The Day the Sun Died

      I leaped out of the water and crashed into the sand. The suns light shining down upon my sand-sticking scales. Who was I? How did I get here?

The last time I saw the sun I was still in the egg. I guess saw was the wrong word. The last time I felt the sun I was still in the egg. It called to me. It welcomed me. It wrapped me in a warmth I have never known, and the only thing close to that were the underwater volcanoes. But it was never the same.

           But today, today was different. Or should I say… tonight. I spoke to the fish, and they told me The Great Light would go out. But I never called it The Great Light, for it didn’t feel like a light. I saw the way its rays would scatter in my home, how the further down you went the less and less its light would follow. If it were a truly ‘great light’ it would follow all the way down, no?

           No. I called it The Eternal One. Thinking about it now, I realize how silly it was. When I was young, I gave it that name because I whole-heartedly believed that the sun died every night. I believed the sun fell into the ocean and was put out, but it never stopped moving. So, I believed it would rise the next morning out of the ocean, reignited and stronger than before. I thought the sun was eternal, that it could not die.

           Then I found out you humans call it the ‘sun’. Sun? What kind of name is that? Not nearly as majestic as ‘The Great Light’ or ‘The Eternal One’. The sun? You could not think of anything better to name your God?

           Regardless, tonight, that big, beautiful thing would go out forever. My first memory and my youth surrounded it. And it would be gone. Just like that. Maybe it wasn’t so eternal after all. But I wanted to be there when the sun died.

           I swam towards the nearest ‘High Sea’, or the seafloor that moved above the water. I swam, for miles and miles I did. Passing by the fish and the sharks. Hitching a ride with the whales. Riding with the current, never going against it. For a moment I felt lost, I had never gone this far west, and never again I would.

Then I saw it, the seabed going up, and up. I followed it, up and up, until it went past the water. And I froze. It wasn’t that I could not breath on the surface, no. I knew I could. But I felt a strange feeling in my organs. What was this? My organs were shivering as if I were cold. My muscles huddled into my heart for warmth. What was this?

Push it aside, I told myself, you want to be there when the sun dies.

With that reassurance, I leaped into the waning light of the dying sun. Crashing into the black sand, getting its tiny particles stuck in my scales. Oh Eternal One… it felt so nice. I had never felt sand that wasn’t mush, it was new, strange, yet new. And the sun? Oh I feel like I’m still in the egg. Did humans have a word for this? When you feel something from your past and it feels like the best thing in the world? They probably did, humans are smart with their words. But give extravagant things boring, meaningless names.

I tried to bury myself into the sand, getting it in my webbed talons. Rolling around in it while the sun was still alive. I played for the first time in years. Prancing, gallivanting, rolling, and running. Pushing the sand into giant mounds and crashing into it. Cupping the black particles in my webbed talons and lowering it into the water, the sand turning into mush. The sun still high and alive.

But as the sun began to drop slowly towards the horizon, the sky turned from bright blue to an array of light purples, extravagant oranges, and dark pinks. The sun was going to die soon, but on the other side of the high sea. I ran into the strange plants further up the High Sea, diving into the strange green coral. But it did not hurt like coral. The world above the water was strange indeed.

“What the hell?” something squeaked.

“Holy- the sun!” another thing shouted.

Sun, oh it’s the humans. I peeked out from my cover, staring my reptilian eye at them. Is this their territory?

The humans continued shouting at one another while I managed to sneak away. I turned and ran towards where the sun's rays still shone. Forwards I ran, nearly tripping on rocks and other strange creatures I have never seen. “Woah!”

I froze. Human. Snapping my head to the source of the noise I saw… oh. It was a little human with dark skin, so small it could fit in my talon. Is this a young human or a deformed human? And if it were the latter, why didn’t the humans kill it? And if it were the former, why didn’t the humans eat it? Fish are known for eating their young.

I simply stared at the little human and the little human stared at me. It raised its little paws and smushed them against its face. Humans are so strange… Humoring the little creature I raised my webbed talons and did the same, though my scales were not as squishy as human skin.

The little human let out a sound that I assumed was good. There was another shout in the distance, it sounded like the little human’s mother. And I knew you do not mess with a young creature’s mother, it’s a trait not exclusive to humans. So, I smushed my talons against my face one last time before diving into the strange plants once more. The little humans’ cheerful sounds echoing in my skull.

When I came to the other side I skid to a stop on the black sand. The sky… the sun… the eternal one. It was huge! So big and majestic! I could see… explosions? Explosions coming out of the sun! It was so close… it was so hot… it was… it was falling!

The screams of humans followed by the sudden rush of wind made the scene seem almost bad. But it wasn’t bad. It was beautiful. And then it fell into the sea with a giant splash and a rush of steam. And the world went dark.

When I came too, everything was ash. Burnt, to a crisp. I saw the little specks of ash fall from the sky like snow. It was cold now, the sun and its warmth now deceased. For a moment I wondered what I was going to now, and then I looked up. There were no clouds and there was no empty void, but little lights. Thousands of little lights dancing across the empty sky. Pretty little things. I call them ‘stars’.