A thousand years ago, there was a dream, the dream the great Prophet Nevan envisioned while he slept and since that night until his death, he had not done so since. It was then passed down, generation after generation, each time losing its vitality and just more and more becoming a mere tale than the menacing prophecy it started out as.
He foretold, that the world would end; that flames would engulf the Earth. When? Why? No one was sure of that part of the story anymore. It had faded, much of the elaborate dream had faded into the past with the forgotten faces of those who told it, feared it, every day and night.
No one believed the prophecy anymore. I didn’t, that was for sure; until now that was.
Flames surrounded me.

The world as I knew it changed as the dawn rose over the horizon, the pale streaks of pink and purple light fooling every person with its innocent light. What was odd about this dawn though was the fact that no birds chirped their morning songs as the world brightened. What was even odder, I didn’t notice it as I woke up to the bright rays of light streaking through my bedroom windows. I never noticed just how quiet that one morning was. I never noticed that that morning, when I woke up, I felt different, everything felt different, I just never realized it; until now.
The day was brighter than usual, at least for a lazy day in spring. The sun was almost to the point of being blinding.
But the day started off as normal as any other day in my routine life. Woke up, showered, breakfasted, and then barely caught the bus in time. It was the same old bus ride too; I slunk into a seat in the back, plugged in my headphones and attempted to zone out the obnoxious, high-pitched chatter that seemed to grow louder every time I turned up the volume.



Then everything changed.




I was unsure of what to do at this point. All I could see were flames. And dead bodies; plenty of those. The blackened lumps were scattered everywhere I turned. Women; men; children; the old folks; they all looked the same as they turned to ashes beneath the vicious flames.



Thick clouds of smoke rose above the flames and into the sky, hiding the sun with its fog. The only light now was coming from the fire, the one that was now, I assumed, engulfing the Earth. It teased and taunted me, sending licks of flames towards my skin, but then pulling back at the last second, just leaving a torching sensation and a slight redness.



With the predicament I was in, I was certain of my ever nearing fate. I was not scared; not anymore, at least. Yet, I wasn’t at peace. I wanted to escape, to live, to somehow survive this disastrous doom. But it seemed hardly likely.. it seemed that way since the beginning.




What first aroused me from my zoning state on the bus weren’t the high-pitched screams or the screeching of the wheels from the bus. It was the sharp turn, the sudden shove against the window, and then tumbling afterwards as the bus rolled a couple of times, tilted as if it was about to go again, and then settled back down the other way. My head was dizzy and small amounts of smoke began to creep into my lungs. I somehow managed to squeeze through a broken window and I remembered feeling the crisp air entering my lungs.



I stumbled a few steps before I managed to hold myself steady and turn around. The entire bus was upside down, windows shattered, pieces of it dented. Smoke was pouring out through the cracks and a few wisps of flames were starting to rise. There was no other movement. It was silent except the crackling of the sparks. In a matter of seconds, the whole bus was immersed in the flickering fire and as it grew larger, I kept taking steps backwards.



I tripped and fell backwards. I looked at the piece of metal that tripped me and as I was getting to my feet, I heard a large, uncanny creak. I looked back towards the bus just in time to see it explode, pieces of the yellow metal flying and scattering into the air; arms, legs, even heads flew with the blast. Everything was on fire.



Then I began to hear the sirens, the shouts and screams, the ferocity of the flames as they grew and grew, spreading this way and that. I ran. I ran faster than I ever thought was possible, my breathing heavy, sweat beading up on my forehead, my arms pumping back and forth in an effort to get away from it all.




But in the end, I never escaped it. They were everywhere. The Prophet Nevan was right. The world was to be devoured and destroyed by an inferno that probably came straight from Hell. No matter how fast you ran, or how far, there was no escaping the flames.



I felt the fire flick out towards me, wrapping its tendrils around my wrist and pulling me into its depths as the last of Earth’s remnants turned to blackened ashes.