On the day that the Experts had mastered invisibility, half the world disappeared.
It was not a gradual process, not people vanishing one by one until there were only a handful of individuals left (a scattering of people high up in their skyscrapers and riding empty buses and walking empty streets); no, one day there were 10 billion people on the planet, and the next there were only 5. Callie woke to find the space beside her empty, the faint scent of Burberry the only hint that someone had ever been there. There was a note on the dresser that Callie didn't care to read. Callie checked and Anne and Shelly were also gone, but there was no surprise there.
She stretched and breathed and stepped outside. The roar of the trains whose tracks ran right by Callie's house and the screech of the buses that cycled the city non-stop had all quieted to the hum of something barely alive. It was incredible, the number of people who would rather have others see right through them than continue as is. The thought crossed Callie's mind faintly, like the dull throbbing of a morning hangover. The thought had occurred to all of them, to everyone really.
The subway was vacant; the coffeeshop was all but deserted; Callie's cubicle was only one of three cubicles on the entire floor that heard a rustling of papers all morning. When she realized that her boss had also decided to disappear, Callie leaned back in her chair, raising her cup of coffee to her lips. She looked to the top corner of the room where a T.V. hung. One of the other employees that was still present had decided to turn in on to a news channel. The anchor spoke in the dull way someone would report the weather-- "...how do we in fact continue on in only a half of a world?"
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