My skin is hot and it’s the end of the world. I stand between my parents in this haze of orange and red that consumes all that it touches. Puddles of boiling black tar nip away at our feet, the life we knew melting like an Edvard Munch painting, and I scream, because I’m afraid if no noise comes from me then I must be dead. Long gone is an existence of blue skies, long gone is existence.

I cling to my parents, who grip me tightly, holding me together in fear that I too, may melt. Above us is the bringer of our doom. A burning sun larger than it's ever been, closer than it was ever meant to be. It comes for us like a comet, its flames snapping and popping, curling around itself, almost biblical, like an angel coming to enact the will of God.

I was always scared of a fiery death, but I had assumed that if it were to take place, this end to life as we know it, it would have more than likely come by a nuclear bomb. An end brought by man…it’s funny how much credit we give ourselves, isn’t it?

No, here is the true power, a weapon a million times louder than any bomb. The noise hit us before the heat even came close, and my ears had lost their functions by the time it did. My parents mouth what I assume are words of comfort, but it is no use. In the end, we are utterly alone to our demise. How long until the little contact we do have becomes too much?

The final blow is that we are denied the simple comfort of crying. It is far too hot now for any tears, we are far past that point. So we heave and we twist our faces into ugly, huddled messes, our throats drying up like sandpaper with every labored breath.

The sun comes to consume us and to stardust in the solar system, we will return.