The Stars Are Falling

     In the distance, the trees start waving goodbye.

     Trunks with centuries spun into their flesh bend under the force of the impact. Wood that watched the world turn for generation after generation stoops like servants for their masters; actors bowing on closing night.

     There had been whispers that this was Armageddon. Streets hummed with stories of the apocalypse, tales of deadly viruses that the asteroid would carry. Old faces with lines etched deep into their skin sat on their porches spouting blame and accusations. A thousand voices yelled definitions and names, solutions and explanations. But the only truth left was the End.

     When the sky explodes and the Earth groans, the children are silent. For a moment the world seems still, sitting quietly as cosmic spherules dominate its heavens.

     The stars are falling, a little girl says to her mother.

     Humanity had assumed a lot about the end of the world; that they'd deserved it, that they'd caused it, that it wasn't fair. They'd even been so bold as to predict it. But they hadn't considered that it might be beautiful. Yet there was an undeniable majesty about the light that burned through the atmosphere, a terrifying elegance in the growls that rumbled through the ground as the Earth began to crumble. An unexpected assassin, pulling poisoned pins from her hair. Destruction with lick of grace.

     Like all things beautiful, it didn't last.

     Now, as the trees cower and the Earth trembles, the sky grows dark. Great, rolling blooms of dust consume the air. Smoky fingers reach up and steal the sun. The light that had nurtured the leaves expires, and ancient bones strung up in museums echo with a grim sense of nostalgia.

     As the clouds blacken to raven feathers, the screaming starts.

     Nature realises that it is temporary.

     The North Wind shrieks in protest; rattling through ruined buildings, twisting harsh tangles into hair, tearing leaves from their branches. The hurricanes had been named before, now their force coils as one. A singular rush of destruction that sweeps across the planet at the order of its remorseless master. It whoops while wrenching houses from their foundations, howling as it rips its way through cities. Tornadoes spin like children on a merry-go-round, giggling as they mangle debris and cleave battle scars into the forests.

     People used to have their place in the sky.

     White lace blown into a blue air. At a certain height, it was supposed to smell like geraniums. Before the asteroid, the wind used to sigh timeworn sagas into cracked windows. It used to live like ghosts in old houses and kiss cheeks pink in the winter. A whirlwind used to beat in every heart with a cause. But that was a breeze compared to the typhoons that thrash now. The storms that once swelled in people breakout and destroy them.

     The ocean defends itself with Trojan walls.

     Staggering blockades of water tower over seaside towns like Titans. The Gods walk the Earth once more with churning feet made of salt and surf. The sea tries to escape. Tyrant water rushes inland, carrying with it the structures that dare stand in its way. The gentle tide, which had once carved careful masterpieces out of landscapes, becomes turbulent and barbaric, making executioners of the waves. It roars as they consume the shores and chuckles as they melt away, slipping like smoke through spread fingers, exposing the carnage left in their wake as the clouds begin to cry.

     The rain had once seemed romantic. Girls in big jumpers and careless buns curled up with books in rain speckled windows. Lakes were serene and tranquil; steady spaces reminding people to breath and take a moment to appreciate the ground under their feet. Waterfalls pulled in gasping crowds and honeymooners. Sea foam used to kiss the feet of children playing on the shoreline. But as the damning meteorite hurtles into the Earth, the water withdraws. The sand is left gasping in a salty drought as the world succumbed to the fire that grows in its wake.

     The air crackles as the world starts to burn.

     Scarlet fire arcs against pitch coloured sky, blowing searing kisses at the submissive trees. Embers swirl savage waltzes to melodic wails. They settle; blistering diamonds on the skin of throats lined with soot. They flit like sprites, leaping with joy at the fumbling humans who have swallowed their food and condemned themselves, enchanted by the illusion of living.

     Death has become inconsequential. Life has become limitless.

     As the ground rumbles and the wind screams, as the oceans convulse and the flames conquer, the fate that had hung like a noose around a neck becomes taut and suffocating, and people realise that time is not as they thought. What was considered ancient is as fleeting as the rest of the universe, and a second could outlast existence. As the planet fractures under the impact of the meteorite, the worries of the world suddenly seem absurd; in the end of days it doesn't matter who you are or how you loved if everybody's going to die.

     All you know, is that the dreaded will never seem certain until the moment that it is.

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Heya! Thank you ever so much for taking the time to read this little story of mine! You've already made my day 1002832798493% better <3 <3 <3 Let me know what you think! If you liked it then there will be more of my work coming soon so stick around ;D

Have the most wonderful of days!

- Emily xx