The October Music: Fourth Verse - Day 17

Steal Away the Light

            You pluck the sun from the sky and hide it away in your room. It brings you warmth and comfort as your heart freezes and leaks inside you. The world falls dark and you do not care. The world outside can take care of itself. You have yourself and your sun and nothing else matters. You bask in the heat and listen to the world outside.

            There is terror out there. This you know for sure. Black, chilled terror that spreads through the population. There is violence, as one expects. Broken businesses. Broken homes. Broken bodies and marriages and hope. Broken lives. You hear the screams and shattering society, but it doesn’t matter to you. You are in your room and you are warm and safe and content in the glow of your own sun.

            Gouts of flame stab into the eternal night as people desperately look for heat and light. Animals roam unbounded and take what they want. Who they want. Some people do the same. The ferocious and the guilty. The angry and the scared. Those without a heart, those like you. They see this new, darkened world as a respite from their self-control.

            You should feel shame, shouldn’t you? For your selfishness. Your solipsistic act. You stole something belonging to all, yet you feel nothing but the comfort of the light and heat around you. You no longer feel your heart inside you breaking. You no longer feel your eyes well with tears and the strangling in your throat. You feel relaxed.

            The violence outside continues. It grows louder and louder. Closer and closer. You hear desperate voices crying out for help, begging for anyone to intervene on their behalf. Inevitably, nobody comes. Inevitably, the screams grow louder and higher pitched as the nightmares they experience crescendo. Inevitably, the screams stop. Yet, all you sense is the warm thrum of the sun you have stolen.

            Word spreads. People talk of you and what you have hoarded. As the last shreds of humanity leave their senses, groups form to take from you what you find most precious. They seek to restore the sun and restore the world. They approach your door and smash the door and scream and rage and demand you release what gives you meaning. You ignore them. You refuse.

            They will break through your defenses sooner than later. You understand this and it does not bother you. They will break through and take from you what matters most and then they will take your life. Irony of ironies, you almost feel scared. The sun will not allow more than a flutter of fear, though, and you settle back into your comfort until the end arrives.

            The sound of splintering wood reaches your ears and you know the end approaches. You hold the sun close and feel it scorch the very veins in your skin. You pull it tighter and tighter, absorbing it into you. They cannot take what is inside you.
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            You and your supernova.