On the day of my mother’s funeral, the world ended.

She had collapsed at work and her coworkers called the ambulance.

“Brain aneurysm,” the doctor said when I arrived at the hospital. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

We gathered at the family cabin to scatter her ashes, as it was something she often mentioned that she wanted. My uncle Ben, my mother’s younger brother, his wife Emma, and my cousin Emily, came early in the morning and left soon after we did what we came to do.

“Are you sure you want to stay here alone?” Ben asked before they left.

“I’m sure. I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

He got in their car and they drove off.

Ben and Mom didn’t get along. Ironically it was because of the cabin and because Grandpa and Grandma left it to Mom and not him.

I didn’t understand why my grandparents would leave the cabin to Mom, and why he was so upset about it. There was nothing special about the small log cabin. It was half an hour away from town. A small stream flowed behind it and there were a few similar cabins scattered around the surrounding woods.

“I think it is the principle of the thing,” Mom used to say when I asked her about it. “He wants it because they left it to me, and he didn’t get it. He was always a bit spoiled.”

I decided to spend the night and water my grief with wine. I didn’t like wine but Mom loved her reds and always had a couple of cases stocked at the cabin. We spent many summer evenings on the porch, cradling her wine glass. I’d tell her that her wine was getting warm and that she should hold it by the stem, but she would just wave me off.

The weather was very pleasant. It was late spring and the woods had already turned green. I changed out of my black dress into old ratty sweatpants and my mom’s blue sweater. The nights were still relatively chilly, so I set out to chop some wood for the stove.

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The cabin was one big room, with a tiny bathroom. There was a small kitchen on one side, with the stove that we used for cooking and heating. A couple of mismatched couches were in the centre of the room, with a coffee table that was covered in mug rings. There were two bunk beds on the other side and a loft with a double mattress that you had to climb onto with a flimsy ladder. Whoever built the cabin included a small basement to serve as a cold room. We kept it reasonably well stocked with canned goods, but it wasn’t much.

Mom came here about twice a month on the weekends, and I’d come with her sometimes. She’d invite me with her all the time, but I’d turn her down more often than not. I was busy, first with school, then with work, and sometimes just wanted to enjoy the social life of a twenty-something woman, and not spend my weekends in the middle of nowhere.

I thought we’d have more time.

Behind the cabin was a shed where we stacked firewood to dry and where we kept the gardening tools. Some seed packets were on one of the shelves, as mom wanted to start a vegetable patch this year. Everything was organised neatly, so I found the axe quickly and started chopping.

I must have zoned out because when I snapped out of it there was a huge pile of split logs all around me. My arms and hands were screaming in pain. I wasn’t very good at chopping logs.

“Well, they’re not going to stack themselves. ” I said out loud. I always talked to myself when I was alone.

The late afternoon crept up on me as I tidied up the shed. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that the only thing I had to eat that day was half of a tuna sandwich I got from the supermarket in the morning.

I made some tomato and cheese sandwiches and sat on the porch. I ate automatically and the food tasted like ash.

Finally, everything caught up with me. The hospital, the blur of cleaning out my mom’s apartment and her stuff, the cremation and the hollowness of the words we spoke this morning, everything.

For the first time since finding out that my mother was dead, I started to cry. My mom was gone and I was completely, utterly alone.

That’s when everything went to hell.

First, it was the birds. Something had spooked the crows and they all started to caw loudly. Suddenly, the flock left the branches of the surrounding trees, making the sky dark. The air started to buzz with electricity as if there was a big thunderstorm brewing and the lightbulb on the porch light went out with a cracking sound.

Finally, a loud, booming voice projected inside of my head. It sounded inexplicably bored.

“Greetings, the sapient species of Earth. We will commence the System integration protocol soon. Please stand by.”