Some regrets I have about my apocalypse compound.

Marissa Maciel
3 min readJan 5, 2021
I just wanted a way to escape what the Poors had to deal with!

I am a billionaire who built a compound to survive the apocalypse, and sometimes I regret it.

My billions came from making algorithms to determine when people were getting slightly less productive at work so their bosses could immediately fire them. This made it easy for me to figure out when society was just about to collapse into chaos.

When I saw news about viral outbreaks, climate disasters, everybody getting laid off because they were too sick and hungry to work, and other billionaires making compounds, I knew it was time for me to make my own.

My compound is hundreds of miles away from civilization. It’s self-powered, has its own water treatment plant, and also a roller coaster — so I can escape the apocalypse in the style I’ve grown accustomed to.

And when reports started showing people dying from starvation, fighting for resources, and suffering as a terrible famine started to spread globally, I knew it was time to split.

But right away, things started going wrong.

After the pilot landed my helicopter he said he couldn’t leave; my compound didn’t have any fuel for his return trip. Regret number one!

Then, a few weeks later as the famine forced people to leave their homes, they started showing up on…

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Marissa Maciel

Writer, Illustrator. Work in Points in Case, Weekly Humorist, Entropy Magazine, New Yorker Tiny Shouts, McSweeney’s, and more! All work -> marissamaciel.com