Scorched

”We’re going to see mommy today…..right ?” my five year old eagerly asks me as I double knot her formerly Snow White shoelaces that now favor a rotten brown look.

“Yes Jamie” I force myself to muffle.

“But she doesn’t like me anymore daddy….did I do something bad to her ?” she says with distress in her voice. I can feel her evergreen eyes waiting to meet my sunken blue ones but I stay crouched with my pupils still focused on her shoe. Already tied. I can’t bear myself to make eye contact with her.

“No Jamie she’s just……sick” I reply, my voice slowly breaking between the words. Before she’s able to ask another question I stand and walk over to my daughters closet. I pull out the small rubber suit fit just for her as she sighs in the background.

“Ughh I don’t wanna wear the Halloween costume today daddy , mommy won’t be able to see my ballerina outfit if I have it on” she squeaks at me.

“We don’t have a choice , besides I thought you liked matching with daddy ?” I say while giving a smirk hoping she gives in.

“Fine……on one condition” she says.

“I’m all ears” I reply back actually intrigued.

“I get to wear it” she says confidently while also staring at her dresser.

Our eyes meet and I cave in. How could I not ?

I open my daughters dresser and I pull out the heart shaped locket that she was gifted on her 5th birthday from her mother. Inside the locket a picture of my wife and daughter both with picture perfect smiles and identical green eyes reflect back at me.

Before I let the tears build I walk over to my daughter and gently place the locket around her neck. Her smile stretches from ear to ear before she reluctantly puts on her rubber suit, boots and helmet.

It all started as a rumor, you know like the ones you see on the news pages on social media ? Scientist were claiming that a comet was heading towards the sun at an alarming rate, they warned that the results of the impact would be catastrophic. No one believed them, not even me. You see news like that and you think it’s just the media spreading mass hysteria as always, until it happens.

August 6th 2023 I was enjoying my day off with my daughter when an emergency alert interrupted my daughters cartoons. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ALERT PLEASE FIND SAFETY! The alert flashed in bold letters.

Alerts flashed on the TVs and mobile devices all simultaneously.

My wife called me literally seconds after the alerts telling me her job had just been evacuated. Her voice shaky, loud and a mix of confused all at the same time. I instructed her to stay calm until I looked out the window, my mouth stretched open.

There it was, a giant rock in the sky, headed straight for the sun. Before I could even begin to bring my thoughts together the comet impacted with the sun. And just for that moment it was complete silence as the sun began to rip open and literally fall apart.I could feel my daughters nails digging into my arm almost as if she was bracing herself for impact.

After the impact the debris from the comet came falling down to earth. Everything in my body suddenly jolted back to life and I picked my daughter up and ran into the basement unknowingly leaving my wife still on the phone.

Me and my daughter stayed in the basement for weeks, hearing the destruction of the outside world. She cried for her mother and when she was able to sleep through the loud banging of the debris hitting the earth I shed my tears as well.

We survived off of can goods and cereal stored in the basement for weeks while we were down there.

I prepared me and Jamie to stay another week until I heard thumping coming from the upstairs of my home. All I could think about was my wife and if by some miracle she was able to make her way back to us.

“JENNIFER” I frantically yelled my wife’s name.

I only heard more thumping.

I raced upstairs with my daughter and opened the door to my living room to find that it wasn’t my wife at all.

What stood before me were five men all in hazard suits and wielding guns.

“We found two survivors” one of the men in the suits said into the device attached to his chest.

“Contaminated ?” The voice asked back.

The man in the suit looked at me and my daughter before replying back “no” to the voice on the device.

“Who are you people ?” I asked before they instructed me to put on the same hazard suit as them.

“We’re here to help” he said while giving me another hazard suit that could barely fit my daughter. It wasn’t until I finally looked at Jamie who’s eyes peeked outside that I realized what had become of the world.

Through the broken windows of my home the sky was blood red, trees were stripped of their leaves, houses were barely standing and the heat was almost unbearable.

I dragged my eyes away from the scene and focused on my daughter whose tears were silently falling from her cheeks.

“This is just a Halloween costume, one for me and one for you” I said with a smirk hoping to bring a smile on the face of a child that had been crying for weeks.

We both put on our suits and the men escorted us onto their military trucks.

As we drove to our unknown location I looked out the window of the truck to see body figures frozen in place and their skin completely dark almost as if they were completely burned.

“What happened to them ?” I asked.

“Anyone that was outside when the comet hit was scorched to death, their bodies became hard as rocks, their all statues now” one of the men in the suits explained.

I looked at my daughter, almost glad she wasn’t paying attention.

“Stop the car” I said.

The driver looked at me.

“I SAID STOP THE CAR” I yelled.

The car stopped immediately.

“Take me to my wife’s job” I pleaded.

“Listen man most jobs were completely wipe-“ I didn’t let him finish his sentence before I interrupted again.

“Take me to her please” I said with my eyes flooded with tears and my head dripping with sweat.

The driver met my gaze and asked me for the address.

And on the way there I thought about my wife, how scared she must’ve been, if she felt any pain and what her last words were.

When we arrived to my wife’s job we saw dozens of scorched victims, some frozen in the street, others making their way to their cars, some holding hands and huddled up together, then there was one.

A victim with their hand to its ear almost as if they were having their last phone call, eyes closed shut, and though skin burned a beautiful smile still on its face. My wife.

I broke down, I screamed, I shouted.

In that moment I didn’t just see the body of my wife, I saw the girl I went to junior prom with, the girl that would sneak out the house every day to see me, the woman that gave birth to my only child, now scorched to death.

Jamie walked up behind me to look at her mother. She didn’t cry and for a moment she didn’t talk either.

She hugged the frozen body of her mother and ever so faintly whispered

“I missed you mommy”.

That was a year ago, every month since then I take Jamie to see her mother.

She hugs her, she talks to her, and sometimes she just stares at her and even though my wife doesn’t talk back Jamie’s dismay she still counts the day’s that we return to see her mother.

And sometimes I do too.