In chess, there are 169,518,829,100,544,000,000,000,000,000 ways to play the first ten moves.

It only takes 7 pounds of pressure to rip your ear off.

$26 billion in ransom has been paid out in the U.S. in the past 20 years.

You use more calories eating celery than there are in the celery itself.

On average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonalds BigMac bun.

There are 1 million ants for every person in the world.

Odds of being killed by a dog - 1 in 700,000.

Odds of dying while in the bath tub - 1 in 1 million.

Odds of being killed by space debris - 1 in 5 billion.

Odds of being killed by poisoning - 1 in 86,000.

Odds of being killed by freezing - 1 in 3 million.

Odds of being killed by lightening - 1 in 2 million.

Odds of being killed in a car crash - 1 in 5,000.

Odds of being killed in a tornado - 1 in 2 million.

Odds of being killed by falling out of bed - 1 in 2 million.

Odds of being killed in a plane crash -1 in 25 million.

If you played all of the Beatles' singles and albums that came out between 1962 and 1970 back to back, it would only last for 10 hours and 33 minutes.

Termites eat through wood 2 times faster when listening to rock music.

The Apollo 11 only had 20 seconds of fuel when it landed.

13 people are killed each year by vending machine's falling on them.

There is a 1/4 pound of salt in every gallon of seawater.

About 1/3 of American adults are at least 20% above their recommended weight.

The average talker sprays about 300 microscopic saliva droplets per minute, about 2.5 droplets per word.

The average smell weighs 760 nanograms.

The Earth experiences 50,000 earthquakes each year.

Skin temperature does not go much above 95 degrees even on the hottest days.

314 Americans had buttock lift surgery in 1994.

Annual growth of WWW traffic is 314,000%.

Experts at Intel say that microprocessor speed will double every 18 months for at least 10 years.

The Earth's revolution time increases .0001 seconds annually.

Driving at 75 miles (121 km) per hour, it would take 258 days to drive around one of Saturn's rings.

Driving 55 miles (88 km) per hour instead of 65 miles (105 km) per hour increases your car mileage by about 15%.

Airbags explode at 200 miles (322 km) per hour.

If we had the same mortality rate now as in 1900, more than half the people in the world today would not be alive.

1/3 of all cancers are sun related.

The average person flexes the joints in their finger 24 million times during a lifetime.

There are more than 1,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee.

It would take 7 billion particles of fog to fill a teaspoon.

The average iceberg weighs 20 million tons.

Engelskanovell. Skriven på ca 3 timmar, ihjälstressad. Dålig. Men ändock, novell! Något skrivet! Bättre än inget. Som vanligt blir styckeindelning osv fuckad men använd fantasin.

When Brian woke up that morning, he had no idea that it was going to be his last morning on earth. When he got out of bed and brushed his teeth, combed his hair, got dressed and ate a slice of dry bread for breakfast, he had no idea it was the last time he was going to do so. He did not notice that his time was running out, as sand through an hourglass, one grain at the time, just as impossible to stop as an avalanche.

 

What he did notice though, when he glimpsed out his kitchen window, was that the sky did not have its usual pink morning glow, but a deep violet shade instead. He put down his half-eaten slice of bread and walked closer to the window in order to get a better view. He could see that the violet sky had clouds, but they were not white and comfortable looking, like normal clouds. No, these clouds had a sickly greenish color. Brian thought they looked poisonous.

 

Suddenly he heard screams coming from the street in front of his house. He ran to his front door and swung it open. A second later, he wished he had not done so.

 

In the middle of the street he saw his next door neighbor Deborah, a young woman with blonde hair, lying flat on her back. Her once pretty face had been badly cut and her body had been mutilated. Brian could see as much as five other bodies down the street and he identified the ones that still had their faces on as friends and neighbors. He then took two steps out on his porch, leaned over the fence and vomited.

 

When the convulsions finally stopped, Brian took three deep breaths and turned around, careful not to look at the street or the bodies that lay there, and went inside. He closed the door firmly behind him, took another deep breath and then walked into his living room.

 

He switched on the television. There was no picture. He turned on the radio. There was only static. He sat down on the couch. His eyes were pounding behind their lids, so he pressed his hands against them. He sat like that for a long time and did not feel anything other than the pounding of his eyes against his hands.

 

But then he felt thirsty and warm, so he got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. Distracted, he picked up his dry slice of bread from the table and started to eat it, whilst pouring a glass of water. Later when he had finished eating, and emptied four glasses of water, he felt a little bit better. He realized he could not stay in his house. But where should he go? Brian thought long and hard before deciding to head for a bigger city, where it would be easier to find other people and information. He figured there must have been some kind of invasion from a foreign country and that they must have used some sort of biochemical weapon in order to turn the sky purple. Maybe there were no radio-or television broadcasts because the government reckoned that would be safer. Brian felt comforted by these thoughts, and repressed every memory of the torn-apart bodies on the street.

 

When he had packed a rucksack with food, water, clothes, a flashlight and some other stuff he figured were good to bring along as well, he went down into his basement and opened his gun cabinet. Brian’s father had taught him how to hunt when he was a little boy, and Brian owned two hunting rifles. He brought them both, along with some spare ammunition.

 

He decided not to go out through the front door, but to use the kitchen door that led out to his small backyard instead. He walked quietly on the soft, well-cut grass and held one of the rifles in his arms. He climbed over the fence that marked the end of his yard, and headed south with the help of a compass.

 

When he had walked for about an hour, he could see a thick pillar of smoke rising on the horizon, and under it the dark silhouette of a city against bright flames. His heart sank as he moved closer to the burning city. But then he saw a group of dark shapes coming towards him, a group of people he figured, and behind them another. Brian waved and yelled at them to come and talk with him, but they seemed not to see him. But he heard one of the people in the group call out to him, only he could not make out the words.

 

The second group of people had almost caught up with the first one. Brian intended to try and make contact with them as well, but then his breath was knocked out of him and he started shaking.

 

The second group was not at all made up out of people, like he had first thought. It was made up out of three horrifying creatures, with skin that looked like dark leather, and claws so huge Brian could see them clearly, despite the distance. As he watched, they caught up to the group of people, and started attacking them. He could not look away from the bloodbath, even though it made him sick. The creatures had struck him with such fear that he could not move even though he wanted to.

 

Then Brian heard a soft whisper, sort of like the sound sails make when they catch a good wind, from behind him. He turned around just in time to see an enormous monster emerging from the violet sky. It was surrounded by smaller flying creatures, and one of them was heading right at Brian. He closed his eyes, and as the jaws of the creature tore his flesh apart, he saw the image of an empty hourglass on the back of his lids.