The last heatwave

Rayne is, for the lack of a better word, scared. She is feeling as if a ball of dread has been bouncing around in her stomach for the past few hours or so. It was making her sick.

Intuition - as some people called it - was a funny thing, for the line between intuition and imagination was paper-thin. But is her imagination strong enough to make her ill? Perhaps, but what is its reasoning for doing so? Imagination worked just as hard subconciously as it did conciously... maybe even more so, but it's never without rhyme or reason.

It's too hot to light candles and ask the spirits for guidance. It's too hot to cleanse her house of the negativity that could be the cause of her sickness with smoke and incense. It's way too hot to do anything but lay in bed and aggressively chew on ice.

In fact, according to The Weatherperson's Daily Magazine, this year's summer has been recorded as the hottest summer in human history... which, if you haven't already guessed, isn't all that great.

What should I do? she wonders. Any type of guidance rituals that involve fire or smoke are out of question; sadly, most of her spells need exactly that.

Eventually, the girl decides to do the one thing she's sworn to never do again. All to follow whatever the feeling was. Be it intuition, be it imagination; it didn't matter. It was worth a shot.

Beads of sweat are racing down the Rayne's face. In one fist she is tightly holding a small blessed amulet (for protection), and in the other a small container of ''anxiety'' pills - as written on the label, in reality they are nothing but painkillers that, simply put, keep her visions at bay, but ''anti-vision'' pills would be a ridiculous thing to write on the packaging.

They were just in case it was all too much to handle. A hypothetical safety net, if you will.

As her eyes roll into the back of her head, she starts to regret her decision. Predicting the future was no small matter. You have to be prepared for whatever the universe throws at you. Rayne learned that the hard way.

Hellish, horrifying, straight-up apocalyptic images of suffering and mayhem, of fire and anguish are flashing before her very eyes. Each image seems so clear, yet so not. It always dissappears a second too early. Too early for her to fully understand it. This has always been the problem with Rayne's visions. She was a prisoner of her own mind. And she hated that she's lived for as long as she has on this Earth, and yet she could barely grasp the concept of true unshakable concentration.

The girl sits up, gasping for air like a parched child chugs water during a hot summer morning. Waking up after a vision has always been the part she hated most. It always came with a splitting headache and a weird craving for dark chocolate.

Cold sweat and salty tears and dust are now clouding her vision.

''Tomorrow,'' she concludes. Her voice a mere breathless wisper lost in the summer breeze. Tomorrow the world would come to an end. How? She did not know; but one thing was for sure: it would be as hot and painful as the Hell that awaits some on the other side.

The Apocalypse is happening today. Flamepocalypse would be a more fitting term for it, Rayne thought (her physical body may die, but her love for wordplay shall never perish). She fell asleep naked on the couch last night, eating chocolate ice cream - one of her guilty pleasures - and woke up not oblivious to the fact that today was a hundred times hotter than yesterday, if that were possible. Rayne knew exactly why, and it pained her that she could do nothing. Nothing but watch and suffer with the rest.

She has neither family, since her coven had died a long time ago, nor friends, since she rarely leaves her house. Many people would call her solitary life sad or lonely, she just calls it peaceful (and now morbidly convenient as the only person she would have to prepare for inevitable death was herself).

Truth be told, Rayne is scared. But she also knows that in the grand scheme of things, this is for the best. Her death, along with everyone else's will make space for a better, more evolved species. Or that's what she would like to believe, at least. It helps to lessen the pain of knowing what is coming. She isn't fully contempt with dying. But when you really think about it: who is?

Three more hours until noon. The world was aflame in her predictions, so she came to the logical conclusion that the world would end sometime during the hottest hours of the day. She also decided that the best thing she could do is keep herself busy and avoid over-thinking at all costs.

That being said, she is currently sewing herself a dress using one of her dead mother's decorative table cloths.

Mindlessly humming an old song, Rayne glues simple white flowers on her skirt. She looks down and smiles at the beauty of her handmade funeral dress.

Chaos. Pure uncontrollable chaos rises after the first tree bursts into flames. Man, woman or child. It doesn't matter. Everyone was either screaming, crying... or both. Running around like headless chickens, in search for a place to hide and pray. Pray for it all to end so they could go back home to their families. Little do they know, the only place they will meet again is in their next life. But a next life couldn't come quick enough for some.

It's time, Rayne thinks as she walks outside wearing nothing but the clean white dress she quickly sew together. In one hand she carries a small bouquet of snowdrops. And as she looks up into the flames she wispers a last wish for only no one but herself to hear: Mercy.