The Poison Sky

The earliest example of my power I can remember is when I was three years old, sitting on the beach with my dad. We were staring out into the sea watching the waves drift gently in the wind, just enjoying the moment. I was sitting on his lap, slowly falling asleep, when the setting sun seemed to twist and bend before my very eyes as it descended beneath the ocean surface. Within moments, it had finished its transformation, now being the shape of a yellowish heart. Great waves of red suddenly pulsed across the sky, washing through the clouds and stretching for miles and miles. I remember being awestruck at the silky smoothness of that colour, which I now understand to be known as the colour of love.

The next day, my dad proposed to my mother, on what she always described as the happiest day of her life.

These strange sunset visions would keep happening for years to come. Sometimes I would see a face materialise from behind a cloud, and soon, it would appear in my day-to-day life. Other times, I’d see weather patterns mirrored in the sunlight, from snow, to floods, to tornados. Once or twice a year, I would even see entire scenarios play out in stunning detail, like a movie was being projected onto the sky. It’s a power that I’d always treasured, but never shared, no matter how much I’d wanted to.

Though I fear that the time for sharing is now over.

Around a year ago, I was sat outside, waiting for the sun to set, as I used to do every night. I live in the highest house of a particularly rural countryside area, with a once mesmerising view of the sunset. My mind was weary and aching for sleep, so I was half-awake when I saw a sheet of pure black begin to creep over the horizon. It slowly washed around the curvature of the sun and began to erode the sky little by little, like an ink spill across a piece of paper. I could only watch as the blackness travelled further and further upwards, terrified as it began to obscure even the sun itself.



Black is never a good omen, and that night, I saw more blackness than in any of my previous visions combined.

Since then, my sunset visions have ended. But the piercing blackness has remained. And instead of gradually fading away as I so hoped it would, it has only occupied more and more space as time goes on. Just a few months after that initial vision, the blackness occupied at least an entire quarter of the sky. In June, that fraction doubled to roughly half. It was totally surreal, like half of the world was permanently stuck in night and the other trapped in day.

As the suffocating blackness grew, so did the turmoil of everyday life. I heard ever increasing reports of war and conflict breaking out across the entire world. Riots, shootings, and terrorist plots were constant. Food became short, as did drinkable water, and the worldwide climate took a turn for the worst. And although these struggles affected the entire planet, no-one but me could see the cause. The Earth was choking under the poison sky.

The beautiful visions I saw when the sun still shone have been replaced with foreboding nightmares that soar among the blackness. Now, I only see imagery of bombs, screaming children, ruined towns and cities with bodies piling up by the thousands. Mutilated corpses, with fire screaming along their skin among other arcane, horrific sightings.

Today was the day the blackness reached the other side of the world. There are sirens blaring constantly. I hear people shouting from where I’ve barricaded myself inside my room. Occasionally, there are gunshots. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Because a few minutes ago, a mushroom cloud appeared on the horizon. And another. And another. Now, all I hear is screaming. To anyone that finds these scraps of paper at my skeleton long after the nukes have dropped, I’m sorry. Sorry that I didn’t have the confidence to share my insight with the world, sorry that I hoarded my visions instead of sharing them with those I knew. Maybe if I hadn’t been so greedy, the world wouldn’t have suffered so much.

I can feel the wind picking up through the broken windows. It won’t be long now.