How could our guardian leave us in our infancy when we had hardly left the cradle. In the midst of resolution there had to be hope, yet there was none. They thought there was but in the end it was hopeless for how could we expect to run when we had hardly learnt to crawl. In the end it was doomed to failure. If the sentence had been held it may have worked but we just weren't ready and the few of us that remained were doomed to failure.
There where many reactions at first, as one would might expect in the light of such extraordinary news. It had been theorised many times in the past but as usual it was disbelieved, or left for others to worry about. But then the greater symptoms began and even the most sceptical understood. It could not be changed. Soon it would be over and the patient would be judged. Eventually everyone accepted this fate. A year had passed and some inadequate preparations had been made. A year later they were underway but the cancer would eventually kill the patient, that was known well, but still there was hope. The following year people continued to send messages in a last ditch effort to be remembered. A year later still the preparations advanced, but still not enough. In the fifth year after the last final diagnosis everyone understood. The end was nigh. People cursed that they didn't realise in time even though it had been predicted many times in many ages, but it was unfashionable to believe in such apocalytarian madness. That was left to the depressives and scaremongers. But a wisdom more ancient than our own had known that this world would end in fire and a great torment of the earth, as it had so many times before, but no ages would follow it hence.
It was strange to believe that such important news could be ignored for so long. Even as a child my head was filled with warnings of impending doom. But no-one had believed it. There was no reason to believe it. We were all too worried about more important things to be overly concerned with something we would really have no control over anyway. Even in my early years through college, the non-chalance of humanity shocked me. Even in recent history, everyday life continued throughout the near melting of the ice-caps, throughout the destruction of the rainforests, and throughout the depletion of the O-zone. No-one was really bothered by any of these until it was too late. People still had their expensive cars to drive to work, and they still had their cheeseburgers at lunch. But it wasn't given respect until the casualty count grew. But as the draw of the century came to fore, once again it was popular to believe in chaos. It was nothing when compared with the paranoia of the turn of a millennia but even at the close of the final decade of the twenty first century we began to believe again. Of course this time myth was over-shadowed by science. Everyone knew their eventual fate. Even those lucky enough to escape the final sentencing would have the hammer shadowing them like some Damocles claw at their throats. I was not so lucky. They tried to pick the healthiest. There would be few enough to maintain a population, even with all the powers of science at hand, genetic atrophy had to be avoided at all costs and of course there would be no point bringing those who would soon die anyway. My cancer had long been eating at my soul like the malignant demon that it was. Mid-day had long since meant a lethal dose of solar radiation. The damaging effects were inevitable, however, I had long since lost my bitterness at why it should be inevitable at my cost. I was no longer bitter because soon no-one would care. For those who already left the mourning process had probably finished. I would not want to leave, this was... is... my home. I would not want to wander in search of somewhere to do it all again, I've already done it and look at what happened. It is an inevitable result... just like my cancer. The final cause is irrelevant but in just a few months the wait would be over.
The moon was beautiful now. It had grown gradually brighter, but it had also become a more gentle counterpart to the sun. It's enticing glow had become the greatest single cause for late night activity. The anti-diurnal behaviour of people developed to avail of the new twilight day. For you could safely sun-bathe under the moon-light. In the final few days I looked on the moon as a last smiling companion, as a close relative might do at the death bed of a guardian. The sun was dying now, it had been ill for some time and now it would frequently cough another flare. Satellite TV. was a thing of the past as the solar interference became too much and we only rarely had clear contact with the colony ships. They were far far away now. Their mode of locomotion was ingenious. The great golden solar sails would catch the uniquely intense solar radiation and push the ships away at close to one quarter of the speed of light. In recent years we learnt how to shield ourselves effectively from the harsh radiation of open space but still the many samples of human sperm and ova as well as those of many other animals were safely contained within their poly acrylic lead lined sheaths. The weight cost, although kept to a minimum, had been enormous, but the risk of sterility had been too high. I wished them well. They would be pioneers of a new world. Not for decades would they reach any habitable star system least not until they found a habitable planet. A few ships had been left far out beyond the orbit of Persephone to make use of what might be left after the outer planets cool again. There was great enthusiasm for the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. They would look quite different after it happened since the shockwave from the exploding sun would shake a great deal of their atmosphere off. These guardian ships could never have made it much further, they were never meant to go even that far but yet there they were. All the craft available had been used in a great flurry of activity around the earth. Even the old chemical rockets had been put to good use with most giving an added boost to start the rest on their journey. It had been my job to help accomplish this. In the space of ten years a total eighteen million people had left the earth, like lemmings leaving a crowded home they had jumped into the unknown. That wasn't including the other two and a half million that helped put them there. But the rest of us resigned ourselves to our fate.
We busied ourselves with tying up loose ends. Not that it was too difficult as all monetary problems had been quashed three years ago. No-one really felt the need to work any way. Most of us gave our little bit in trying to pass on enough of ourselves to be remembered after the colony ships the most ambitious goal was to flood the ether with a multitude messages. At first we cried for help in the hope that someone would be close enough to reply. We turned to sending records of our existence. A noble cause in many ways but a simple one in most, like carving your name on a desk in school, just so you be remembered.
As the final hours approached the hordes gathered into every church and place of worship and every place of community to make their final piece. Many hid in protected bunkers and for weeks many had tried to shield themselves inside the earth itself. But all this would just prolong the inevitable. Even those with a strong faith must have known in the end that they had already been judged. For how else could the eternal companion leave, especially at such a time of prosperity. In a cruel twist of irony the earth had become a place of unity. In the common struggle society had inevitably turned to a more egalitarian form, never before had home been so near to a Utopia and although in operation the marshal law had little requirement to be enforced as no-one really had cause or wish to question it.
Just after sunrise all the lights went out as every conventional electrical device on the planet ceased to function. The night side of earth was plunged into darkness to see the ill-lit day of the now incandescent moon. At any other time it would have been a sight of such beauty as to lift all light starved eyes in obedience as the tides once did. But now it was a harbinger of death, an end so perverse in it's beauty that no living eyes could witness it. And no longer could the seas reflect the ghostly apparition as they had already evaporated. The air had never seemed so heavy. I could not sleep. If I closed my eyes I would wake to the blinding sunlight. No... I would watch until the end. I stood on that dry shore and watched the moon sink towards the horizon. In the east sky a beautiful aurora illuminated the twilight. It was beautiful and I was transfixed... until my skin began to tingle. I never felt so alone as I did at that point. There was not a soul around me. Even the plants had withered and already began to smoulder. The lights were followed by a sweet odour, like charred flowers, it was enchanting. Over the mountain peaks far across the dry bay, like great fingers reaching upwards for the that impossible orange sky, the moon had all but subsided now and the mountain peaks glowed bright red in the morning sunlight like fiery demons glowering over their new found hell. At any other time it would have been beautiful. I rushed to the compounds bunker. I too was one of those who refused to lie down and die. Through the tinted windows I watched the encroaching dawn burn everything to cinders. I knew that where it was mid-day there was nothing left to burn. There were others in the bunker but none said a word, it had all been said before and none wished to repeat themselves. We watched in silence content just to acknowledge existence.
In the heat of the new dawn I fell asleep... my dreams were such... As the night side turned to watch the coming end... the day side, already backed and lifeless, turned to see a full moon as bright as a mid-day sun. In the depts of the earth the remnants of humanity shuffled through dark crowded caves. They were the few who still had hope of divine intervention, they were accompanied by those who needed a few more precious moments of life and there were those who would never give up but chose to look into the eyes of another until the last breath of life left existence. On the surface every one was already dead. By now even the best protected shelters had given way to the inexorable pounding of the radiation that was belched from the dying sun just hours before. Soon the surface rocks would begin to flow and all the remaining souls on that doomed piece of rock would already have cooked and burned away. In one final flash, the final cry of the tormented star, it would all be over. From the barren earth the shockwave would be beautiful. More beautiful than the reddest sunsets or the greenest hills or the bluest oceans. There weren't any oceans any more, nor any green hills and the sky burned white. But just past sunrise, Greenwich meantime, the shockwave reached the earth... but no-one really cared any more...