Per 
"Have you turned on the TV at all today?"
The words came through the phone without hesitation, in a panicked tone. Dan sounded out of breath, like he'd just run a mile to call me and ask me if I'd turned on my TV. Immediately, I was confused. There was no 'hello, Alex, how's your day been?', or the 'how's your mother been lately?' that I had long been expecting when Dan called. That meant it must be an emergency, but I couldn't fathom what could have happened to warrant such a frantic call.
"Did something happen?" I asked him slowly and calmly. Truth be told, no, I hadn't turned the TV on lately. All it tended to do was distract me from my writing, and Mom wasn't home to watch it, anyways - she was out getting groceries. I heard Dan sigh over the line.
"North Korea is gone." He finally said in a flat tone. As he said it, I frowned in confusion and stood up from my desk. I decided he must be joking, or maybe exaggerating. A whole country doesn't just collapse that fast without warning. And if it did - why would that warrant such a call?
"What, did they nuke themselves on accident?" I asked him with a nervous chuckle. It was a futile attempt to lighten the mood.
"No. It's gone. Look at the news. The entire country is just gone."
I was floored. He sounded serious, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the notion. An entire country, falling off the face of the Earth? I put my notebook down on my desk and picked my laptop up off the bed, frantically opening the lid and inputting my password as Dan continued his explanation.
"It's just disappeared. And now the world is going mad." He said ominously.
"Going mad? How, exactly?" I asked him as I navigated my way to the live news feed.
