Volume I - Episode 32 Where: Melbourne, Australia When: E-Day, 11:43 am After more or less losing my mind in the middle of the city - which would have been embarrassing had anybody actually been around to see it - I drove home to my little two-bedroom unit in pretty much a daze. And not the good kind of daze, where time passes quickly while you perform some mundane task like driving for 30 minutes. No, it was the bad kind of daze. The type where your brain is clogged with thoughts and questions, all fighting for centre stage when all you want to do is go somewhere quiet and sob while listening to the rustle of the leaves. I passed well over a hundred wrecked cars on the way home - including the disturbing sight of a crushed baby seat in the back of a four-wheel-drive that was impaled upon a pylon. In some places I had to slow down to a crawl to negotiate my way through the tangled maze of wrecks. Heavy black smoke filled the air as I neared my home suburb of Woodland. The petrol station was still burning. I parked my car in the garage and sat there, thinking. The slow ticking sound of the engine cooling was somehow comforting. At least there was some noise in the world. My mind raced. I was confused, scared and emotional. Nothing made any sense. That was pretty much the time when I stopped wondering what had happened to everybody, and instead began to wonder what my next moves would be. Eventually I found the willpower to climb out of the car and made my way toward the front door of my unit. The air was still and unseasonably mild for that time of year. The silence was oppressive. There wasn't a single sound to be heard. Feeling more than a little freaked out, I all but ran the rest of the way to my front door and let myself in. My place was clean-ish, and tidy-ish. It smelled of aromatherapy oils mixed with the faint but ever-lurking undertones of microwave cooking and old farts. Ah, the classic bachelor pad! The familiar sights and smells of my little unit had never felt more welcoming. As I typically did whenever I got home from anywhere, I headed straight to my computer room. I scoured the CNN website for news. There were videos and a transcript of Obama's press conference, a disturbing satellite photo of a very empty Circular Quay in Sydney, and dozens of articles about the various locations in the world that had "gone dark", each filled with thousands of scared, angry and paranoid comments from the readers. They were calling it "The Mystery In The East". The general consensus seemed to be that everybody east of Greenland had just up and vanished. US authorities were adamant the phenomenon would not reach their shores...but that seemed less likely with each passing hour. I made a mental note to contact CNN to let them know what I had seen...but for now I was more concerned about my friends and loved ones. With that thought in mind, I logged onto Facebook. There had been no posts from any of my Aussie friends or family since midnight. That was disturbing. There was still a bit of chatter from my American friends, as well as a message from my friend Chris in Ohio:

Hey Mike, what's going on down there in Aussieland? Are you okay? Get back to me, buddy.

I wrote Chris a very long reply detailing everything I had seen and heard - including the fact that I seemed to be the only person still living in Melbourne - and asked him if he had any idea, at all, as to what the hell was going on. I also posted a quick status update:

So, er...are any other Aussies still around? Or is it just me? Hellooooooo???

Then I picked up my iPhone and started calling people. I'm not usually one for phone calls - I usually prefer to text people rather than speak to them - but this was definitely an occasion where I really, really needed to hear another person's voice. [CONTINUED IN FIRST COMMENT BELOW]