Doorways onto Disintegrating Demons, Time-Travel and Volcanos

Effulgence (Prompt)

 The light was all wrong. All right, maybe it was the new normal for however long we had left, but it was still different. It felt wrong. There was an almost terracotta-like hue to it and it ironically seemed almost dimmer.

Once more, I peeked nervously at the viewscreen. Now visibly bloated beyond my childhood memories, the sun hung in the sky over the city like a rotting orange. Though my disapproval meant nothing to the massive ball of gas above, I glared as it effulged away both furiously and indifferently. The intensified power of that luminescence had begun the process of boiling away Earth's oceans. Those of us who hadn't had the means to escape to the newly formed colony on Europa following the scientists' gloomy announcement weren't likely to live much longer; the only question was whether we perished of thirst or of gradual radiation poisoning from the now laser-like solar wind.

Though humanity had known for centuries that the sun's lifetime was finite, no one had ever believed that the final blaze of celestial glory that would serve as Earth's funeral pyre would begin so soon. Short-sighted science had failed us once more.

I fooled myself into thinking I could actually see the sun waxing in size and bulging unnaturally. Every photon that blazed forth was merely another tremble in the grand star's death throes. I watched it all afternoon; after all, how did my lack of productivity truly matter now? Just as the sun began to creep towards its daily slumber, a curtain of red flared along the horizon in one final effulgence before darkness temporarily fell.

Speaking of stars...if you enjoyed this tale, click the one on this page, please!