When the sun becomes a monster

The world didn't end in one large explosion. There was no alien invasion that wiped out humanity, person by person. Humanity always believed itself to be God's creation, the most powerful beings in the entire universe. Nothing could hurt them, nothing they couldn't recover from. At least, that is what the common train of thought just so happened to be.

Over time, humanity has learned much- that even the brightest minds can be wrong. The earth was never flat, and the sun does not revolve around us. Plagues were cured and technology advanced to levels that once could never even dream of. Human curiosity has forced us as a species into advancement, even unknowingly.

Perhaps that same curiosity that brought us a new way of view would be the singlemost cause of our own destruction. After all, the world as we knew it collapsed under the single touch of mankind itself.

A process hundreds of thousands of years in the making, slipping by unnoticed for so long. Everything bright must in return have its own darkness, a fact of life so normalized it had never been questioned. Shaddows grew larger and larger over the years, but not a soul noticed. When a six foot tree casted a twelve foot shaddow, nothing appeared to be out of sort. Because who had ever wanted to learn more about shaddows?

It wasn't until the shaddows began moving of their own accord that people began to notice. Those who noticed first were not praised, similar to those so famous for having brilliant minds. Instead, it was considered to be a symptom of prolonged exposure to smog covered lands. Thrown away into institutions, the shaddows were forgotten. However, the pollution was not.

Hundreds of orginazations popped up, vowing that they would be the sole stopper of smog, the sole hero for those who had been locked up for the good of society. People around the world agreed, for, everyone knew someone who knew someone who was institutionalized. Bikes came into fashion just as puffy sleeves and big hair once had. The earth was cleaner then it had ever been before, yet, there were still shaddows looming over the origional object from which it came.

The earth was beautiful, mother nature herself seemed to praise humanity for finally fixing the damage it had done to her. Sunshine filled days came hand and hand with shaddows that doubled the length of the object from which it came. And then doubled again. Suddenly, something wasn't right. No one would admit anything, the fear and panic of years earlier still fresh in the minds of many. No one wanted to risk being sent away into the cold and empty insane-asylums. Pardon my crudness, as the goverment had corrected that termonology. "Rehabilitation homes", the proper name I suppose.

No women or man walked home alone at night, not for fear of assult, but of fear of nothing they could prove. It was if every adult had suddenly been sent back into their childhood, a time in which shaddows were the monsters under their beds. Nightlight sales increased, though no one would bother to report it, shamefull adults unwilling to admit to a 'childlike fear'.

People would stay inside, and going out at night became more popular. Nothing that would stick out, the youger generations had always been making changes that everyone attempted to go along with.

Shaddows were natural, as are all of the things that have played a hand at the attempted distruction of mankind.

It began when the stray animals disappeared, no trace of them left behind. The birds would no longer chirp, or be seen at all. Panic spread throughout the nation. No one had an answer for anything.

Small children would vanish when a back just so happened to be turned away. No matter if a brief second or an entire night. Media was overrun with the stories of missing children, and poliece begun to sleep at their own desks, knowing they would be needed every minute of every day.

Next it was the teenagers, who had once threatened their parents that they would run away. And by god, the parents begged all hope that it was simply that. A teenager who ran away.

It never was.

Shaddows grew larger as populations grew smaller, no one could figure out what was going on. People borded up their windows, and huddled up every night, starving. No more animals had resulted in a complete world wide food shortage. There was no hope.

No one knew what was going on.

The shaddows grew larger, and eventually, swallowed the world whole.

It was simply the way it was going to be. Nothing would have prevented this, for, the world was born to vanish.