The Endmakers

The sky shimmered in blossoming reds and oranges, veiled by thin, harsh clouds of black. The moon was visible even now, not long after midday, and shone almost as brightly as the sun, which had been reduced to a tiny white circle in the sky. A lone figure sat on the side of a hill, dark against an orange ground that reflected the heavens in colour. A fierce gale was beginning to blow - the start of another storm - but his hair did not even ruffle and his clothes lay loosely on him, undisturbed by the wind.

         The man was young, not too much more than a boy, and he sat with his arms resting on his knees, staring out at the scorched and slaughtered plains before him. The sight was something akin to Hell. Where there used to be rivers, forests, houses, skyscrapers, playgrounds, schools and roads - a thriving metropolis of human and animal life - there was now just dead earth. The air was desperately thin and cold, and waves of heat could be seen, emanating from the still-cooling planet. Neither the intense heat of the ground he sat on, nor the cold of the air he didn't breathe, bothered the youth. He was just watching with hooded eyes for the final storm to end, the final cloud to disperse, and the final cracked piece of dead rock to cool. That was his job.

         From his right came a dancing black shadow, forming into definable human shape as it stepped through the heat waves. The second man was older and walked with a rhythm to his step that betrayed his good mood and directly mirrored the slumped shoulders of the youth. He stopped at the boy's side and put his hands in the pockets of the smart black trousers he wore, gazing in peaceful thought at the wasteland in front of them. After a while he sat down and crossed his legs, speaking without looking at his companion.

         "You don't like this."

         The boy looked at him, and then turned back to the desert without replying.

         "Your first Armageddon?" the man persisted. One slow nod was given in reply. The older man was quiet for a minute, trying to think of some reassurance or encouragement to give.

         "This is what we do." he said eventually. It was the best he could think of.

         The boy's voice was as muted and low as the man's when he responded. "Why?"

         A shrug. "Someone has to do it. Worlds can't go on forever."

         "There was everything here.” The boy said, “So much life. So much… everything. It was so big. And now, nothing's left."

         The man snorted derisively. "There was no more here than you could've held in the palm of your hand.” he said. “This world wasn't special… well, no more so than any other. It wasn't the first to exist, or to end, and it won't be the last. There will never be a last."

         "But still. This one's gone…" the boy plucked some sparse, burnt blades of grass from the ground beside him and rubbed them between his fingers, crumbling them into dust. He wiped his hand on his black shirt. "It should be sad - I should be sad. I caused this." He stared at his black-smudged fingers and remembered how they had rained down fire and boiled oceans only a few hours before. "But I'm not."

         The man grinned and used the boy's name, and for a moment the boy hated him.

         "Naturally, Sed. Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

         Sed looked back out at the wasteland he had created. Already the sky was darker and the earth had cooled considerably. The storm was long gone, had passed while they were talking. Time flies for angels.

         The older man sighed. "You can't let this get you down, Sed. Literally. We're designed not to get depressed by it. How could we do this job otherwise?

         "This planet will cool, its atmosphere will dissipate, and it will just be a cold, inanimate rock floating in space. No different to any other cold, inanimate rocks floating in space. I don't know what happens after that, and it doesn't concern me. Maybe it'll find a new star to call home and warm up again. And beget life once more. All those cute little animals and fishes and plants you like to watch all day. Or maybe... maybe it's dead forever, and new planets are started from scratch.

         “It's not up to us how things begin, that's down to the Makers. Our concern is with endings. Somebody has to make sure things are finished neatly, not just left to dwindle on into the nether-regions of time. That's our job. It's what we do, and it's why we exist. We're Endmakers, there's nothing else we can do."

         He stood up again and dusted his hands off, staring into the setting sun. "This isn't destruction, it's creation. Creation of a blank canvas for those high-and-mighty white-robed Makers to start toying with again. It's something pure and untouched and new and beautiful, and don't you forget that. Now, come on,"

         Sed looked up at him as he spread his hands.

         "Armageddon waits for no man. Celestial or otherwise."

         There was a great inhalation of breath on the hillside and the two figures were gone. Dusk crept over the land and turned it purple. Watched over by countless glittering stars the ancient, empty planet still turned, unconcerned by the fact it had been raped of all it had nurtured since its first sunrise. It darkened, and slept.