“To the End of the World,” she said.

“To the End of the World,” he smiled his reply.

The light clink of champagne glasses, giggly laughter. He leaned toward her, she closed her eyes and her lips parted, oh so slightly. And they kissed.

She felt the smooth comfort of his hand on her waist, going under her blouse, a fingertip tracing its way lightly up her spine. He broke the kiss and made a face as he fumbled with the clasp of her bra. She smiled, amused, before leaning back and lifting her blouse over her head.

“I will love you,” she breathed, “to the End of the World.” She had said those exact words many times before. This time, like all the others, she meant every word.

“To the End of the World.”

The process started, as reckoned by the natives, on January 2^nd, two thousand, Anno Domini. That gave them three hundred and twenty-four solar cycles to complete their appointed task.

In London, Hong Kong, New York, every other major city and a few rather minor ones, empty offices in various business districts became occupied. The people concerned would remember renting out those offices, businessmen and bankers and their assistants will remember having met the occupants of these offices before, nodding to them when they happen to meet again in crowded elevators.

The offices were fully furbished, in accordance with the vastly differing personal styles of their new tenants. These new occupants, not having to trouble themselves with settling in, immediately assigned their own assistants to putting out advertisements in the local media. This simple task of delegation done, they enthusiastically set out to explore their new surroundings. There never seems to be enough time when travelling, especially when one has so much work to do.

“Christine, beloved, light of my life, what do you think about bras ?” Brandon asked, as he picked hers up from the floor and handed it to her.

“Bras ?” Christine raised an eyebrow, “what is there to think about bras ? You wear them.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, do you find it a hassle ? Why do you even bother ?”

“I never thought about them before,” she said as she got dressed, “I bother because I figured you wouldn’t want my breasts to sag.”

“They certainly don’t sag,” he winked and smiled. You look so beautiful by candlelight, he thought, “you are a star,” he said instead. His eyes glanced appreciatively over her, her silken dark hair, styled just above her shoulder, glistening in the candlelight, her small mouth and pert nose, her dark eyes all aglow, high, clearly defined cheekbones, framed by a round, perfect face. And a smile that gave his life meaning.

“I am a star,” she said doubtfully, “and what’s that supposed to mean ?”

“It means that you shine. Brilliantly. In the dark mass that passes for humanity, you shine,” he replied, as he finished buttoning his shirt.

“Brandon, I’m no different from anyone else.”

“That’s a lie, dearest.”

“I don’t think I’m different,” she said thoughtfully, making her way out of the bedroom.

“Then you’re lying to yourself,” he shrugged as he followed her.

“What makes me a star, then ?”

“Think about it, dearest. I know why I’m a star, you should too.”

“That’s just your male ego talking,” she laughed, as they stood by the open door. “Maybe I’m different because I lack taste in men,” she asked, an eyebrow arched.

“I do wish you’d stay,” he said in a mock whine.

“Another interview tomorrow, dearest, I told you.” She leaned forward and kissed lightly him on the cheek.

“How many rounds have you gone through, five ? This must be some great job, the way they’re screening you lot, medicals and aptitude tests and all.”

“Yes, five, tomorrow will be round six. And it is great, or at least it sounds great. ‘Every man and woman is a star’, Crowley once wrote.”

“Crowley was a madman. And even so,” he added, “some people just don’t know it. And some stars shine so much brighter than others.”

She smiled, kissed him again, and walked away.

He waited till she was out of sight, grateful for being allowed to have her, his heart brimming in its happiness. He had a silly grin on when he closed the door and returned to his still-warm bed.

“Every man and woman is a star.”

Christine walked confidently into the room, her nervousness carefully under control.

“Don’t move,” the lady said, her voice firm and commanding. Christine stopped in the room’s centre, as the lady’s eyes looked her up and down. She wondered if she had a run in her stockings and instead distracted herself from her nervousness by taking in her surroundings.

The lady was dressed in a light green blouse, silk maybe, with a deep green jacket over it. The sunlight shone down in visible beams from the tall windows behind her, highlighting her blond hair with an ethereal halo. She was seated on an old wooden chair, so large and imposing as to be almost a throne, behind a huge table that seemed to run the length of the room. The only thing on the table was a file, my file, Christine supposed. No computer, she noted uneasily.

The walls around them were filled, floor to ceiling, end to end, with books, no carpet on the floor, no chair save the one her interviewer sat in. It was sparse, really. Christine resisted the nervous urge to study the wood-grain on the floor, looking straight up at the lady instead. The green eyes were waiting for her.

On four other worlds in the same space-time continuum as the galaxy known as the Milky Way, the same process was happening. In every centre of civilisation, in the best way to mask their presence, the visitors were doing their job.

One of those other worlds was known to the earthlings, though the existence of its inhabitants was not. The Martians, of course, knew everything there was to know about their nearest neighbour, Terra being their main source of entertainment.

The three remaining worlds had no contact with the two primitive planets orbiting Sol. Nor, in fact, had they any contact with each other.

Holding her gaze, the lady said Christine’s name in full. Christine nodded, yes. It would be much later before she would realise that the name she had responded to was not the one she had written in her resume, it was her proper name; first middle surname chinese.

Without further warning, the lady started firing questions at Christine, who could barely frame her answers in her mind, much less reply, before the lady followed with the next.

Christine managed to stammer out the answer to the last question when she realised her interviewer had stopped speaking, and was smiling at her, gesturing with a hand for her to step forward. It occurred to Christine, irrelevantly, that the gesture was like one she would have expected a queen to do, regal and graceful. Without noticing she had moved, Christine stood before the big table, looking into the lady’s green eyes.

“The thing about this is,” her interviewer said, “we don’t have any real rules for choosing our candidates. Not that I would follow the rules anyway, you understand, but we don’t have any.” The lady’s voice, softened now in conversation, resonated with an ethereal beauty. It was commanding, certainly, the voice of one used to being obeyed. Everything about the blond woman bespoke authority, the way she sat, hands resting lightly upon the arms of her throne, her back straight, not leaning, the tilt of her chin, how she held one’s gaze as she spoke. Closer now, Christine could see that the lady’s skin was fair as to be almost white. She looked to be in her late twenties, only slightly older than Christine herself.

“I had almost given up hope for this trip,” the lady went on, “you were our last candidate. Good thing, then.” She stood up, and walked around the table, stopping before Christine. She was shorter than the young woman, though neither of them felt that difference, her aristocratic presence making her seem far taller. Christine resisted the strange urge to curtsy.

“There isn’t really any danger involved, whatever they told you before, you just have to be careful, do what you’re told until you learn enough to take care of yourself. Can you do that ?”

Christine nodded. This was not what she had expected at all.

“You will miss your friends and family, you know,” she said, a little wistfully. “It comes with the job. Welcome to the Company,” she smiled.

And with that smile, Christine did curtsy.

“You will be travelling. Spend the next week with your loved ones, child, say your farewells.”

When the door had closed behind Christine, a man stepped out of the shadows from a corner of the room. He was large, in spite of his size though, his step was certain, making no sound on the polished wood. Fine dark hair seemed to cover every part of him it could, though his hair and his full beard were neatly trimmed. He looked singularly out of place in the lab coat he was dressed in.

“Milady,” he bowed slightly before her, “are you sure that it is wise, letting her go ?”

The lady, her illusion no longer necessary, stood in a pale green ball-gown. She walked past him to stand before the window, the morning sun’s rays glinting lightly off her golden crown. He moved to join her, seeing the deep sorrow in her eyes as she looked at the trees without.

“Emerson, it is said that I do not know what wisdom is. Call it another of my whims, if you must, but I think that she deserves a last time.” The smile she gave him was infinitely sad.

“Everybody deserves a last time.”

Not knowing how long she was going to be away, Christine had bid melancholic goodbyes to her loved ones before arriving back at the Company. A small part of her, afraid and largely ignored, suspected, somehow, that this would be the last time she would ever see her family, see Brandon. There was no way she could have known, on that bright sunny morning, that her intuition would prove true.

Feeling a little out of place, her gloom overshadowed by her excitement, she had left her bags with a receptionist, and had been directed to the same room she had been interviewed in, a week ago.

The lady was there – Titania. The name came unbeckoned to Christine at the moment of their second meeting - along with a burly man in a lab coat. This time, however, there were comfortable chairs arranged in a circle in the middle of the room. Titania, her blond hair tied back into a simple ponytail, was dressed in the same green power-suit as the week before. She was talking quietly with the man by the window. Without another word, they both turned and faced Christine. She looks so sad, Christine thought, as Titania gestured her to a take a seat.

“Emerson here will tell you what you need to know,” Titania said, when they were all seated.

He nodded at her with an apologetic smile, looking uncomfortable, “I don’t know how to put this to you, really,” he paused, “your world, Earth,” he drew in a breath, “well, it’s gonna end.”

The dominant life form of one of the five worlds primarily survived by living in symbiosis with its surroundings, what a terrestrial would term ‘Magic’; helping the world, that the world may help you. They were deeply religious, and had a tender and enduring relationship with their pantheon of divinity.

The residents of another world functioned mainly by what earthlings call ‘Psionics’. Where an earthling would invent an instrument to perceive, for example, bacterium, they either had a short enough lifespan, or the extraordinary patience, to evolve themselves to the point where they could perceive it with their natural senses. Given enough time, they would certainly evolve past even the need of four-dimensional bodies.

The inhabitants of a third world relied entirely upon physical tools and machinery. But this same planet was the least enlightened of the five, so that much is expected of them.

The remaining two worlds used a combination of all three, in unequal amounts.

Christine looked on, uncertain. This is madness. Emerson continued, his words gushing out in a tumble, “all the stars will go out. The most likely scenario for Earth will be war. Our projections indicate that your species is going to wipe out everything before the dying planet does.”

Christine looked toward Titania, who nodded simply, unable to give the younger woman reassurance, her own terrible sadness too easily read upon her countenance. “It is true, child,” Titania said in a voice full of tenderness.

“You are one of us now,” Emerson continued in his hurried way, “we - the Company - we are not here to stop it. We don’t even know exactly why we are here, we just do what we do. I don’t think we can stop it, even if we wanted to.”

Titania ceased his flow with a lifted hand, “do you know who I am, child ?” she addressed the disbelieving young woman.

Christine nodded doubtfully, “Titania ?”

“Do you recognise my name ?”

“It’s the name of the queen of the fairies, from a Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Even as Christine replied, even as she saw the sunlight glimmering like a halo or a crown upon Titania’s blond hair, her mind was clamping shut, unable to accept the revelation before, and the one Titania was inexorably leading to now. She shook her head, no. It cannot be. No, no, no.

“Child, I am the Faerie Queene,” her voice had become commanding again, full of the regal pride of her title, “and you will believe in me.” She stood up, dressed now in a pale green ball-gown, her golden crown now solid and shining. She waved a hand gracefully across Christine’s eyes. After its brief passage, Christine saw Emerson with a small pair of horns protruding from his forehead, his ears tapering to a sharp point. He reached out and put his hand upon her leg in a gesture of comfort. But when she saw the claw his hand had become, she shrieked and pulled back, almost as if trying to immerse herself in the lush cushioning of her chair. He grimaced for a moment, then smiled apologetically at her, revealing four rows of sharp canine teeth.

“The glamour is fallen. Now, do you believe ?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Christine was shaking her head in an awkward rhythm, her eyes wild with denial. No! Her mind was screaming. No!

Titania bent gracefully and looked into Christine’s eyes, saying nothing. And in those green eyes Christine saw a lifetime of pain and an understanding profound enough to calm her.

“It is true,” Christine whispered, feeling her own voice, as if from afar, “everyone is going to die.” Her momentary calmness faded before the weight of her realisation. Hot tears pooled in her eyes, flowing steadily down her cheeks, ruined eye-shadow drawing black trails to mark their passage.

“Oh god,” she said, barely a whimper, “oh god.” Titania placed a long finger across Christine’s lips, then reached out and enfolded the sobbing woman in her arms.

Christine cried and cried, drawing comfort from Titania’s assuring touch, holding her as her entire frame quivered with her crying.

When at last her tears were fully spent, Christine looked up again into Titania’s eyes. The Faerie Queene wiped away the last few tears, then placed both hands upon Christine’s face, her lithe fingers spread across the younger woman’s cheeks. Titania’s thumbs circled up, touching Christine beneath her brows, then moved downward, drawing Christine’s eyelids with them, holding them lightly shut. “Your tears are dry now,” the Faerie Queene said, as her thumbs pressed firmly into Christine’s closed eyes. Christine felt a warm burning in the darkness, so much like the sting of tears so recently shred.

“Your tears are dry now,” Titania repeated, “you will never cry again.”

Titania released her hands and helped Christine to her feet, Emerson standing up with them. “Go to your rest, child,” Titania said, gesturing for Emerson to guide her to her room, then turned away and walked slowly to the window.

Christine lay alone upon the soft bed in the silent, comfortable quarters assigned her, drained of all emotion. As if watching someone else’s memories, objectively, she recalled a time when she was younger. She remembered thinking, each time she saw lightning streaking across the heavens, that there must be a world out there, behind each brilliant, momentary, flash, behind every shining star in the velvet night. “Another world,” she thought, as her mind came slowly to terms with its new reality;

“A glimpse of what lies behind the lightning.”

“Ehrm, Emerson,” Christine hesitated, slightly embarrassed, “you don’t have to put up your err… illusion with me, you know. Please.”

Emerson, dressed up smartly in a neatly tailored business suit, his hair neatly groomed, smiled kindly at her. He knew she was trying to make it up to him for her instinctive disgust at his real appearance the morning before.

“It’s okay,” he said, “it’s considered the height of bad manners not to wear our glamour, especially in the presence of our Queene,” his smile broadened, “indecent, actually. Like going out naked among humans. We go out naked all the time, you know,” he winked, “but never without our glamour.”

Christine nodded, unsure how to conduct herself before his overwhelming affability. She had spent the previous day and night devoted to thinking, a coming to terms. She had not even felt the passage of time until Emerson’s polite knock on her door. He had brought her food, and her stomach reasserted its existence the moment she opened the door and the scent of grilled meat reached her. She felt deeply ashamed of her reaction the last time they had met, more so because of the concern so obviously written upon his features now.

When Christine had taken the only chair and started her meal, Emerson sat himself upon the bed, then continued his rambling monologue, “What Titania did, I don’t think I can explain it to you. But I have to try, so you don’t hate her.

“We - the fae, the Sidhe - we don’t have souls. She is our Queene, our Titania. In her she carries everything that we Sidhe were; all our strange beauty, all our cruelty. There will be times when you will wish that you had never known her.

“But, please, Christine, do not blame her. You have to understand that she does not really mean anybody - you - any harm. She wouldn’t have let you join us if she didn’t really like you, you know. Our Queene has no malice in her. She simply is. Beautiful and loving and cruel.

“And maybe that’s what having a soul means, that you cannot be cruel. I don’t know. But you have to understand, Christine, understand at least, that what she did to you, she did because it is thus in her nature to do. No Sidhe Gift is given freely, that is how is has been since the beginning of time.”

All the five worlds, save one exception, had achieved that state of enlightenment dictating entertainment as the sole purpose of existence, beyond the necessity of ensuring that continued existence, of course. War was a concept they had left behind, the media replacing the military as the main impetus of progressive research. Better ways to deliver happiness instead of death. Communication, baby, that’s what it’s all about.

Three of the five worlds had reached the stars, between them populating countless planets beyond their motherland.

None of the five worlds, enlightened or not, expected what was to come. Of course, a few select individuals in all of the worlds had predicated it, each in their own way, but none of these prophets managed to gather enough believers to elude the coming Event.

Whatever will happen, it is said, will happen. Come hell or high water, as the case may be.

Christine listened calmly as Emerson spoke, his dark eyes never once leaving hers. When he stopped speaking, she simply nodded. She had locked all emotion away, knowing her grief will overwhelm her were she to let it.

“I don’t blame her, I think,” she shook her head, “I don’t know, Emerson. I really don’t.”

And how she missed Brandon, tossing away the thought of him each time his name came into her mind, which was, were she to admit the truth to herself, constantly. “It’s too late to turn back now, isn’t it ?” she asked quietly, “tell me about your world,” she continued before he could reply, her inquisitive mind reaching out for a distraction, and it would be better not to hear the answer she already knew spoken aloud.

“What’s to tell ?” his eyes took on a distant cast, “Faerie was beautiful. Silver streams and golden dawns. The grandeur of the Seelie Court, of King Oberon and Queene Titania. The intrigues, the moonlit balls,” he sighed, “I will tell you how it ended, though, your Queen Victoria killed our land.”

“Queen Victoria ?”

“She bound the earth in cold iron, which touch we abhor. She filled the air with burning ash and darkened soot. Unnatural ships of iron spewed their poison into the seas. The Sidhe were too fickle to believe in Faerie by ourselves, the existence of our land was bound to yours. When your Queen came to rule, she severed the bond with her railroads and her industry, and Faerie, beautiful, lost Faerie, cast free into that space beyond worlds, eventually came apart.”

“Oh.” Christine said. This isn’t going well at all, I’m alienating the only friend I’ve got. Jesus, girl, what’s wrong with you ?

Emerson looked deeply into her eyes, “but you know what ?”

“It was beautiful while it lasted though.”

Christine was a solitary figure upon the nameless beach. Her companions will come for her later, she knew, but for now, she was alone with her thoughts, and that was most important of all. It was New Year’s Eve.

In the pale light before dawn, the air was slightly chill, brought smoothly by the four winds, their fingers coaxing the waves to lap oh so gently upon the shore. The cold grass beneath her feet was covered with dewdrops, the eternal tears of Eos, sparkling like a field of stars.

She walked forward, slowly, feeling the breeze across her face, the wet grass gave way to wetter sand, giving way to cold salted water. The sun rose above the far horizon, while the waves lapped at her ankles, gently, softly. She wiggled her toes, feeling the fine sand move beneath and between them, feeling the chill of the water, so unlike the chill of the crisp air.

The Conductor of the Orchestra stood before his musicians, immaculately dressed, as conductors tend to be. “Gentlemen! Ladies! Your attention, please!” his deep voice boomed across the auditorium.

The Orchestra, as one, stopped their idle chatter, putting down the instruments they had been tuning. The huge hall echoed with the sudden silence.

The Conductor smiled at his musicians. With a cursory glance at the notes before him, he addressed his performers, “Magnum Opus, The Last Nocturne, The Final Movement of the Music of the Spheres.”

The Conductor’s smile never faltered, he really enjoyed his work. “It will start with a trumpet blast by our guest, and end with the violins. The third part, ‘Armageddon’, should be refreshing - it’s a soundtrack for what could be the biggest battle any of us will ever see - very gristly, this planet,” he shuddered dramatically. “We will have to rehearse two different endings, depending on which side wins, so let’s get to it, boys and girls!”

As the sun rode higher into the sky, Christine thought about Earth. She brought forward, like one rediscovering lost treasures in an attic before moving house, the memories of her life. This is the Earth she wants to remember, this is the humanity she shall bring with her, for as long as she can.

This is the cross that she will bear;

…the song of a dove’s wings, as it takes flight…
…a single flower, standing proud in the fields of green…
…a gentle ripple in a pond…
…a seagull, wetting its beak by the shore…
…a child’s delight at having a balloon…
…a warm smile on a rainy day…
…a reassuring hug from someone you love…
…the surprise of finding a stalk of rose by the bedside in the morning…
…the rustle and sway of tall grass in the wind…

As Christine cherished each memory, took each vision and stored it carefully away within her heart, the sun rose and crossed the sky, moving all too fast on its final passage, the last day drawing to its inexorable close.

And, as the sun’s passage would lead it ultimately to fall into the horizon, Christine’s thoughts brought her, inevitably, to Brandon. There was an emptiness in her heart in the shape of him, and when his name came into her mind again, as it does almost every second, she did not push it away, but plunged instead into the void of her heart.

The world might as well be already dead, so distant did she feel from it, so far away from the comforting arms and the gentle touch of the one she loved. She felt hollow, what meaning had the gift of eternity, but that it would be an eternity away from him ? As she gave way to her engulfing despair, finding no tears to express her sorrow, Christine realised, for the first time, exactly how harsh her payment was.

“I shall never forget you,” she cried, fiercely, refusing the bitter urge to fall upon her knees, and give up, give. Every. Damned. Thing. Up.

With a burning will, she closed her eyes, needing nothing to bring her back. She allowed his face to flood her vision, remembered the rise and fall of his voice, the intoxicating sound of his laughter, the scent he wore when they first met, the inspiration of his passion, that had so shaped her life.

And Christine walked, slowly, barefooted along the deserted shore, following a sound she could not even hear, letting her memories lift her heart.

“I closed my eyes that I may see.”

The gentle breeze caressed her, so like the feel of satin against the warmth of soft skin. The silken strands of her golden hair seemed almost to have a life of their own; flowing, sometimes wild and fiery, sometimes gentle as a ripple in a lazy forgotten pond.

With feminine grace she moved, and, standing there alone upon the white sand, her posture was that of a Queen.

Titania did not turn to look as Christine approached, made no move to wipe away the tears coming from her deep green eyes. The wind made the gossamer gown she wore shape itself to her like a second skin, made it flow out like the trail of a comet behind her, and spread the ethereal, unheard sound of her sadness across the lonely sand.

As far as the Buddhas were concerned, the coming Event, though momentous and certainly uncommon, was nothing more than a milestone upon the Path to Nirvana. The Wheel will Turn, the death of an entire cosmos makes no more significant a difference than the birth of one. After all, one must always look at the Big Picture.

The angels and their fallen counterparts of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic Monotheism were more affected. A mixture of fear and gleeful anticipation was the order of the day in both Heaven and Hell. God was keeping silent in the face of the increasingly insistent rumours of Kingdom Come; Gabriel, last seen polishing her trumpet, was missing; the sightings of the Horsemen were coming from more unimpeachable sources.

With such evidence, circumstantial or not, only one conclusion can be drawn: This is it, baby! The Final Showdown, the no-holds-barred battle between God and His errant child.

Swords were sharpened, hymns were sung. The angels prepared for their fatal war.

Christine stopped a respectful distance away, not wanting to intrude. Titania made no sign that she even noticed the arrival of her human ward, her gaze never faltering from the sun’s dimming light.

Earth is so much like Faerie, Titania thought, especially so in places such as this, where no human has tainted the land with steel and soot. And Earth is so much older than Faerie, with more gods and more stories. Is it not such a pity that man will kill their own gods, even as they kill each other, even as they forget their stories ? The magic of iron is a terrible magic indeed, for how it has warped a glorious race away from its greatness. How the splendour has fallen.

Staring at the waning sun, Titania drowned herself in her own memories, feeling the grief now that she had not felt when her own world had died. She remembered standing, holding a light green parasol, her entourage around her; September 1830, watching with the humans at a turning point in their history. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened, and as the first loud, noisy machine made its way across the iron line, the death of Faerie begun. In less than a decade, that line carried more people annually than the population of either city. Another ten years and five thousand miles of track had been laid across the land, slowly sealing Faerie away from Earth.

Like one losing Faith, Faerie had begun to wither.

The sky was taking on the vibrant hues of sunset, and Titania’s mind cleared, her dismal thoughts disrupted by the panorama before her. “Different each day, yet no less magnificent,” she whispered, her voice carried by the wind, “and this, this is the last.

“Is not the sunset more beautiful, knowing you will never see another dawn ?”

In the first hour of Earth’s eternal night, Titania finally turned away from the sea and approached Christine. The stars had already risen, and the moon was full in the sky.

The Faerie Queen was glowing a pale green, her feet leaving no footsteps in the sand as she walked gracefully across the beach, her crown seemingly made of the final sunbeams. “Come child,” she said softly, taking Christine by the arm, “it is time to go join them.”

Christine made no protest, quietly following as they walked across the shore.

“We celebrate every World’s End. Some say it is because we ourselves are the sole survivors, while others claim that such beauty as the ending of a world deserves pleasure to match it, and still others say that to be sorrowful when a world ends is not to give its past life its due.”

“What about you ?” Christine asked, “do you celebrate with them ?”

“Of course, child! I do so love a good ball. I have reasons of my own for the sorrow that plagues me now, but when we leave your world, I shall show you how the fay throw a ball, and what a ball it shall be!” For the first time, the Faerie Queene smiled.

The Atomic Clock in Greenwich was a quarter of a second too slow. On the instance of the third millennium, the sun extinguished.

Seven minutes later, a third of the population of Terra will look upward to the sky and wonder. Four people will instantly realise what has happened, one of them human. Half of the population of Mars will howl in anguish for their favourite earthlings, knowing full well that calamity had struck; it will all be very dramatic, and hence very entertaining. Fully half of those will realise as well, in this case at least, that Earth is a little too close to home.

In that same moment, across the space-time continuum that Earth and Mars shared, every star, Red Dwarf or White Giant, will flicker out. If they were not already floating in a vacuum, there would have been a whoosh of air to signify their passing. As it was, besides the slow change of every planet’s orbit, nothing else happened. Nothing, at least, if one took a purely cosmic point of view.

The same Event, in fact, happened across an uncountable number of Quantum realities adjacent to this one, the primary cause of the ripple. But even God, the only tellurian who knew that, found it to be of no comfort. No comfort at all.

A storm was gathering in the east. Deep red clouds billowed, almost alive, pulsating flashes of lightning dancing across their faces. Christine’s gaze, however, was fixed firmly upon the moon, a halo of light surrounding its pale surface. She did not find it odd, to be walking next to a glowing woman, did not even notice that she herself no longer left any footprints in the dark sand behind her. She merely walked, following the path Titania choose, following the moon.

At midnight, the entire sky lit up, streaks of lightning flaring across the heavens from east to west. As their blinding flash faded, in place of thunder, the blast of a trumpet ripped across the senses, a force greater than sound alone could be. The earth shivered, once, and once again, as the black waters of the sea began to heave in travail.

Titania wore an elusive smile as she led Christine along the beach, neither of them speaking. The moving earth did not affect their balance, nor could the howling winds impede their progress.

Then the moon went out.

Christine gave a small gasp, snatched up instantly by the roar of the winds. The pinpricks that were the stars could do nothing to fill the void left by the moon’s passing, and the sky seemed to fall into darkness, as the final echoes of the trumpet died out.

Moments passed, and as Christine hoped in vain for the moon to return, ribbons of light, in the myriad colours of the rainbow, streamed slowly from the horizon, beautiful and strange. The Music of the Spheres rose softly into their hearing, its song pure and ethereal.

In small groups or alone, the revellers begun to join them, all moving toward their mutual destination. Christine paid no attention to their drunken celebration, to the odd shapes that the aliens wore, her gaze remained on where she last saw the moon, where now the kaleidoscopic streamers of radiance danced. Titania nodded to those she deemed to recognise, and accepted a bottle of wine from one of the travellers, though she took no sip from it.

The storming clouds moved across the sky, faster than clouds should, swallowing the coloured lights, streaking lightning into the dark, foaming sea. When, a moment later, they had covered the sky with their angry redness, Christine finally let her gaze fall, to find herself surrounded by beings of all manner and shape, some human, most not. A few of her fellow travellers were aglow like Titania, some held flaming torches or the battery-powered modern equivalent, a few seemed not to need any light at all. The group about them had become a crowd, talking among themselves as they walked, their laughter occasionally reaching her through the wind.

Christine felt Titania’s hand upon her arm, and accepted the offered wine bottle. She took a long drink, letting the draught soothe her.

They came upon a larger group, the crowd yelling out greetings to each other. Titania smiled that enigmatic smile still, gracefully lifting a hand in an ebullient gesture, taking in the beach and the immeasurable number of beings celebrating upon it;

“The Beach along Sunset Midnight.”

Christine moved quietly through the crowd. She had walked away when Titania joined a drunken group of revellers she supposed to be fay, a cheerful Emerson among them. Occasionally, she would look upward at the seething sky; the absence of the moon, more than the unnatural storm, more than the odd company about her, seem to make everything real. Far too real and far too soon.

It is very strange, to lose everything at once. Her eyes were heavy, slightly wet in the way eyes are, when one wakes up after an uneasy night of restless sleep. Crying sets you free. In the jerking spasms of true tears, you tell of your grief in a language older than time. Curled as a foetus in your bed, or as a child in someone’s arms, your anguish is set free. But Christine had no tears to cry.

Feeling terribly lost and alone, she shut her eyes, concentrating on the music playing in her ears. In time, the sound of instrument after instrument faded from the symphony, leaving behind them the ethereal voices of the violins. Then these, too, stopped, a single ghostly note resonating, hanging alone in the still air.

The sun was gone.

Global temperature started to steadily fall. The seas, in time, will start to freeze, smoothly spreading itself out from the two poles in an expanding glacier.

All flora will die, starting with the smallest fern going to wither, until the oldest redwood drops its final leaf upon the forest floor.

The animals, from the herbivores dependant upon the dying plant life, to the carnivores that feed upon their smaller cousins, will grow ravenous in their hunger. They will attack anything, some dying in the attempt, to be fed upon by their intended prey. They will become scavengers and cannibals. They will eat whatever they can. Each other. Themselves.

This should happen, as it will happen throughout the numerous planets of the other four worlds. With localised differences, of course.

On Earth, however, man will not allow nature to follow its intended course. After all, man never paid much attention to nature anyway, so why start now ? As a species, man committed suicide. As master of the house, it chose to burn the house down.

In spite of the strictest governmental orders, the media, with guest scientists on every show, proclaimed to the listening world the disappearance of the sun. Comedians made their jokes, politicians their speeches.

Everybody was saying everything would be okay. Except everything was not.

Within six hours of the first broadcast, about seven hours after the Event, all semblance of law and order had faded. Riots raged in almost every city, while people, armed with whatever came to hand, stockpiled their food and begun to kill for more.

An hour later, a missile from a nuclear submarine turned New York City into a mushroom cloud. It could have been an act of war, or an act of terrorism, it could have been one man’s madness. On hearing the news, the Kremlin launched ten more nuclear missiles, all bound for targets within the United States. There was no time to find out to which country had that submarine owed allegiance. Nor did the President of the United States know that important datum, like his counterpart in Moscow, he had already unleashed the full force of his country’s nuclear arsenal. Like the Russian Premier, it was intended as a pre-emptive strike. Neither of them hesitated before making the necessary decision, they had each thought about that question long ago, when they first came into their respective offices, and they knew that the burden of that office far outweighs the conscience of the one man holding it.

As expected, things went downhill from there.

After all, it was New Year’s Day, this was only the beginning.

He was high.

The alcohol was racing through his veins. I tried to drown my sorrows, but my sorrows learned to swim. Why do I do this to myself ? A friend had told him once, that she only drank when she was depressed, until one day she realised that drinking never helped, and she had remained sober ever since. I need such strength.

There was a lull in the conversation, his companion had stopped talking. He asked, more to fill the weighted silence than to actually hear an answer, “so who else from Earth is here ?” his voice was slurred. Christ, I’m so drunk.

“…easy to tell…” the words were blurring even as he concentrated on simply not collapsing, “…tend to keep to themselves, at least…” he looked at the ground, at the sky, clearing up, all those clouds, gone gone gone… like everything else. His companion was pointing at a figure standing alone further down the shore, he looked at it with an apathetic glance; human, female, her hair being softly blown back by the now subdued wind, the waves lapping gently at her feet. She looked achingly familiar, wishful thinking, every girl is going to look like her, just like everything is going to remind me of her.

He stepped toward her anyway, I need to talk to someone, someone sober. Anyone.

With each step, that painful familiarity grew, she looks so like her, but it cannot be. It cannot be.

As the distance closed between them, he felt hope involuntarily rising within him, I’m going to be disappointed. His heart was pounding, he could feel its insistent pulse, speeded by the toxins it was pumping.

She was looking up at the sky, which had become quiet, clear and lightly dusted with the stars. Like diamonds on black velvet cloth.

He broke into a run as he realised, oh god, it is her!

And he shouted her name, his heart and his soul in that yell.

And she turned around.

The Orchestra began its next movement.

As one, the Company of Watchers turned their faces to the sky.

It was clear, and it was dark. And from horizon to horizon, it was filled in its entirety by the resplendent glow of the stars. Each and every one, sharp and distinct, surrounded by a small halo of its own luminance.

Even the sound of their breathing had hushed, and the Music of the Spheres rose, a song of harmony and peace, a song of farewell, of letting go, of closure.

The first star flickered out.

In what seemed a few moments, the surface of the sea froze. Huge icebergs formed and were frozen in place as the sea solidified around them, cracks forked across their surfaces, and pieces of crystal ice tumbled to shatter on the white, hard, sea, the crackling and crashes of ice seamlessly joining their voices to the symphony.

Six years after the first star left the sky, a decade after the sun has passed, the second star died.

And then another. And another.

They did not fall, did not leave trails like comets. They merely departed, with none but the Watchers to forget their passing.

And the Company of Watchers stood silent, their own different lights gone now, dark statues upon the darker beach. The Orchestra played the Earth’s last song to its final note, and the last star hung alone in the dome of the heavens.

And with a small flare of light, a tiny burst of farewell…

it…

        too…

                        faded…

She was standing on the shore.

She was empty, and her face was dry. Her sorrow was so great she could no longer encompass it, and yet her face was dry. There were no words, no tears, there was nothing at all.

And then she heard her name called, shouted aloud in that voice she had known so well, and she turned. Her heart leapt, filling up the emptiness of her soul, so fast and so full that she could not move.

And he was holding her in his arms. Her head against his chest, she could hear his heart pounding, the scent of him making her giddy, the rise and fall of his breathing.

He hugged her, holding her as if, if he had held her any less, she would slip away between his arms, like a ghost that was never there.

He was laughing, tears streaking down his unshaven face. He pulled her face to his and kissed her, lightly, then brought his arms around her again, holding her, never letting her go.

As the last star blinked out, she whispered, “To the End of the World.”

And, this time, it was a promise never meant to be broken.

“To the End of the World.”

for joeann;
who started this story

and for janice;
who gave me the words to show how beautiful this world is,
and for making my world more beautiful, by simply being in it