It began with a heartbeat, that which brings life. It ended in a heartbeat, that which brought death. How it started or from where it came, no one could tell, but thoughts of Hiroshima flooded the minds of many who were alive for long enough to think.

The raging fire spread, taking everything in it's path to fuel its unencumbering rage. Air from miles around rushed in to feed it, cramming itself into an impossibly small space. An egg formed, a ball of pure rage, a thousand times more brilliant and furious than the sun, poured out it's suffering upon the city, a seeming eternity of abhoration released.

The concrete stretched in the heat as it was pushed away by the blast, tearing open bloodless wounds that cut straight to the metallic bone. Glass shattered, immediately vaporised in the insane heat, leaving behind steel skeletons, which still clung to the shaking ground. The sudden exposure warped iron and steel, skyscrapers twisting inwards upon themselves like immense DNA, before the structure finally relented and the buildings ultimately collapsed and blew away like wilting flowers on the breeze.

A deafening roar echoed in tune with the rest of the devastation as cars disappeared in searing balls of orange and yellow flames, contrasting against the purple flame, which had first engulfed them. Pieces of chassis were sent spinning into the air like blazing shrapnel. A mushroom cloud of dense black smoke billowed upwards into the sky, darker even than the rain clouds, which wept over the scene of destruction below.

And then it grew.

It moved so fast. How impressive and yet so humbling, to watch mans greatest achievements overshadowed by mans most primitive instincts. All consuming, the ball grew, first six feet, then twelve, tearing remorselessly into the earth itself.

The sound! What once was a scream of one became a scream of millions, people, animals, buildings, steel, even the very earth itself roared in pain and terror! Financial fortresses fell one by one, and at one mile the ball met people. Some were fortunate enough to be too wasted to wake; most woke just in time to have their flesh turned to crackling before blown away like cigarette ash.

Not so primal now the reaction became efficient, less energy was wasted, less sound, less light, what was consumed was used. South Town now had a two-mile high blue dome where once was the black-corrupt mile-high heart that was Geese Tower. The fireball was now the blowtorch of the Gods, blasting away the cancerous growth that should have never been.

As it left the slums and met the suburban sprawl, the reaction intensified further, the fireball became violet. Now it touched the sky, and the sky recoiled in terror. Thunderous titans fled like beaten children to escape its hunger, and yet onwards it came.

At exactly one second the darkness fell, blackness of the kind that only the blind can see. For one beautiful instant all was in perfect balance, the onslaught halted.

Then it collapsed.

A million souls, a billion tons of concrete and steel raced inwards to one single infinite point. Air hurricaned inwards to fill the void, what little had survived beyond the event horizon so valiantly, fell.

At exactly one point five zero seconds South Town and everything within the event horizon was no more.

...Almost everything