Since many could remember, humans have tried to predict the end of it all. The day when the planet and all its life ceases to exist. From a coding bug during the Y2K to an airborne illness. Everyone tried to claim the next big thing that didn’t come to their end. However, this time it really is about to end.

The sky had a scarlet hue slowly growing darker, while the air was sultry. Mass fires blossomed around the people from random locations. Screams and panicked cries danced around like a chaotic symphony.

Liam watched through his hazel eyes, from his apartment on the third floor, as a couple of people kicked the door in of the building across the road. Shortly after they ran in shots were heard. The same two people ran back out in a hurry running away from another holding a shotgun.

His messy black hair waved about as he shook his head. “The world has literally gone to hell in a hand basket, hasn’t it?” He turned away from the heat emanating from the window to listen to the news that was on the television.

“We are just minutes away from when Asteroid Doreen will crash into the planet,” The News anchor announced. It was a middle-aged man wearing a suit. He was trying to keep his professional demeanor up, but some of his anxiety slipped through every now and then. He continued, “As promised We, here at the station, will keep going until the last moment arrives. The timer we set up is still ticking down showing we have no more than ten minutes before it hits.”

“That’s right,” a woman added in. “We also have reports of more people suddenly disappearing without knowledge of how or where they are ending up at.” She, much like her partner, tried to school any emotions from showing, but failed every now and again.

That last bit of news wasn’t new to him. For the past few years, people suddenly disappeared without so much of a clue of where they went.

When it happened, a light wrapped around them and made their bodies vanish like some sort of teleportation magic or tech you’d see in a movie or read about in a fantasy, sci-fi novel.

Liam’s thoughts wandered off as he thought about his family. “I hope you guys are safe and out of this crazy world,” he whispered as he looked towards a photo that laid bare on the kitchen table next to a mask with a unique design.

He slowly walked over to it, picked it up, and stared at it. In the picture was a middle-aged man who was his father, his two younger brothers, himself, and his stepmother.

His father vanished 3 years ago. This caused a stir as Liam and his bothers didn’t want to be left alone with their stepmother.

Half a year later, his brothers followed in the same fashion, leaving him alone with his stepmother, who raged about the whole ordeal. Luckily for him she disappeared half a year later after his brothers, leaving him on his own to fend for himself.

After they all disappeared, he learn just how cruel the world really was. The government abandoned everyone to fend for themselves. Laws, morals, and basic human decency were a rare commodity that, if you weren’t strong enough to hold them, could get you killed.

 Liam turned his gaze upon the mask and stared at it. He grabbed it and said with a mix of sorrow and regret, “Looks like this is the end for us buddy. We can finally put all this chaos to rest now.”

Still gripping the photo in one hand and the mask in the other, Liam looked back at the television and saw the timer had reached one minute. The color of the timer turned red as the minute turned into seconds.

“Less than a minute and the world will come crashing down upon us,” Liam muttered softly. A slight chuckle escaped his lips as the chorus to an old R.E.M. song came to mind. It’s the end of the world as we know it.

He then looked back out the window to see the day sky was completely pitch black. His thoughts swam as he thought to himself, “It would have been nice if I had been taken me with them…"

As Liam was finishing his thought, a pitch-black silhouette suddenly manifested outside his window from a swirling puff of raven-black smoke.

“What the hell!” Liam exclaimed, startled by it.

The figure’s body had the same build as him from what he could judge by looking at the outline before him. The body had no defining features due to the pitch black…shadows… smoke?

“Wait…what exactly is that? It looks human shaped, but what is it? And how is it standing there midair?”

Liam’s body froze as he took in more details of the mysterious creature.

The shadowy smoke started expanding from the body engulfing everything around it and yet the outline of the body was still visible. A pair of menacing blood red eyes that swirled around, opened up and stared at him with a sinister smile.

This made a chill run-down Liam’s spine.

The creature raised his right arm up allowing his hand to point towards Liam. Without warning, the glass from all the windows shattered, letting in loud painful screams to fill the air around them.

The creature went to speak, but the noise all around it blocked out its voice as it slowly moved towards him.

The figure came to a stop as its smile quickly turned into a scowl.

Liam was confused by the sudden change in the creature’s demeanor until a pale green circle lit up around his torso and started to spin.

 The abyssal creature then tried to lunge towards Liam in a panic but was too late as the circle began to expand to Liam’s feet and head, making his body start to disappear. The last thing he saw before his vision was engulf was the creature screaming with rage.