How every day starts was never something I cared deeply about. The day started like every other day. From the 25th floor in Nairobi, looking down, I could see the morning rush. People poured into the streets, their grand campaign against traffic in full swing. The bell rang, and I got my Dawa, its sweet mint scent instantly filling the room. It was a good morning, the same as all other mornings.

Down in the streets, I greeted the newspaper man. He smiled back, as he always did. I high-fived the kid with the nice shoes. His mother, in her usual rush, barely glanced at me. She always was. The buses sped past, no concern for anyone trying to cross the road. The guard at Naivas, on his morning shift, tipped his cap—a small, silent greeting between us. Yes, it was a normal day.

At work, the rhythm continued. Familiar space. Office gossip hummed around the water dispenser—snippets of weekend plans to Malindi, complaints about the new delivery fees on Uber Eats. My colleagues and I sat in the quiet hum of productivity, the drive to push the needle, to get things done. We were achievers, growing better every day. Racing toward some distant, glittering summit.

My phone had been buzzing for the past hour. My mum again. She could send a text, I thought, I’ll call her later. Then my sister. I told myself, unless someone was dying, I’d talk to them in the evening. A message from my pastor followed—not the usual church broadcast, but a message just to me, asking if I’d attend midweek service. He even offered that I could stream it online. I rolled my eyes and deleted it. There was a life outside of here, I knew, where ordinary people spent hours chatting and went to church on a weekday. But that wasn’t me.

Time slipped by as it always does. A trend alert on X (formerly Twitter) notified me of missing persons reports going up. I noticed my colleagues glancing at their phones between meetings, muttering, brushing it off. But as the day wore on, that same story grew louder, more insistent.

By 5 p.m., something shifted. It was as if the breeze had stopped blowing, and everything stood still. Like a holiday when the city’s busiest streets lie empty—an eerie silence over a place that’s always moving. Walking the 600 meters from the coworking space at Zarafa Towers back to the apartment felt strange. The traffic had thinned, yet the sidewalks were crowded, people standing still, heads bowed over their phones, faces twisted in confusion. Whispers floated through the air, fragments of conversations about missing loved ones, voices struggling to make sense of something impossible.

On my phone, social media was a frenzy of posts and panicked comments, photos of empty rooms, final messages. I overheard someone say it was the Christian Rapture, that this was the end of days. But I could hear the skepticism, the anger—why, people muttered, would this pastor and that powerful man of God, even the Pope, still be here if this were true? Religious leaders had yet to comment.

Back at the apartment, I checked my phone again. The missed calls and messages from earlier felt heavier now. I dialed my mother’s number, my sister’s, one after another, each ringing into silence. I tried my pastor’s number too, only to be met with the same, empty ring.

I didn’t panic. I couldn’t. It was as if I were watching it all through a window, safe and removed. I turned on the TV, switching to the news—the last channel I’d normally watch. The president was making a speech, urging calm and asking everyone to remain indoors. I turned it off and tried the calls again.

By the time the curfew was imposed an hour later, I knew. Something had happened. The explanations were different, but the event was the same. All the good people had been taken away. As I sat by the window, glancing at the soldiers patrolling the streets below, I scrolled through my contacts, calling friends whose phones no longer worked, family who didn’t answer. I read through my pastor’s last message, feeling a hollow emptiness settling in my chest. He had been one of those who disappeared. Somehow, the stillness around me felt more alive than ever, each silence an echo of those who were gone.

The day started like every other day, but it would end like no other day we had ever witnessed. It was the day they left the world.