Short Stories for the Mind

Ｓｔｉｍｕｌｉ

Life hasn't always been kind to the inhabitants of Earth. Deer are mercilessly killed by wolves so they can survive, owls swooping in on helpless mice but it's just how the world works. This cycle of rising and falling was ruined by the works of man. Humanity made species go extinct, started to burn our lungs and the ground from their tar footprints. Mother nature had it no longer.

One day, the sun didn't rise. Days, or what we once considered days, pass with the sun never reappearing. The world was left in complete darkness with no explanation and nothing to research. Scientists say the sun just disappeared from our solar system and the only thing keeping our planets from sub-zero temperatures is sun-like radiation emitting from where the sun used to be. They say it's slowly getting colder as the radiation slowly depletes, as we slowly use up the only thing keeping us from flash freezing. Still, the Earth starts to grow cooler, snow starting to overrun the northern countries resulting in people moving down into southern places where warmth still resides.

Next, it was the planets starting with Neptune. One day it was there but the next, nothing. Just like the sun. Radiation was left behind, the only signifier that the planet actually existed but this one not giving off any heat but actually the opposite; the radiation being endothermic. The rest of the planets follow; Saturn, Uranus, then Jupiter and Mercury, Venus, and then lastly Mars. Radiation took their place, all endothermic and all sucking in the limited heat coming from the "sun".

Earth is now the only planet left in our solar system, and we are left with no explanation of where everything else went. No way to explain how and why and no one to turn to for answers. People claim it's God's work, saying he's rebuilding us; starting the worlds over, but others claim aliens or an unseen danger from deep space. Scientists for once have no true answers, leaving people to turn to faith or to wallow in their own existence. Truthfully, it was none of those things but something they can't even comprehend and never considered.

A few days before the incident or what was now considered days, the Earth's power just stopped. Everyone's houses grow dark, with no light anywhere and things like cars and heating followed a few days later. After adjusting to no artificial light, and the ever-growing cold from the north, a cold-snap took over the globe, freezing everything. If you didn't have a wood stove with some way to maintain food, you perished. This was the last step to humanity's downfall, and it wasn't even known to us at the time.

As quick as lightning, the buildings that still stood collapsed from being so brittle, the plants that lived through the warmer winters finally died off, and lastly, a disease, one that was never seen before, sweeps the globe and wiping out almost 90% of the remaining population that managed to survive.

Those who survived came to know nothing of the earth that was left. They trudged along, gathering and eating anything they could, drinking what they could find. Not even the ocean supplies comfort as most of it has frozen over.

Humanity can no longer be observed and no more history can be written as we all die off the next winter, but as I write this, things don't add up. If everyone is dead, how am I here, writing this?

I sigh, "Things will never be the same," and turn off the computer with a click. The monitor goes blank, the chair creaks, and the door softly shuts.