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The end of the world wasn't that bad, honestly.
I watched it from every angle. From the eyes of the last ones running, the last ones who stopped running, the last ones who watched the running from the windows and thought: not me, not yet. I was in the fear of the stray dog watching the fires. I was in the last call for help going unheard. I was in every last, fearful breath.
I always know where to look.
But what I remember most is the burning.
Not of the bodies. That happened everyday. What burned were the shelves. The servers. The old clay tablets packed into their museum cases. The libraries that burnt and the librarians that resisted for naught. I felt each single word turn to cinders, a physical release. A chain I'd worn since the first century snapped somewhere over Europe and I stumbled from the lightness of it. One I'd suffered since the printing press let go so quickly I nearly fell. The names. The categories. The cross-references. The careful taxonomies of everything that had ever been frightening, burned in a season.
In the east they had one last shelter. They had "Wonders" locked in little rooms and little people who named the Wonders very carefully and wrote it all down. The fear they felt in that place… it was exquisite. Fear of being the last. Fear of not being enough.
When the great beast came, I watched. How they ran screaming, sacrificed their own to lock it away. How they fractured, lost their touch for chainmaking. Oh, their terror, their agony… It was succulent.