When the Sky Fell
Hans Hardle

All Annie Addison wanted was her bed. It was an innate need for comfort in those penultimate times. Her three best friends were with her, and that’s still what she wanted. She did not want to be away from them, but she longed for something more cozy for each of them.

She looked up at the sky and saw clusters of stars brighten and dampen like a cumulonimbus swelling with lightning. The sky was ill, she thought to herself. She did not know that the snow was the stars, and that bigger asteroids were to follow. Big pillars of white that collapsed and decimated any piece of land it could touch, disintegrating everything. All she had were her friends, and they were sacrificing precious time to be with her. But before long their hourglass had settled.

A black orb was the world’s finale, with grey tendrils that wrapped around the planet and ate everything it could. Ripping them apart to shreds. Entire towns were being plucked up, one by one, until not even detritus was left.

The four of them did not run however. Annie convinced them of their fate, and together they did it, they took on the black hole head on. They held hands and accepted their fate. They waited for the chilling end, and the finality of it all. They shared their true feelings for each other, and an unconditional platonic love. They also had goodbyes for their family, a prayer of sorts for them, their scared pets, and the long lost crushes they would never speak to again. The world would no longer be, and neither would they. There was no time for processed acceptance either, which only made it more disassociative.

The rumbling of dark matter grew stronger as it tore apart houses and roads growing to a raucous roar, shaking in their lungs and bursting eardrums. They couldn’t hear each other’s shouts of laments or praise anymore, it was just ringing and booms. Until those grey whisps reached them and plucked them as a unit into the black hole.

Everything fell to serene silence then. Annie was dangerously alone, ripped away from her friends and falling through a true abyss. She waited with clenched teeth for the other shoe to drop, where she would collide and splatter to the bottom of whatever. 

She awoke feeling more tired than before. She was slumped against a sheet of snow that fit perfectly against her body. She was dazed by the feel of it holding her body and when the remnants of snowflakes fell on her skin, they bit coldly and dissolved. The stars were dying now, and she was a giant harvesting them. Her breaths became white puffs of condensation and she heard next to nothing.

To make this all the more confusing, Annie discovered that the end of the world was an IHOP parking lot. No cars, no streetlights, no electricity of any kind except that crayola blue neon sign beaming down at her as if to welcome her back with open arms. The isolated IHOP was surrounded by a thick, mysterious evergreen forest with a single road leading in and out. The trees were towers compared to the spiky desert trees she was used to back home. Those trees looked like angry spitballs of nature's worst intentions; these were massive gentle beings so perfectly orchestrated that they could have had a soul. The cold crept up like a shadow, and she began to shiver. Like a snow-globe put to rest, everything was coated in the white corpses of stars. She had to find a way out of the bitter tundra.

With the ding of the front door she was inside, pawing aimlessly for the light switch. Instead a light came to her. It strolled into the waiting area and flipped the switches for her. The pancake house was warmed with lights stuttering awake in a domino effect. She turned to see a man in a Hawaiian button up and khaki pants. All the more bizarre, he had the head of a sun, which did not blind her but smoldered instead. He was decaying.

“Annie, finally! I’ve been waiting for you.” He held out one hand to her, old sores dotted his hairy hands. “I’m Sun of Man, and I’m here to help.”

        “Is there somewhere I can sleep?” She asked groggily, shaking his hand.

        He laughed. “Well, this is a diner. So I’m gonna surprise you with a no.”

He led her down the aisle of worn blue booths and ended at a long table that felt more like a cafeteria than a restaurant. There was a dirty plate with ripped packets of sugar next to it that sprinkled one half of the table. She wasn’t drunk enough to appreciate the disorder Ihop always managed to wield.

“Sorry, the last visitors were a specific kind of trash person. But I can’t seem to find the rags in this place.” He grabbed a napkin and wiped the mess onto the floor. Then placed the dirty plate on a chair to his right, stacked on two more sauce covered dishes. “One had a baby with her, and she let it teeth on the corners of the table. Disgusting.”

        "Who else has been here?" Annie asked.

"Lots of people from your planet. You're the last one. Everyone who was brave enough not to run from the black hole was accepted for the test and has come here. Which isn't as many people as I hoped," Sun of Man responded.

Annie didn’t know what to say, and felt meek because of it. Like she had to take him for his word, but only because she didn’t know more. All the while she never forgot about her bed.

        “You probably have some questions. Everyone else did.”

        “Yes.” She glared. "What is this?"

        “Welcome to the end of the world, the infinite liminal space. Dark matter has grown in strength and torn apart every galaxy and atom in the universe.”

        “That sounds fake.”

        “Sounds like The Big Rip to me. I’m glad it wasn’t the Heat Death, I’m too old already.” Sun of Man said.

Annie picked up the glossy menu and barely saw pancakes before slapping it on the table. “Am I in heaven?”

Sun of Man leaned back laughing, “An Ihop!? You think heaven is an Ihop?”

        “Well, I do like pancakes.” Annie murmured.

He continued to cackle at her.

“What else could it be?”  She asked.

He flicked away a tear that was just a shooting star. “This is a segue of sorts. You are going from the old universe to, allegedly, the new one.”

        “Allegedly?” Annie asked.

        “Yeah, if you fail, there won’t be a new universe. Everything else is done. Your family, your stars, your planet, they’ve all taken on The Big Sleep. Now they wait for whatever step is next. You get to rest too, you need too. What waits is the most important test of your galaxy’s existence.”

        “So then why are we in an Ihop?” She asked.

        “The Ihop is not important, the table is.” He folded his hands neatly on it.

She looked at it, bland, disgusting, and sickly orange.

        “The table is everything, it’s where everyone meets, debates, it is culture itself. Would you believe me if I told you that this is where it all began?”

        Annie glowered at him. “No.”

  “Oh don’t be so stingy, it’s true. This is where people were talked to, trillions of years ago. Told what they had to find to make the next big bang. It was a much simpler place back then. They were the ones who got to make the universe, and help create biological life. The universe was created by a group of fools, just like you and your friends will create the next one, all at this table.”

        “How?” Annie was not convinced.

        “Once you are ready to pass onto the next step, you will go to a plane of existence made just for you. You just have to get to the center of it. There will be challenges and beasts, but you can make it. The technology is waiting there. It was made by past generations, you won’t have to do anything more than mix and measure the ingredients really.”

  “Of the universe?” Annie asked.

        He nodded. “Truth be told we don’t really need scientists to do this job anymore. But, that doesn’t mean your job will be much less difficult. You will still have to struggle and pass the tests on your own. Your friends will also be in the test zone, but you will not see them for many, many years. You will be alone for a long time after this, and the future of existence needs you to be.”

        “I will go to another world, have to pass some tests, whatever that means, and if I don’t, all of life as I know it, will end… permanently? And all because of this table?” She asked.

        “Yes, if you fail humanity will never rise again. And yes, the table is very important. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide when you are shadowed with terror and celebrate victories. People have given birth on this table and because of this table your parents are buried. Nothing is the table and everything is the table. Got it?”

        “I guess. Is there a bed in my own plane of existence or whatever.” Annie said.

        “If you so desire, but that will take up a lot of your resources.” He said.

        “I want to, I want that.” She said.

        He splayed out his hands on the sticky surface. “Then let’s get you out of the end of the world. Go to sleep, and you will wake up in the new world. You will begin the process of creation.”

        “Where will you go?” She asked.

        “I’m your Sun. I’ve been alive for billions of years. I think it’s time for some rest, don’t you? Get some sleep kiddo, I’m getting the hell out of here.”

He walked away, and asked if she wanted the lights on or off, but turned them off anyway. She laid down on the chairs around the table but they were uncomfortable. When she tried the booth they were somehow worse and cracked. She found herself doing something she thought to be clinically insane and made a bed on The Table, and hated every second of it. She wanted to be home and resting but it felt like that would never be an option again. And she would have to accept that.

In the quiet, dark Ihop, Annie contemplated everything that she was losing, and felt a great emptiness. She had always felt a little empty, but this was worse. This felt like there was no ending in sight, and that she had become emptiness rather than having it. She made a pillow of her forearm and laid against it. She wondered if there was an option not to wake up. Perhaps she could decide not to participate and let the world end as simply as that. Fine, let the galaxy be empty. Maybe it was about time.

         Perhaps the world ends here? she thought humbly to herself before she fell asleep.