Watching The World Burn

• Georgia Warren, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2018

“Please stay!”
“No, you made your choice. And I made mine.”
“Please!”
“No, I can't, I have one last gift for you though.” He turned.
“What?”
“You'll see.”
“No.”
“Goodbye, Theo.”
Within seconds Harry had left. Gone as if never there. Theo’s eyes hardened into silver ice. He was going to do it. He knew that he never should've fallen in love. It made people weak. Stopped people from making decisions. Like the one he made now.
“Sorry, I will never forget you, Harry Liam Moody.”
He dropped the match onto the map that had the ability to cause cyclones, tidal waves, and even end all life on earth, which is what he was doing now. The most magical object of all time. Even if he didn't really know what he was doing, he was willing to try. He knew, in less than a minute he would die. Die the terrible person he was. Die knowing he had killed the person, the only, person, who ever gave a damn about him. He sat on the couch waiting. He waited. Why weren't the flames burning him to a crisp? He peered at the map. Britain was gone. He walked to his window and looked. A bubble. A protective bubble surrounded his residence. Harry's last gift. A twisted thing. He would rot, from starvation, thirst or insanity among various other illnesses or problems eventually. But he could see the damage that he'd done. He saw all the corpses of the people who had perished, adults, and children. He could see his body too. Harry Liam Moody, standing up and staring at the house, skin burnt like toast, with no hair in sight. The only thing that remained of his one true love was a fireproof vest and a charred and broken body. He had let his hatred of himself and the world he lived in cloud his judgement, causing him to make the worst decision of his life. The self-loathing swallowed him up. He knew his next action wouldn't be hard to do. Pointing a knife at himself he completed the deed that would end all life on the planet Earth. Or, what was left of it. The oceans had evaporated, the trees and plants had been reduced to char and rubble. Every life had been extinguished, except his. That's why he knew this wouldn't be hard to do.
Gathering the last remnants of his greatly lacking courage he plunged the dagger into his already broken heart.
With a spurt of crimson blood and a gasp of pain, the last breath on Earth was taken, was gone. Like the flame of a candle in the wind.
The spark was gone.
The world had burned.