“The world will burn.” Says a tired looking man in a button up shirt tucked into khaki pants that are both at least a size too big. The belt around his waist the only thing holding his pants in place.

“It’s going to be bad.” Jittery and worn he moves his hand in a shrugging motion, wafting smoke from the cigarette in his fingers in front of his face. As if just remembering it was there he puts it between his lips and puffs. The smoke rolls up, covering his face for just a moment. His eyes are red and watery from the strain of being awake for days.

The work station isn’t in much better shape. Lit only by a single bulb overhead empty coffee cups, and papers are strewn haphazardly across a less then sturdy desk that he leans against. Crumpled papers cover the floor around the wire trash can. Indents from the wheels of where his rolling chair usually sits in front of his computer are imprinted into the cheap commercial carpet.

“I’m positive about this, I ran the simulations.” With his cigarette still between his lips and smoke and ash being sent in different directions with every word, he rolls his sleeves higher up on his forearms. “The world will burn, it’s going to be chaos.” His voice was almost somber, he looks off as if searching for the answers to fix the events he knows are inevitable. He puts the cigarette back between his fingers.

“What do the simulations say?” Says his colleagues who stands at the threshold of his war torn looking office.

“The earth will be uninhabitable, the soil won’t be able to grow anything, what little water we have will be toxic, the air we breathe will even kill us. And that’s IF the flames that will cover most, if not, all of the earth don’t kill us first.” Rubbing his face with his free hand, he takes a deep breath. “This is solid data and I can’t get anyone to listen to me.”

“Well yeah, hellfire is bad for business.” His colleague says with a nervous laugh. “It’s more comfortable in the short term to ignore it.”

“They pay me to do a job and I did it. This isn’t a ‘maybe’, this is a ‘will %100 happen’ possibly even sooner then I think.” He said, leaning back on his rickety desk even more, putting his head back. “I should have never taken a job here.”

“What’s your timeline?” His colleague shifts uncomfortably.

“Well, quite honestly, the events have already been set into motion. At this point we can only do harm reduction, but for the ‘hellfire’ as you put it? Within 5 years, and that’s overshooting it in my opinion. Some simulations showed as soon as 6 months to a year for fires to start, and once they start it’s going to be a runaway train, then soon, a majority of the planet just....engulfed.” He waves his hand in the air and a trail of smoke follows. He grabs one of his empty coffee cups, put his cigarette out in it, and set it back down on the desk with force, shaking his head. “I can’t even get them to take my calls anymore. I’m the leading environmental scientist in the country, and they’re ignoring my calls like I’m some conspiracy theory nut.”

He grabs his pack of cigarettes from under the mess of papers and cups and lights a fresh one.

“You know you’re not supposed to be smoking inside.” Says his colleague.

“You gonna tell on me?” He retorts.

A smile creeps across his colleagues face and they shake their head. He offers his colleague a smoke and they take it and he lights it.

“Those’ll kill you, ya know.” He says jokingly.

“Sounds like it doesn’t much matter.” His colleague says. “I can try and make a few calls for you if you want? Maybe it can add some credibility if more then one scientist is concerned.”

“You can try, but don’t hold your breathe. They’re going to let the house burn down with all of us inside.” He sighs.

“It can’t hurt to try, though. I’ll do that tonight, but I’m on my way out. You should be too, get some rest.” Says his colleague.

“I’m right behind you.” He says but neither of them believe his lie.

His colleague motions for a cup and puts their cigarette out before walking down the hall to the elevators to leave the building.

~~~~~~~~

The next day his colleague walks down the same hall they had walked countless times before catching their friend’s office in peripheral. Something was different, no, wrong. They stop and take several steps backward until they could see his office again. The same office that had coffee cups and papers blanketing it is now empty. The only evidence that anyone had ever been there are the indents of where the desk and chair had been in the carpet. They saw the person that worked in the next office over and wave to get their attention.

“Do you know where he went?” Pointing to the office.

The person just shrugs and says “he got promoted or demoted or transferred, I don’t really know. It was like that when I got here this morning.” The person walks into their office and shuts the door.

He’s gone, like he never existed.