To the bitter end

And, with that, inexplicably to all but finally to some, the star closest to Earth began to fuel itself, going forth the way a vehicle pumps out the last of its gasoline before dying completely. And in doing so the star began to swell; slowly at first, so much so the few who witnessed this beginning deemed it an optical illusion. But they were as wrong as this day was short. It kept growing, as if consuming the sky itself with its orange glow, small canyons of blazing red now becoming visible to the burning naked eye. People ran inside but it was no use; they knew this, of course, but it just seemed better to do something when the Sun is about to devour you. Finally the forests and cities of the world began melting and lighting all at once, sealing the doom not just of civilization but of all sentient life within it…

Leonide Moss felt sweat pulse its way to his forehead; patting it with a nearby napkin, he looked at what he had written on his laptop. People aren’t gonna wanna read this bullshit he thought to himself.

But that wasn’t so much the concern for the pulp-fantasy novelist; his primary concern was why he not only felt so convinced he should give apocalyptic writing a try, but why it got him so worked up every time he sat down to write it. A shadowy-pale homebody, Leonide should’ve had much bigger fears than something as 50’s sci-fi as the world ending. Mostly known in D&D circles and stuffy comic stores for his fantasy series Hillside Keep, Leonide spent most of his thirties and forties writing in the same wheelhouse. But having just turned fifty, he decided it was time to venture out a bit.

Leonide enjoyed most types of literature, but was always more lenient to genre fiction. Thinking of this he opened up the book that caused him to start this charred Earth book he’d just sat down for. Flipping through his shelf he found Dying Globe, a novel that takes place entirely within a chemically-induced zombie apocalypse. He flipped to his favorite line:

Patient Zero, unfortunately, was not some shut-in; he was a man of wealth, status, and above all sociability. It was not long before everyone around him, all his friends and family were infected and still not long before the friends and family of his friends and family were also infected. It’d stretch out far enough to seem like a random flu epidemic, but only those within the lab knew the truth. And just as unfortunate, the lab-rats weren’t the survivalist type either.

Zombies were all well and good, but when it came down to genuine and plausible methods of doomsday, Leonide couldn’t help but feel anxiety. It was no wonder he’d had these concepts of the world ending stirring around his mind as he lounged in his Los Angeles home the past few weeks, yet did nothing about them.

He checked his phone, pulling it from the drawer he always threw it into when he’d begin to write; it’d only been forty minutes, pathetic. But nevertheless, feeling done for today, having at least mildly chipped at the mental block he’d been dealing with, he resigned to go down to the restaurant he and some friends were coalescing at later that evening. He figured he’d arrive early and get a cocktail.

—

At the restaurant, second cocktail in hand, Leonide Moss, despite being at a table with three other men, was keeping mostly to himself. This frustrated him; for he had intended on socializing with his friends—all of them writers, whether it’d be about his mental block or not—in order to attempt to escape from thinking about it, and escape from the very subject he’d tackled earlier today.

He looked out at the city lights, peering at stars between buildings; he almost smiled at himself, chuckling, for he knew they were a safe distance away and even the Sun itself had millenia in its future before even possibly expanding.

But then, as he kept gawking outside the restaurant, he saw a star that seemed to be moving. He’d never seen a shooting star in his life. Not fully convinced, he kept looking and sure enough, its light was consistent and unblinking, and not in the pattern of an airplane. Leonide was about to smile again when he then noticed that it wasn’t moving from one side of the window to the other, but instead getting bigger; for it was not a star but an asteroid. God’s very own slingshot aimed at Leonide Moss’ head. It grew in size and in depth and, taking down a couple of buildings shot through the—

“Still with us, Moss?” Clark asked.

“Hm?” Leonide returned, looking away from the window.

“You keep looking like you expect something to happen,” Jim remarked.

Leonide finally let out the chuckle that he’d kept holding in. “Sorry guys,” he said, “bit tired.”

—

But when he walked out of his house, he discovered something even worse than his nightmare—everything had a slick and reflective layer to it, animals had all died over the course of the sunless night, and now scattered around Tim’s lawn. And none of this was as bad as Tim felt, or at least not as immediate as the freezing of the spit in his mouth and tears freezing against his eyes. It was only minutes before…

Leonide, on his third draft of this nuclear winter endeavor, found himself going into wretched circles of introducing the concept to the hypothetical reader but, in less than three sentences, making it infallible for human life. He was never a genre writer of “hard” science, never cared to over research details to get everything right to a tee, but he couldn’t imagine anyone surviving the spontaneity of the Antarctic winter that arrived on his characters overnight.

Unfortunately that was not his only issue. He was also dealing with a rapid heart rate and a sense of paranoia ever since the preceding night’s events. He had barely contained himself from screaming or gasping or at least verbally recollecting his insane asteroid story. Barely able to keep it in he just quickly finished his meal and went home. From there he had a couple more cocktails at home and stared in front of his laptop, waiting for inspiration. He’d done this time and time again, got hammered and expected work to materialize for him. It never went as he’d hoped but he felt it counted as “trying to work.”

But he couldn’t surpass the tightening of his chest and the hypersensitivity to noise he developed at every turn whilst developing these plotlines. This brought him back to his earlier days of writing, the pre-Hillside Keep projects, asking himself what he worked on, and did anything cause a similar anxiety? He was never all too interested in anything particularly highbrow, but his science fiction and even his horror was never so bleak as to prophecy the end of all human life.

He tried to begin his next morning with a pot of coffee by his laptop, fully rested by way of sleeping pills and determinism. Today was the day he put this whole paranoia of his to rest.

No grand plan in mind nor on paper, he just began typing, keeping things simple with underdeveloped protagonists and a simple plotline, one with a clear umbilical cord to an unspecified end. He’d figure it out when he got there.

He kept a vintage radio by the desk he worked at and, feeling himself enter a groove he flicked it on, hoping for some of Zeppelin’s longer tracks to guide him through the forthcoming pages. But instead all he heard was some deejay’s motormouth hammering on about something…

It wasn’t until the keyword of “War” that Leonide stopped writing, swiveled his chair over, and turned the radio up— I repeat a third World War has been officially been commenced by our President as a response to Middle Eastern and Korean powers refusing to yield to—

An airhorn, stemming from god knows where, screeched through the outside and penetrated the windows of his study. The tightening that condemned Leonide’s chest once again resulted in a seemingly prophetic clutch above his chest plate. He knew that whatever his heart manifested wouldn’t doom him so much as always choosing to live alone would.

He stumbled to the window and saw fighter-jets clearing the sky, leaving their streaks as a calling card and, from the direction which they were headed, Leonide proceeded to hear a horrifying wreckage take place, something he scarcely registered as a bomb before all the lumber and pieces of his home went up in—

One gasp and a slight yell later, Leonide, still clutching his chest, found himself gazing upward at the room’s ceiling fan. He looked at the work he’d done; it wasn’t even a full page. Now, seemingly beyond his annoyance and anxiety, he was angry, angry at his lack of productivity and willingness to submit to this specific challenge just to tempt the trajectory of his career and his health.

But this particular apocalyptic vision sent Leonide’s mind spiraling, not into fear or despair, but into memory; he recoiled, shrinking back into his chair and seeing his perception lower, feeling himself entirely shrink as if he were a boy again. That deep voice boomed once again, echoing through his young eardrums, chuckling and telling him the world would end if he didn’t do as he told whether it be not only chores or other childlike tasks but remaining docile and quiet in times of every stress—his father would always put not the fear of God but that of Armageddon into Leonide, striking the fear of the end of days into every discretion of his.

Like two wires finding synergy and creating light Leonide found himself gasping a final time, once again in his working chair, now feeling fully informed of the source of his anxiety.

Despite this, Leonide did not feel at all compelled to change this at his age; he did not consider it worthwhile to confront these fears of his. Eh he figured some men fear death or the dark… I am no different for having a particular phobia.

Deciding to once again shorten his workday, Leonide Moss went to his easy chair with a new sense of resolve. There were times to experiment, and other times to stay where he’s comfortable. He had an underappreciated fanbase eagerly awaiting the next Hillside Keep. Who was he to deny them? He’d begin work on that novel tomorrow, but today was his to relax.

Leonide sat down in his easy chair, scotch in his right hand, a lit cigar in the other; taking a couple sips of scotch he leaned back and smoked the cigar down to a nub just as he began to doze off and, as if fate was waiting on its cue, the cigar, remaining lit and orange by the wind of the living room’s air conditioner, fell down and, not affecting the lightweight Leonide at all, lit the carpet on fire.

The house fire would not make the news, but what happened next would; it would stretch throughout the entirety of his hot and dry California neighborhood, setting ablaze every structure in the area. It would spare Leonide but unfortunately char his neighbor and his family to their horrifying end.

And in doing so it would alarm a certain CDC test subject (supposedly and wrongfully cleared) all the way from Atlanta, having been notified that her brother and his family had died. And so, with much haste, said subject would rush in the least hygienic of ways and, spreading the contamination she carried horizontally across the country, would unfortunately set a domino effect that would drastically cut the human population and end civilization as we know it.