Summary: [OCxOC; het] We are two pit players trying to survive our horrible, wonderful life together. This is a collection of short stories: small pieces detailing particular events. Which lie in the past and which in the future? That is for us to know. Rated more for safety than descriptive content. This is continually updating. It will finish when our lives do.
A/N: Hello, all. Maddie here. I'm uploading these in the order that I finish them, because that's the only way that seems to make sense, given the format of this fic. That being said, you could probably skip to any chapter of this, because they are in no particular order, content-wise. I strongly encourage you to submit a review by clicking on the button at the bottom of the chapter, even if you don't have an account. I welcome your praises and constructive criticisms. Enjoy~
[Vignettes of Him] The Bittersweet End
In which we burn to death, together.
I pressed the button on the television remote. The ordinarily, familiarly comforting circle interrupted by a vertical line seemed to be taunting me. Eight minutes. We had eight minutes until the solar flare reached us. I felt the muscles in my throat constricting at a pace that I sensed would kill me before the heat ever did.
This was all wrong. The sun was supposed to last for hundreds of thousands of years more. Its destruction was supposed to be my grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren's problem. To my generation, that life-giving star was nearly infallible. But now, it was acting out of control, one of its molten helium tendrils poised to strike.
I didn't know whether to scream or cry. Laughing was out of the question; I had ruled out that response hours ago, when the news broadcasts began. Seven minutes. For some reason, I felt compelled to check my cell phone. The screen lit up, displaying the 'NO SIGNAL' symbol in the upper left-hand corner. Of course. The radiation was interfering with the phone lines. How would I reach him? I walked to the front of my house and threw open the door. Without so much as a worry about the fate of my family or the cat, I quickened my pace until I was running, stumbling through the scorched yards of my neighbourhood. I ran, finally reaching the main road. It led to everything: to school, to him... It was in chaos, crowded with cars and people trying desperately to live out their last moments like they'd imagined. Or perhaps that was the problem. Maybe some of them hadn't imagined. The world ending, like this. I turned and ran to my right, beads of sweat forming all over my body. They had warned that it would be preceded by a dramatic increase in temperate. I had never liked living here.
Six minutes. I knew I would never make it in time. In sixth grade, the last time I ran a mile, it had taken me over ten minutes to complete. I slowed, my pace delayed by the onset of a sense of utter despair. Five minutes. When I finally halted to a stop, I fell to the ground and closed my eyes. I lay there for at least a full sixty seconds, all the while thinking that this was it--this was the end. I was dying. We were all dying, and I wouldn't get to see him. The tears flowed freely from my eyes into the yellow grass, which soaked up the water as though the action would somehow aid it in surviving longer than the rest. If only something could help us, like that.
Four minutes. Next to me, I heard the sound of a tire grinding to a halt on the asphalt. I opened my eyes and was disoriented by the bright-orange and yellow sky. Then, I was overcome with the realisation that somewhere, he was dying, just like me. It made me want to close my eyes again--this time forever--but somehow, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be there for the end. I wanted to see the sky torn apart by blinding light. I wanted to witness the end of mankind. The end of me. Of him. I stared the tinted clouds down as though they were the ones responsible for killing us.
Three minutes. In my determination to watch the world die, I hadn't noticed the door of the car that had pulled up open and slam closed again after a person got out. The figure, tall and male, approached me. I squinted in the bright light. I was dying. I was dying.
Maybe this was Jesus, coming to take me. Coming to take me away from the pain and the horror, because he knew I feared dying, knew how much I couldn't sleep for the thought of meeting my own termination. As he got closer, I saw that it wasn't Jesus, but the next best thing. I ran to him using my last bit of strength, and collapsed in his arms, which he then folded around me.
Two minutes. My tears fell silently, creating small pools of water on his shirt that were almost instantly dried up by the immense heat. Though I knew it was pointless to speak, in my mind I was asking him, 'Will we end up in the same place?' And somewhere, his voice answered back, 'I know so.'
Sixty seconds. We held each other like that, in the last minute of our lives. The air grew warmer and warmer until I could feel the top layers of my skin peeling off. I pulled away from him, then, and looked up into the eyes I had admired for so long. He took my hands in his and drew me to himself, kissing me with one last bit of fervent passion. With his lips still pressed against mine, I felt him whisper 'I love you'. I responded with the same three words. The only thing I could think about was how incredibly comforted it made me that he was there.
Three seconds. They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes; but mine didn't. The only image they held was of his face, pressed against mine as the fire consumed us.
Zero.