What are people doing while they wait for the apocalypse?

Question

In my universe, the world is ending, and it's clear to everyone that nothing that can be done to save it. Most people have escaped by taking a one-way portal to another world, but there are some people who are stuck waiting in their old homes until they die. What are these people likely to be doing during the last few days they have before the end?

I'm especially interested in the stragglers left behind in large cities. In my story, the protagonist is trying to be the last one to escape through the portal, and en route, he encounters people in cities that were populated and active until only a few days beforehand.

Here are some of the reasons people are staying behind:

• Some have given up hope for themselves and are effectively committing suicide.
• Some tried to tie up loose ends before fleeing, but accidentally spent too long doing so and now are out of time.
• Some were physically incapable of fleeing, such as being crippled or too elderly.
• Some decided that they loved their old homes too much to try to start a new life elsewhere.

This is a high-fantasy universe with a canon religion, so feel free to use magic in your answers.

Answer 1

I think generally people would try to fill up their bucket list or pray that it'll get better.

If there's a way to avoid the initial apocalypse, such as nuclear shelter or similar, or maybe being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean while it happens. Some people might try those options if they believed it could save them. That kind of information would have likely gotten around before everybody left.

If there's no escape, I personally would go around and rummage through other people's stuff, eat the least healthy food possible, drive my car like I'm in Forza and generally act like I'm the only person in the world and my actions have no consequences on anyone but me. I mean, it's the end of the world and there's nobody left to judge me, why would I act like a civilized person?

Some people might be even less civilized and actively try to hurt/kill other people on top of that. The scientific word for them is "nutjobs" I believe.

Some people might continue to live normally, not believing that the end is coming for any reason, including "it's all a conspiracy" or "the apocalypse doesn't scare me".

Some people might off themselves from the get-go, though if they really believe in the end of the world they might wait until the last possible moment to kill themselves.

The more religious people might try to pray for Jesus or somesuch to come down the sky and take them to paradise or something. I'm not really up to date on the specifics of armageddon according to every religion, but I assume most of them have a "if you're good you'll get to heaven before or after the apocalypse" clause.

The more scientific people might try to create a magic portal to anywhere-but-here. It may be completely impossible to achieve but they'll try it because it beats doing nothing.

Answer 2

You might look into real-life apocalyptic cults whose predicted end-of-the-world date has passed. Specifically, memoirs or blog posts written by ex-cult-members about their experiences, or historical accounts. What they do is likely influenced by their specific cult's beliefs, but if you look across a variety of different cults (and cultures/countries) there may be similarities.