The End Times — August 2023 Writing Challenge Winner

[Brangutang]

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕟𝕕 𝕋𝕚𝕞𝕖𝕤​

On this perfect midsummer's day, the Earth was painted in vibrant, multi-tone acrylics under Sol's golden embrace. Sunbeams filtered through clouds, leaves, and buildings, dappling oceans, forest floors, and city streets. On coastlines, sparkling waves kissed shores, drawing serene patterns in the sand, only to erase them moments later. In lush meadows, bees and other insects buzzed lazily between flowers bursting with life. And in harmonious cities, friends chatted by coffee shops, while lovers snoozed comfortably under the shades of healthy oaks. Somewhere, a family enjoyed their regular picnic in a field, with chequered blankets sprawled beneath baskets and patterned tableware, as birds sang overhead. Blissful parents observed two young siblings scuffling and giggling in their play fight, pulling sticks from trees and stumbling over the homes of tiny creatures beneath their feet without a care. In that gentle moment, the world seemed untouched by any greater worry than the simple day-to-day.

As the afternoon progressed, a peculiar sense of unease settled. Shadows elongated, and the air grew cooler, an anomaly on a summer's day. Then, an oddity — a mere flicker on the horizon at first — began to pull at the attention of those who chanced to look skyward. They dismissed it as a trick of the light, an unusual cloud formation, or perhaps the soft glint of a distant satellite. But the oddity expanded, morphing into brilliant streaks in the sky — a kaleidoscope of swirling, dancing colours, brighter and more vivid than the Northern Lights or any known stellar phenomenon. Millions of faces, previously occupied with terrestrial concerns, now stared into the vast expanse above. The azure watercolours of the firmament began to warp, tear, and bleed into an otherworldly palette, signalling the arrival of something profoundly beyond comprehension. Before long, a pair of vast and contrasting shapes emerged against the cosmic backdrop, as gasps and cries echoed across entire continents.

Two beings stepped forth from the astral canvas. Gargantuan gods of ancient lore and forgotten legends, they dwarfed planets and stars with their massive forms. Their very presence defied all known laws of nature and every revered theory. Sceptics choked on their arguments, theologians fell to their knees, torn between validation and trepidation, and even the most philosophical minds struggled with the layers of understanding peeling away from them in the face of this new truth: that the core foundations of science and religion were fracturing.

The first deity was a magnificent confluence of stars and galaxies. His form seemed carved from entire constellations, with the glow of countless solar eclipses emanating from him. Each movement was a graceful dance of cosmic luminescence, nebulous veils trailing behind him across time like the train of a royal robe. His orbs, twin supernovas, observed intently from within his silhouette, challenging and beckoning. Opposite him stood his antithesis — an entity birthed from the emptiness between stars, an enigma of impenetrable darkness eons deep. Where the first deity radiated light, this one embodied a ever-shifting abyss, absorbing all energy or hope that dared approach. With event horizons for eyes that seemed to promise an end to all they beheld, he glared back.

Their ethereal stand-off was palpable, even from humanity's distant vantage, hinting at a rivalry perhaps as old as time. Explanations from every profession, culture, and creed faltered. Excited scientists, armed with telescopes and other instruments, sought to understand this supernatural chaos, while poets, armed with ink and song, tried capturing its beauty, their hands trembling not from fear, but inspiration. Families clung to each other, seeking solace in awe or shared reminders of love. Then, resonating across light-years, the battle commenced.

The first instant of the celestial clash reverberated through the very fibres of the universe, quaking entire systems. The luminous god manifested weapons from the constellations themselves; divine lances crafted from comet tails and shields woven from the auroras of faraway worlds. Each strike upon the voided deity released bursts of starfire so intense and blinding they bathed whole galaxies. As his foe, the abyssal being retaliated with weapons of his own, of void and gravitation; whips of dark matter and black hole maws that threatened to swallow the very fabric of space-time. As these behemoths clashed, nebulas were shredded, clusters trembled, and stars – little more than candles – flickered or were snuffed out entirely. Their roars, though soundless in the vacuum of space, resonated through the souls of the living and dead, evoking fears so primal they seemed to trace back to the first mote of stardust itself. On Earth, the sky pulsated with a terrifying rhythm, oscillating between dazzling light and haunting darkness. Humans bore witness to this calamitous ballet. A mother, holding her daughter close, looked down to see the infant's eyes wide with both wonder and fear. Nearby, two strangers, previously engaged in a mundane chat about the weather, now exchanged a glance of mutual disbelief. In a bustling city square, a renowned physicist dropped her papers, pages filled with equations and theories that now seemed inconsequential. She stood, not as a scientist, but as a speck in the stellar ocean, tears forming in her eyes as the very fabric of the universe realigned.

As the cosmic dance reached its crescendo, the god of the nebulae, in a final act of desperate valour, reached out. He ripped the life-giving sun from its celestial anchor, its blazing tendrils curling around fingers of creation. Earth's familiar blue and green hues were submerged into a spectrum of surreal twilight as it had its very orbit stolen. With a motion both furious and frantic, the divinity propelled the Sun towards the ghostly deity, turning the solar system from day to night and night to day in a blink. Down on Earth, millions looked up, shielding their eyes against the blinding intensity. They watched, mesmerised, as the familiar sun began its ominous descent, casting the globe into alternating bands of piercing light and encroaching shadow. There was a collective intake of breath, a world waiting, anticipating the end. It reached its destination, the final collision a cataclysm so fierce that it tore the planet asunder, obliterating all traces of thought and history that had ever flourished upon it.

For its inhabitants, their last moments were bathed in a burnishing wash of reds and oranges, the conflagration melting away any essence of the summer's day that had begun. Where life once thrived, death rushed through clouds, leaves, and buildings to scorch oceans, forest floors, and city streets. On coastlines, once-sparkling waves boiled and sandy patterns were violently, eternally erased. In lush meadows, bees, other insects, and the meadows themselves were unmade. In cities, a wave of oblivion pulsed, razing all it touched as friends screamed outside coffee shops and lovers awoke under the flames of burning oaks. Somewhere, a family deserted their weekly picnic, abandoning their baskets and patterned tableware as birdsong ceased overhead. Aghast parents watched in horror as two young siblings, still unaware, continued their play fight, trampling over the lives of little creatures beneath their feet without worry, their laughter a stark contrast to the unfolding apocalypse. One picked an apple from the ground, its surface teeming with the microscopic lifeforms who called it home, and tossed it at the other.

The world crumbled, dissolved, faded into brilliance, leaving behind poignant echoes of a paradise taken for granted. A group of teenagers tried to capture the annihilation with their phones, as if through the screen they could cling to a fragment of the life they once knew. Elsewhere, an elderly woman simply sat on her porch, watching the end with calm resignation, humming an old lullaby. And amidst the chaos, just before the final silence, a child's voice, barely audible, whispered the lament, "Mummy, is summer over so soon?"