The Day The Sun Died

I had been told that if the sun died it would take 8 minutes for us to lose light and die. It's what I had been counting on. It's what we had all been counting on.

We're all sitting in our houses, waiting for something to happen, waiting for our deaths. It's hard to believe that this is how we'll all die.

I've only lived for 15 years, I have so much of my life left, but it's all going to be wasted.

I suppose I'm writing this in case someone finds it later, when we're dead, and our planet, and our houses remain, but we've died of so many different things.

Our planet will fall out of orbit, that's how we'll die. No more sun, no light to sustain us, no heat to help us live.

Without those 8 minutes, we'll be dead even sooner.

Maybe the people on TV were right, they shouldn't have told us; should've let us believe we had more time than we do. It might've brought us some extra hope as we counted down the seconds.

It's too late now. We already know. We're going to die.

I believe that writing this, knowing I might be helping someone who tries to find out what we're going through is helping me cope, because everyone else is just sitting in silence,

staring at their TV as the newscasters count down. Except my little brothers, that is. They're happily scribbling on many pieces of paper.

They don't understand what's going on, but they know that they could get away with anything right now, so they're drawing on every piece of paper they can find in this house.

It's probably best that I've left this on a happy note. A laughable story about the two little boys who don't know about the end of the world.

It's funny to think this is the last thing I will ever write.

Goodbye, I guess.

********************

As the man looked at the dusty piece of paper he held, he went to put it in the box he carried.

"What are you doing?" The other man asked him, sighing. "You don't want to take little things like that. We have limited space, inconsequential bits of paper like that are just going to waste it."

"But there are quite a few paragraphs of writing on here. What if this helps us figure out what happened to this planet?"

"It's useless. Just leave it. It's probably just the scribbles of a little kid. There are plenty of other things that we need to pick up."

The man holding the paper sighed, looking down at it, wishing he understood the language.

"If you don't leave it, I will come over there and tear it in half, Sean."

Taking a deep breath, he let go of the paper, and watched as it floated to the floor.

"Hey, Sean, look at this. There are pictures and lines drawn on lots of pieces of paper over here. Looks like it could be some sort of language. Maybe some sort of hieroglyphs.

I'd better pick these up."

******************

By the way, I hope this helps you, somehow. My people don't believe in aliens, but I think that there are some, out there somewhere.

And I think that if they knew what was happening, they'd help us. Maybe you can help others, now you know what happened. Rescue them before they all die.

Relocate them to a similar planet, or keep them on your spaceship. Please, do whatever you can to help people like us.

You can't save their sun, but you can save them.