“AH!”

I jolted upright in my bed with my sweat clamping me onto my sheets. My eyes blinked as my panic slowly faded away.

Groan.

“It was all a dream, Louie. Relax.”

I took a few deep breaths, and my mind did a three-sixty check on my dream—especially the ending.

“Did an old man just hit me with his pipe? What’s that supposed to mean in a dream?”

I felt my forehead for a bruise or a lump, and it seemed, for now, that I had escaped from looking like a cheap, stuffed unicorn.

“No more pie before bed,” I vowed, but my mind quickly corrected the vow. “No more pie just before bed. I’ll have to have it earlier next time.”

I wiped my eyes free of drowsiness and looked at the bedside clock that read 4:51 am.

Sigh.

“Time to start the day.”

Early mornings were no stranger to me lately, and it didn’t take long for me to change my pyjamas and make some peppermint tea in the kitchen to calm my nerves. I sat the steaming mug down and leaned back in my chair, pondering the vivid dream in my memories.

Chuckle.

It was the most un-normal dream I had ever dreamed, yet I couldn’t help but think back on the dream with a smile.

“It’s strange that I remember it; they usually disappear from my memory after I wake up.”

Grandma Sylvie always told me dreams told essential things about yourself. But what did the old man and the peach tree sapling have to do with me?

“Am I going to inherit an orchard?” I joked to myself and took a sip of my calming herbal tea.

As I set it back down, I watched the little ripples in the tea travel back and forth from the edges of the cup. It reminded me of serenity. Peacefulness. That’s when I noticed that my hands weren’t touching the mug, but the ripples were still happening.

My brows locked together as an ominous feeling began to creep along my back like someone drawing a line up my spine. I sat closer to the tea and watched it a bit more closely.

“Why is it…?”

The tea was rippling. Actually, the tea was rippling a lot.

“What’s going on?” I watched the tea rippling intensify, and then, a new sound took my attention.

A faint rattling sound echoed as the ceramic plates chattered against themselves, and the utensils shook within the cupboards. The shaking grew, which made me panic, and I rushed to duck under the table.

“What the hell is an earthquake doing out here?” I murmured with frustration.

Earthquakes weren’t common where I lived, let alone in the countryside where Grandma Sylvie lived. It meant I hadn’t ever experienced an earthquake, but after countless school drills, I was somewhat prepared.

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At least, that’s what I thought.

When the shaking grew even more substantial, the floorboards creaked, and the ground felt like it would split apart beneath me. Cupboard doors flew open, revealing falling plates that shattered against the table, making me rush out from underneath with hands full of minor cuts.

I had to get out of the house.

Suddenly, another thought popped into my mind and entirely occupied it.

“Grandma!”

My feet shook with each step, and the walls seemed about to cave in on me, but I hurried to the stairwell to Grandma Sylvie’s room. I had just taken the first step up when her bedroom door swung open, revealing a muscular man with apparent panic on his face. He rushed down the stairs with amazing speed and scooped me up in his arms with barely any indent to his stride.

“Leave her!” The care aid cried out the single phrase that I couldn’t accept.

The care-aid knew he couldn’t save Grandma Sylvie. She was practically bound to the bed she rested in, and even if we got her out of the house, she wouldn’t survive much longer. Compared to saving me, a young man of only twenty years, I could understand why he did it. However, I would never realize that until many years later.

In the present moment?

I don’t think I’ve ever screamed, ever begged someone that hard to let me go. I must’ve bitten, scratched, and wailed the entire time the care aid dragged me out. All while screaming that we had to go back, we had to save the one woman who wholeheartedly cared for me, regardless of the circumstances.

But the care aid never stopped.

My attempts to wrench free were blocked as the care aid flexed his arm and gripped the air out of my chest. He barreled through old wooden doors like it was nothing and leapt from the front steps the moment the earth opened beneath the house.

We weren’t going to make it.

That little thought entered my mind as the cracking ground snaked underneath us. My thinking became a reality as the earth caved in faster than we could run. But, like a national rugby player, the care aid grabbed me by the waist and threw me ahead of himself.

All the while, his feet desperately tried to land on solid ground.

I tumbled, never exactly seeing what happened to him. I know that when I looked back, half the house was emptying into a hellish crevice that spewed out heat. I tried to get close to the crevice, but the heat ushered out and drove me back.

It was the crevice that ate the care aid. The same care aid who gave his life to save mine. And the same care aid who condemned Grandma Sylvie to her death.

“No. No! NO!”

My legs shook as I approached the edge of the hellish crevice anyway, but when I got nearby, I had to retreat, or else I risked getting badly burnt. Tears streamed down my face in realization, but not before another rumbling shook my legs and sent me crumbling onto my back.

Thud.

As I lay there, chaos ensuing around me, I looked into the sky.

It’s incredible how life can change so fast. Five minutes before this moment, I was deciding which type of herbal tea to drink. The next moment, I was witnessing the most ilstumpical sight I could ever have dreamed of. No, this wasn’t even something that I could dream of. This day was made out of the kind of events that nightmares crafted.

I was about to die.

I let out a hoarse chuckle—no wonder I had been getting an ominous feeling. Dying was certainly a terrible start to the day.

The day my world ended.

“It’s all over. The end of the world propaganda people had their dates all wrong.”

My gaze relaxed as hopelessness sunk into me. Rebelling was impossible because a planet was up in the sky, past where the moon usually sits. A charming, blue, and green planet, not much unlike Earth.

Except, it wasn’t supposed to be there.

Ha, ha, haha, hahaha…

My hoarse chuckling grew crazed as I watched the insanity of the planet crush the early morning moon into pieces. I’m sure I would soon hear the crashing boom that would shatter my eardrums.

“Not like I’d need them when a planet is headed toward….”

A funny thought came to mind.

The planet looked like it was hurtling toward me.

The planet looked like it was hurtling toward me.

My laughing slowly stopped, and I let out a breath. My final breath, probably. As a last action, I slowly closed my eyes, and the earth cracked around me.

I didn’t move. I let the ground shift beneath me, my eyes nearly shut closed, and I was about to fall into the crevice below.

Then, a final farewell came from beyond the stars.

At the point between me and the colliding planet, a blinding light flashed that consumed me and the earth around me.