“Darkness”

Author’s Note: This is a Take Ten to Write story and has not been proofread for errors. If I feel inspired or if there’s interest in the story, I’ll post a revised, edited, and extended version at a later date. Happy reading!

Prompt: “Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” — Bertolt Brecht

The sun rose early the day the world ended. So early, in fact, that everyone thought that some giant UFO was shining its light down upon the city, ready to beam everyone up. At the time, we laughed about it, joking that we were about to be kidnapped by aliens and that the world was ending.

Honestly, being brought to another planet by extraterrestrials probably would’ve been a more pleasant scenario.

Instead, we got an early sun, a loud boom, and darkness.

Come to think of it, I haven’t actually seen anything in over six months now. It’s crazy to think that I was worried about stuff like school and my career just six months ago.

Now, my worries are much different. More along the lines of ‘will we have food tomorrow?’ or ‘I wonder where I am’ or ‘I hope I don’t walk off a cliff because I can’t see anything’.

Yep. The end of the world is definitely a fun time to live in.

I can’t even imagine what it must be like for people who have others they care about. For the first time in my life, I’m actually grateful that I have no one to depend on and that no one depends on me. Sure, sometimes I think I’m going crazy, or maybe I’m already insane and there’s just no one to tell me that, but I was already used to being alone. Now, the only difference is that I don’t really have a choice.

Overall, I’d say that the complete darkness thing is starting to get old. I’ve heard that people are still desperately trying to find a way to beat it, to get the slightest bit of light to pierce through, but they can’t. No one knows how or why the world is completely dark. They’re trying to figure it out, but they can’t.

Honestly, I don’t really care how or why it happened. The fact is, it did happen. It’s still happening. So the real question is: What happens next?

Final Comments: I realize that there are some plot problems here (e.g., the protagonist talks about being used to being alone, but then says that they’ve heard other people discussing stuff), but I kind of liked the voice and style of writing.

Overall Rating: 🤔