit. The scientists assured the public the second visitation would not be as disastrous. They lied through their teeth saying the comet would not hit the earth.
In their official report, the scientists indicated the comet was traveling at speeds of 45 miles per second (144,000 miles per hour) and estimated the size of the comet’s nucleus of about 30 miles in diameter with a coma ten times that size. This comet was unusual in that it had three tails. It’s primary tail was measured at about a million miles long while the other two tails were half that length. The primary tail was the usual white, but the other tails were red and yellow. The head of the comet had a slightly reddish appearance. This comet was a true monster leading the scientists to conclude that the impact would be an extinction level event.
As the comet drew closer to the earth, people began hoarding supplies as it became evident the scientists and government were wrong. Store shelves emptied within hours and rioting broke out. Stores and warehouses were looted and set on fire. Violent personal crime
escalated as people wanted what others had and couldn’t get. Self preservation took hold as the idea of love and sharing went out the window. The kings of the ten super-nations were forced to declare marshal law and ordered the civil defense forces and militias to put down the rioting. They were given orders to shoot to kill those who would not comply with the law.
While all this was going on, the comets primary tail reached the earth as ejecta burned up in the atmosphere and produced a spectacular light show in the heavens. The comet, by this time, looked a like second sun visible in day light. The closer the comet came, the larger the ejecta became. Some were beginning the reach the ground and produced huge explosions. They set cities on fire and produced wildfires burning uncontrollably all around the earth. One of those ejecta, about the size of a football field hit San Francisco and exploded with a force equivalent to 20 megatons of TNT. The explosion decimated an area about a hundred miles in diameter.
After bombarding the earth with ejecta for the last month, the comet finally reached the earth’s Roche limit, the point at which large heavenly bodies break up above the atmosphere from a difference of gravitational forces exerted upon it. The comet wormwood almost passed through the Roche limit unaffected, but thermal stress and an increase in internal gas pressure caused the comet to break up into five large pieces and a few smaller ones. Most of the small pieces never reached the ground before burning up or exploding in the atmosphere, but the same could not be said of the five large pieces. The largest one led the group and entered the atmosphere above Siberia. It streaked across North America with a thunderous noise looking like a torch. In the night sky of the western hemisphere, it was four times brighter than the sun.
It impacted almost dead center of the North Atlantic ocean. Upon impact with the water in exploded, producing a wall of water over 2000 feet high racing outward in all directions at several hundred miles per hour. Every ship at sea in the Atlantic Ocean was destroyed. Some were caught broadside, capsized and broke apart. They sank in a matter of minutes. Others managed to turn into the wave thinking they could ride over it, but this was no tsunami. These ships were lifted up vertically bow first. If they weren’t flipped over on their back, they pitch poled and sank immediately, stern first. Even the largest ships couldn’t avoid destruction.
Before the waves of the first comet fragment impact reached Europe, the other four fragments streaked overhead. Like the first one, they too, resembled brightly burning torches. The first one hit in the center of the Algerian Basin of the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and the Sardinia and Corsica islands, flooding the coastal regions a couple hundred miles inland. Sardinia and Corsica bore the brunt of the tidal waves impact, saving Italy from the worst of the waves destructive flooding. The second one hit in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey. The tidal wave it produced destroyed much of Greece, Bulgaria, western Turkey, Crete and the northern shores of Egypt and Libya. Much of the water that flooded Turkey spilled into the Sea of Marmara and flooded the coastal cities, overflowing the Bosporus into the Black Sea.
The third one hit in the Mesopotamian valley in Iraq just west of Bagdad, completely destroying the city. The impact left a crater 30 miles wide and forced the Tigris river to change course. It ended up flowing into the Euphrates river north of Babylon instead of south of it. The impact put a temporary halt to the second phase of Babylon’s reconstruction and caused minor damage to the first phase, which was completed only a few months earlier.
The fourth piece hit in Pakistan over the Indus River between the cities of Larkana, Shikarpur, Sukkur, and Khairpur. Between these cities was a host of small towns and farming communities. An area in which about a million people lived. The comet exploded a hundred feet above ground, leaving no crater. The shock wave flattened everything for about 40 miles in each direction.