“Jungkook, did you get cabbage? I put it on the shopping list from yesterday, but I don’t see it in here.”

I looked up from my phone to see Soomi with almost half her body in the fridge, the sounds of her rummaging hands clunking against the inside shelves. I smiled to myself as I stood and stretched before making my way over to the rapidly defrosting fridge. I pushed a hand in past Soomi’s waist and pulled open the crisper drawer, revealing the hidden vegetable. “Got it.”

Soomi looked down at the drawer and sighed to herself before mumbling a quiet thanks.

“Were you looking for it with your eyes closed again?” I teased, ducking out of the way as she flung little droplets of water at me after washing her hands.

“Did you hide it from me on purpose?” she countered, eyebrows furrowing adorably.

I faked thinking for a moment then nodded. “Yep, that’s precisely what I did. You know I can’t stand cabbage, so I went to the store, bought it, and then hid it from you in the fridge so that you would never be able to find it.”

Soomi elbowed me as she started to chop the cabbage, a smile quirking the edges of her lips. “Did you have a good day at work today?”

I nodded. “Most of the day was fine, though I wasn’t too excited about having to spend some of it at a desk.”

“What were you doing desk-work for?”

“Just some email correspondence and some referrals I needed to work on. But that was only a small portion of today, so I’d say all in all it was a good day.”

Soomi hummed. “What was your favorite thing you did?” she asked, stirring the chunks of cabbage into the stew that was beginning to waft pleasantly throughout the kitchen.

I leaned against the counter, thinking. “Probably putting a cast on a kid who came in with a fractured elbow.”

Soomi turned, eyebrows raised. “How was that your favorite?”

I chuckled. “Most people who come in with something broken are extremely unhappy about their predicament, but this kid was about as happy as I’d ever seen anyone. He was a little ray of sunshine and didn’t shed a tear. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he wanted to break his arm because it meant his friends could scribble all over his cast.”

“Okay, I can see why that would be fun,” Soomi agreed.

I nudged her. “What was your favorite thing you did?”

She was quiet for a moment, making me wonder if she had heard me.

“I talked to some Tellers today.”

I wrinkled my nose, then attempted to keep the disapproval from taking over my entire expression. “What for?”

“You know it’s today, right?”

I folded my arms. “What’s today?”

She turned, hand on her hip. “Today is when they say the world is going to end.”

I rolled my eyes teasingly, then rocked forward and planted a kiss on her forehead. “They’ve been saying the world is going to end for months. You don’t really believe them do you? Everyone knows they’re crazy. It’s just another ploy to get people to follow some weird cult.”

Soomi stepped back, her jaw clenched. “I don’t know if I believe them. I know you don’t, but there’s just something weird about the way that they seem so genuinely terrified for everyone. It made me want to talk to them and find out why.”

“It’s their job to sound genuine. Anyway, what did they tell you?”

She put a lid on the pot of soup and then went to sit down at the counter on a stool. “Once I stopped to listen, they quit screaming. Out of the group of them, two female Tellers came up to me. They looked…heartbroken. Terrified.”

I nodded.

“When I asked them why they were yelling at people, they told me that tonight, an hour after it gets completely dark out, the world as we know it is going to end. When I asked them how they knew that, they just backed away and continued screaming at everyone who passed by.” Soomi shivered. “I was going to brush it off, but then a Teller, one who looked very young, came up to me and said I was going to die tonight.”

Anger leapt into my chest. “They had no right to say such a thing to you, much less anyone else! That’s crossing a line. What did you say back?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say anything. The young Teller looked so serious.”

I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her close. “You know it’s all bull though, right? Crazies just want attention and the more we give to them, the more powerful they will think they are.”

Soomi shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s really been bothering me all day. What if it’s true?” She turned, her deep brown eyes connecting with mine. “I don’t want to leave you.”

I hugged her closer, nuzzling the top her head. “You’re not going to. I won’t allow it, and I certainly won’t allow those Crazies to bother you like this. I’ll see if I can talk to the city counsel tomorrow about getting them taken care of.”

The rest of our evening was spent eating Soomi’s soup together, all the while chatting more about our days and what we planned to do later that weekend. As we were cleaning the dishes, the sun set over the horizon, filling the west side of the house with warm, golden light. I smiled knowingly as Soomi gazed out the window, her eyes sparkling. I learned early on after I met her that sunset was her favorite time of day, and I always loved to see her watching it since it reminded me so strongly of that blissful time.

When the final edge of the round sun disappeared, Soomi’s eyebrows furrowed. “It always happens so fast.”

I took her hand in mine and lead her toward the sliding glass door that opened out to the porch. “It does, but thankfully the best part is still to come.” We walked out together and sat on twin lawn chairs, then leaned back to watch the rest of the light fade from the sky.

That was our ritual on summer nights.

After an hour or so, it had become entirely dark out. I tilted my head back and allowed my eyelids to close for a moment, enjoying the warm breeze swirling across my skin. At least, I thought it had only been a moment but then I felt Soomi prodding my side, startling me awake.

“Jungkook…”

I sat up, peering over at Soomi. Her voice was tight, and her eyes were locked on something up above. “What? Did I fall asleep?”

She ignored my question, so I followed her frozen stare up into the sky.

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The darkness above was littered with bright shining stars, as it usually was at that time of night. But if I looked where Soomi’s eyes were directed, I could see an eerie, greenish blue light glowing in what appeared to be the center of the heavens. I blinked, wondering if I was seeing things, but the light didn’t fade. In fact, I could tell that it was beginning to swell; the odd light was bending and twisting in a way that I had never seen before.

“What the hell…” I murmured. “It’s probably just some weird satellite?”

Soomi glanced at me, her eyes wide. “There is no way that’s a satellite. Look! It’s moving!”

“Satellites do mov-” I was cut off by an incredible rumbling that had begun to fill the air. It sounded like the loudest bass I had ever heard in my life – it was tangible, rattling my chest and teeth. With a sudden, deafening crack that split through the rumbling, the greenish glow within the middle of the stars exploded outwards, the light expanding across the entire sky. The rippling colors, now tinged with purple and blue, illuminated the earth with a strange texture, like light reflecting off of water.

Soomi’s mouth was stretched open, her eyes wide with fear. She must have said something then, since she was looking at me like she expected an answer but I couldn’t hear anything past the incessant, throbbing noise.

I got to my feet, trying to ignore the pressure on my chest. I grabbed for Soomi’s hand but she wasn’t moving. She shook her head at me then stared back into the sky, the lights glowing weirdly across her pale skin.

I tried reaching for her again, but just as my hand touched her wrist, everything went completely silent. Not nighttime, comfortable silence, but the kind of silent that made me want to crawl under my bed and hide.

Soomi turned toward me, her face draining of color while she took my hand in hers. “Jungkook.” Her voice sounded too loud, yet had no depth or echo to it, as though we were standing in a soundproof room. “I love you.”

My lips parted, as I was about to respond to her with some reassurance, when a terrible screeching ripped through the air. Like glass against glass, the squeal drove into my ears with knifelike precision and made Soomi curl into a ball in order to try and block her hearing. I squinted at the sky, trying to figure out what was causing the noise when I realized that there was what looked like a jagged crack, splintering its way across the rippling glow. With horror, I watched as the crack split into a million tiny fractures, all slivering away from each other at an alarmingly fast pace and crawling their way to the edges of the horizon. The awful screeching continued, though as the fractures became finer, the sounds became higher pitched and staccato as if it was nearly finished. I waited with baited breath and squeezed Soomi’s hand, hoping that somehow it was all just some elaborate show or performance that was being taken too far.

With one last plink, the earth was silent again and, for one tiny moment, I thought maybe it was over.

Then, the sky shattered.

Gigantic sections fell to the ground with deafening booms, crushing everything below. I screamed at Soomi to get to her feet, but she was frozen in terror. Wind was blowing madly around us with the force of the falling pieces of sky, and was sending razor sharp fragments to rip through our skin in tiny, painful slices. I tugged her arm, yanking her out of her seat and pulling her toward me as I desperately tried to shield her from the chaos enveloping us. I had no idea where to go or where to hide – inside the house was no safer than where we were already standing, but I dragged Soomi toward the door anyway. I could feel her hands clench around my waist and her fingers dig into my skin as she clung to me. Just as I was reaching for the sliding glass door with a free hand, I looked up to see a huge chunk of the sky plummeting straight for us, its jagged edges glinting as it rapidly fell. My mouth opened to scream but before the sound could escape, I saw Soomi’s eyes stare into mine with a dreadful sort of peace. I tried to say something but before I could, the devastating force smashed into us like a train.

I felt myself fall through the ground when the sky hit me, ripping Soomi out of my arms and leaving her to be crushed. I screamed out her name but the sound was out of my throat as I spun head over heals through darkness. My head was throbbing, threatening to split in two as a massive pressure forced its way up my spine and into my brain. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down, left or right. It was as if I was floating in space but there was nothing around me to hint at that being the case. I shuddered, fighting back the tears that pricked my eyes from the pain seizing through my entire body. I felt my body stretch like rubber, flattening out until I was as thin as paper. Time seemed to slow down as the excruciating pain became almost too much to bear when suddenly, my neck snapped back with whiplash and my vision exploded with blinding light.

I found myself standing in the middle of a street that was flooded in daylight. Someone yelled at me to get out of the way as they hurried by on a bicycle towing a cart behind it. I stumbled back, completely bewildered by my surroundings. I wildly looked up at the sky, expecting to see it the way it had been, but found it clear and blue as though nothing had ever happened. All around me, people were walking by and paying me no attention. I could hear the sounds of city life, happy chatter, birds squawking – the roar of the sky shattering was but a dull echo in the depths of my own head.

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