Fire Fall

I woke up in agonizing pain like being stabbed with a knife in the chest. I'd just had my sixth treatment of chemotherapy. It had been one year since I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. I only had a few years left.

It all started six years ago when my world was turned upside down. I was just a small boy, only eight years old at the time, enjoying the simple things in life – riding my bike on the weekend with friends, enjoying the sunshine and having fun.

It was nice sunny afternoon in Anselmo, Nebraska. My friends and I were riding up the hill and then the sun suddenly seemed to disappear, the sky became black and there was an eerie feeling in the air. What seemed like fiery ball hundreds of miles away all of a sudden hit the earth.

As soon as the object hit the earth the ground shuddered the smell of smoke filled the air. I felt my lungs clog up with the deadly fumes. I raced home on my bike and everything felt like it was going 100 mph and I could hardly catch my breath.

I finally arrived home, seeing the panic in my parent's eyes now being filled with relief as they saw that I was okay. I was covered in soot, black as a chimney sweeper.

Little did we know at that time, the Earth had lost its elliptical orbit after being hit by the meteor and had started to progressively move closer to the sun. Also that the smoke was deadly and would cause cancer.

They had been trying to piece together what had happened. My parents had been trying to contact people to find out what had happened but the phone lines were down. They decided it was best to stay inside in case the smoke was poisonous and we would wait to hear more about what had happened.

Within an hour it was all over the news that a meteor had hit the earth causing catastrophic damage. It had landed in India and had taken out the entire country, killing over a billion people in a matter of seconds including family's - innocent people - all of whom didn't deserve any of this. The meteor had covered the whole of India. I couldn't believe the devastation the meteor caused and how we would escape from guaranteed death.

Later that night a strange figure appeared at my door - someone I'd never seen before. In a small town with a population of approximately 100 people everyone knows everyone and word gets around quick. He wore a blood red tie, a pearl white shirt, a charcoal black blazer and some black business pants. He introduced himself as Mr Michael Stevens. He then proceeded to ask for my father. I told him he was out back.

He walked inside his black business pants brushing past my head. I rubbed the condensation off the inside of the window but the frost on the outside made it hard to see but I could just make out the silhouettes of my father and Mr Stevens arguing over something but I couldn't hear them. They shouted and pointed for what seemed like hours.

Mr Stevens left and my father finally came in and broke the news that we had to move. We were all devastated that we had to leave our home behind. My dad told us that it was for the greater good and it was either this or we died in 40 years.

We chose to leave.

We were relocated to the Los Angeles for my father's new job, to save the human race. Over the next four years, food supplies diminished as it became harder for farmers to produce crops due to extreme heat and lack of water. Everyone's food was rationed. The tensions were high between the rich and the poor. The poor sometimes forced to steal food and risk the punishment or starve to death. The rich were the few that could afford the high standards of security and food to live their lives well.

Although my family wasn't very wealthy we were supported by the government as it was my dad's job to save humanity by building hydro powered jet engines to thrust us away from the sun.

I ended up having to be home schooled by a tutor from the government as it was too dangerous for my mum or me to step outside without security protection. The reason being not everyone supported the approach of my father having to build massive hydro powered jet engines because they thought it would further destroy the earths ecosystem and drain water supplies even further.

Then came the drought. The suns heat taking away a lot of our water supplies and food. This was a massive issue because our engines relied off the water source. The people were starting riots. Especially the poor they wouldn't have any of it. The situation escalated very quickly. The poor started to throw Molotov's. They flew past my window and I watched as innocent people behind the police screamed their last screams and breathed their last breaths after being scorched by the flames. Guns were being fired left and right, no one could escape the chaos. The police formed a barricade. Unfortunately, the police ended up having to kill a lot of the poor that rioted. Many lives were lost this tragic day.

Finally, my dad and everyone had finished the jet engines. We were set to leave in approximately ten days.

We turned the engines on, the thrust of the motors shook the earth and the water amount started to decrease, but slowly the earth started to move back into place it would take about three years but we were certain to make it.

With one year left I started to feel sharp pains in my stomach and I would continuously vomit. We visited the doctors, and when the results came back I looked up. I saw my mother in tears with my dad holding her head on his shoulder. I asked, "What's wrong?" They told me that I had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and I only had approximately four years left.

I sat in my hospital bed and watched as we reached the original position of earth and the engines were turned off, as it happened the earth came to a grinding halt. It's like the whole planet sighed with incredible relief. We had finally had made it, everyone was ecstatic, except me as I lay in my hospital bed depressed and sad, wishing I had died the day the meteor struck. I wish it landed on me not the billions of innocent people in India. The next day my dad bought me a telescope that night I gazed up into the night and saw the beautiful stars that shone like diamonds, glinting in the faint sunlight. They gave me hope that I would be up there with them someday.