Summary: My name is Natalie Flynn. My daily routine is very simple, and consists of the same schedule repeating itself everyday. So, I guess I should have known that when my alarm clock went off early, things were going to go terribly wrong.

(For your convenience, there is a pronunciation guide at the end of this document.)

Hello. My name is Natalie Flynn, and I’m going to tell you a story. My story. The story of the end of the world.

I know you probably don’t believe me. ‘The earth never existed! It’s just a fairy tale!’ I’ll bet that’s what you’re thinking. But you’re wrong. I know, because I was there when it happened. I used to live there. (Ah yes, this is where you gasp. ‘People lived on planet earth?’)

My daily routine on earth was very simple. My alarm clock would go off at 7:00 AM precisely. I would drag myself out of bed, into the kitchen, say good morning to my mom and dad, eat my cereal, get dressed, go to school, do school, come home from school, do my homework, watch TV, eat dinner, read, go to bed, sleep, and then the next morning the whole thing would repeat itself. (On the weekends, simply change ‘school’ to ‘hanging with friends’, and ta-da, my weekend schedule.) See? Perfectly uniform. Until one Monday… I should have known when my alarm cock went off early that things were going to go terribly wrong.

Yes, my alarm clock. That’s how it all started. The alarm went off 10 minutes early. Sure, 10 minutes may seem like nothing, but that’s how every big thing happens. It starts as nothing. That single 10 minutes marked the tiny little crack in the space time continuum. (Or something like that.) But I continued my schedule, as usual. Luckily, the same thing happened to my mom and dad, so they were up, too.

So I got to school. Everything went fine until gym class. (Third period, 10:00.) It was such a beautiful day; our gym teacher suggested we go exercise outside. The sky was blue, the birds were twittering, there was a soft breeze; it was perfect. Then it started raining. The freezing cold rain was coming out of nowhere, the sun was shining, and there were no clouds. Then it turned to hail, sleet, and finally, it began to snow. My classmates were doing what every teenager does in a psycho phenomenon like that: they were having a snowball fight. Then, just as quickly as it had all started, it stopped. The precipitation stopped precipitating; the snow melted and dried up before our very eyes. Our gym teacher stared into space a few moments, wondering what on earth had just happened, until the bell rang. She ushered us back inside and we all went on to our next class, in my case, chemistry.

Now here’s where it got interesting. Our teacher was teaching us (you don’t say?) that if we mix such and such chemicals together, it will have such and such an effect. It probably would have been very interesting, if I had gotten to finish it out. I was the part of my assignment where I was supposed to drop some tablet into the mixture, so I did. And just when it hit the mixture of chemicals, instead of fizzing, like it was supposed to, it stopped, half in, half out of the mixture. I looked up. No one was moving, frozen in their positions. It was quiet; deathly quiet.

Time had frozen, of this I was sure.

I stood up, and walked around the school. Everywhere, frozen. I went outside, everything was the same there. I kept walking, and walking, wondering if I could find out what was causing this, and the same time, afraid that I would.

After walking around for a little while longer, I finally got tired. I sat down on a bench, somewhere. I couldn’t tell you where, because I wasn’t sure, I had done so much wondering about. I was staring at the ground when, all of a sudden, I noticed the sunlight was diminishing slowly, as though something was eclipsing the sun. I waited a few moments until it was safer to look up, and when I did I gasped. I was sure it couldn’t have been what I though it was. It shouldn’t have been what I thought it was. But it was what I thought it was. It was a spaceship. Yes, an honest to God spaceship! It looked as though it stepped right out of Star Trek or Doctor Who. Then it did exactly what I was afraid it would do: it landed right in front of me.

I stared at it as the door came swooshing down. Two aliens (as I could only assume) walked slowly down the ramp the door had made from the ship to the ground in front of me. They looked almost exactly like humans, except that their ears were flat and made into their skulls, there eyes were red, and there hair was blue. One was a girl and one was a boy. They were both dressed in simple white shirts, and white pants, a little like karate uniforms, and they wore flat cloth-like shoes. It looked as though they were ready to go kung-fu fighting, to me. (Sing along, you know you wanna.)

They looked at me. I was scared to death. Would they abduct me? Do freaky experiments on me like those freaks on the news always claimed? Instead, the girl of the two asked me, “Are you the one called Natalie Flynn?”

They knew my name! And they spoke English! I nearly fainted. I couldn’t find my voice to speak, but I did nod. Both of them smiled. “Thank Kahs-Mak,” said the boy. I raised my eyebrow, and when neither of them explained what a ‘Kahs-Mak’ was, I had to assume it was some sort of deity.

“Please, come with us,” said the girl. “And hurry, we don’t have much time until it happens.”

“Until what happens?” I asked.

“Until the world ends,” said the boy.

I was speechless. Under any other circumstances, I would have turned and ran away, but this was different. If the world really was going to end, it would definitely explain all the strange things that had happened that day. And if there was I chance I could stop it, I would.

“Who are you?” I asked as I began walking up to meet them in the middle of the ramp.

“I am Kishwek,” said the girl, as the three of us began walking up the rest of the ramp to the ship.

“And I am Siyas,” said the boy as we entered the spaceship.

I was amazed at the technologically advanced controls on the ship. There were flashing lights, beeping noises, levers, buttons, dials, and all sorts of things. I didn’t take much time to look around at the controls and such; there were important things to discuss.

“Here have a seat,” said Kishwek, waving her arm to indicate a small lounge area in the large spaceship. I sat down on a red chair, not knowing what else to do. “Would you like some tea?” asked Kishwek, as she pulled a cup full of a hot steaming liquid out of some machine. It looked a lot like an automatic coffee maker you see in hospitals. I shook my head. She shrugged and sat down with her own cup opposite me in another red chair. There was a coffee table between us, and Kishwek set her tea down on it.

“Where are we going? What do you mean when you say the end of the world? How did you know my name?” I would have continued my questions, but Kishwek raised a hand to stop me.

“I understand you have many question, but please one at a time,” she said. “Just relax for a moment. Siyas will fly the ship, and I will do what I can to answer your questions.” Siyas sat in a seat at the controls as she spoke. “Also, you’ll have to forgive my brother; his Earth-talk is not so good. Now, please ask me your first question, so I can help you understand what is going on.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. I was very nervous, (who wouldn’t be?) I didn’t know these people, and if the world really did end, I’d never see my parents again. “Where exactly are we going?” I asked. It was the thing I was most curious about.

“We are going to Zlyhin,” said Kishwek. “It is a planet a few galaxies away from your own.”

“What do you mean when you say the world is going to end?” I asked.

“I am sure you have noticed some strange things going on in your world today, correct?” asked Kishwek. I nodded. “Well, more and more of those strange things will start happening. It is called the Unraveling. Everything in your world will become what it isn’t; backwards. Everything turns to chaos until the world has unmade itself.”

“What then?” I asked.

“It explodes.”

I am very sure my eyes were as wide as the spaceship I was in. If I didn’t do what I could, the world would unmake itself. Once I had gotten over the shock (for the most part) I was ready to ask my next question.

“How did you know my name?” I asked uncertainly.

“Ah,” nodded Kishwek. “It is written in one of the Ancient Prophecies of Space that you would be the one to save our…” she paused, “your world.” I arched my eyebrows, but said nothing about her slip of the tongue.

At this point, I only had one more question. “How do I stop it?”

Kishwek nodded again. “A most appropriate question. I will only give you a little detail, we have almost reached Zlyhin,” she said. “Zlyhin is the planet where all words are made and destroyed by use of the controls there. Whenever it is time for a planet to be made or destroyed, on official from the Intergalactic Space Unit is sent to activate the controls. We believe that someone has accidentally activated the controls of your planet, or done so with malicious intent.”

“How do they know when to activate the controls?” I asked curiously.

“They make use of the Ancient Prophecies of Space.”

Kishwek’s explanation of this process sent my mind reeling. It was amazing, really. I figured the controls had to be extremely complex.

Then there was a sensation as if the spaceship was slowing, followed by a small bump. Kishwek stood and met her brother at the door to the spaceship. I followed them, figuring they must have been waiting for me. Siyas pushed a button next to the door, and it lowered, building that familiar ramp from the ship to the ground. The three of us walked down to the strange (in my opinion) planet.

It was a little like standing on a big ball. There were no trees, just a large, white, building spread out before me, and the sky. The sky and the ground were red, but perhaps the strangest thing of all was that the building stayed white. It didn’t reflect the red of the sky and ground.

Kishwek and Siyas led me to the door of the building. Inside, there were several hallways branching off of another one. Each door was labeled with the name of (I assumed) planets. Some I knew, others I had no idea how to pronounce, and some were written in strange symbols. We explored a few of the halls until we finally found the door marked EARTH.

My hand rested upon the doorknob. I was nervous again. Would I know how to work the controls? What would they look like? Would I make a mistake? I had to try. I turned the doorknob, opened the door, and walked inside. I was absolutely amazed. “These are the controls?” I asked aloud.

‘Controls’ (plural, mind you) was not a good term for this. It was just a lever. Plain and simple, locked in the wall in an upright position. Wait a minute… an upright position?

“Kishwek,” I said, “This lever doesn’t look like it’s already been pulled.”

“Oh, yes,” said Kishwek. “The levers here are opposite from the ones in your world,” she explained.

“Oh,” I said, nodding. Uneasy, I grabbed the handle of the lever. Just as I began pulling it down, I noticed a smaller lever beside it that said CHAOS. It was in the downright position, as if it had already been pulled. My hand continued to pull down the lever until it reached the bottom.

A screen above the two levers switched on. There was a small countdown in the top right corner, but the focus was on Earth. The clock in the corner said five seconds and counting. Those 5 seconds went faster than anything in the world. When those five seconds were up, I saw, via the screen, the Earth explode. My eyes widened as tears started to form. I whipped around to face Kishwek and Siyas. They didn’t seem very surprised at all.

“What the hell was that?!” I screamed.

Kishwek faced me, her gaze cold as ice. “Only one with pure intentions can pull a lever,” she said. I was very surprised to hear Siyas speak next.

“Our world is in danger,” he said, his voice just as cold as Kishwek’s eyes. (His ‘Earth speak’ sounded fine to me.) “It is threatened by a black hole. We would be saved if only we could move our planet somewhere safer. And now, thanks to your trusting us, we can. Right where Earth used to be.” He turned and left, saying, “I will go contact the leaders of Calactan and let them know we have found a space.” (I simply assumed Calactan was their home planet, and later learned I was correct.)

“You traitors,” I hissed at Kishwek with a glare.

“I told you, it was in the Ancient Prophecies,” she replied. “You have saved our planet, Natalie Flynn. Of course, it was at the cost of all you hold dear. In light of that, I will speak for you to the leaders of our planet, and see that you can live on Calactan instead of being thrown into the cells because of what you know.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said sarcastically. (That’s the last thing I remember. It is possible that I didn’t say that, I just thought it.)

So, there you have it. That is the story of the End of the World. And you want to know the worst part?

It was all my fault.

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Pronunciation Guide

Kahs-Mak – Kaz-mak

Siyas - S-eye-ahs

Zlyhin - zly-hen

Kishwek – (Exactly how it sounds)

Calactan – (ka-lack-tin)

(I know it moved kind of fast, sorry.)