It was a calm Saturday morning when humanity met its end. The gray cloud of winter had just barely begun to disperse, and yet the sun shone through and onto the people, bringing with it the warm rays that heralded spring. That morning, some people might have looked up at the sky in appreciation and wonder, for an early spring was welcomed by the majority of the population suffering through the harsh winters of the Nordics, where Conrad lived. However, that wonder soon turned into fear. The sun’s warmth, once benevolent and full, was changing.

Barely midmorning, and the people were noticing a drastic change in the weather. The warmth that seemed so gracious had grown. Grown into hard, dry heat. Waves of it blasted onto the earth, forcing people to shed their winter clothes much sooner than anticipated. Still, it was a tolerable level of heat, and it allowed more people to go outside and experience the abnormal sun. Then came the change, and the world devolved into chaos. Living things started melting under the sun’s excruciating heat, forming into wads of misshapen flesh, taking on a gelatinous consistency and trying to reform into their previous shape.. Soon, gatherings of these creatures had started to form, warping their previous bodies into new shapes that fit into the hivemind of their kin.

That was how Conrad had started his Saturday morning, 2 weeks before his 16th birthday, with his mother having just opened his curtain. The moment the sunlight touched her face, it started melting away. She screamed and ran towards shade, only to fall into what seemed like a trance and walk towards the door.. When Conrad sat up, the light from the window melted his left arm. He watched in horror as flesh sloughed off his shoulder, and his arm wriggled around with a mind of its own. There wasn’t even pain, just an emptiness, and a nagging feeling in the crevices of his brain telling him to join it in the sun. His mother had already gone, leaving the house door open, and had turned into a skin colored blob outside his front door. Not daring to reach the light, Conrad had wrapped himself in his blanket and forced the curtains closed. Covering himself up best he could, he reached out from behind a wall and slammed the front door shut. However, his left arm had joined him in the doorway, and was ramming itself into the door, trying to leave. Conrad was confused, until he saw the light beneath the door, and how it was covered up by a large shadow. There was something outside. Something large. Something that was most definitely not his mother. Something his molten arm wanted nothing more than to join with.

“Conrad, baby, open the door! I left my keys inside!” his mother’s voice called out to him. Upon hearing no response, the voice tried again.

“Come now darling, you wouldn’t want your dear mother to suffer under this dreadful sun, right? Let. Me. In.”

A frightened Conrad scampered throughout his house, closing all curtains and windows, trying his best to barricade the vicious sunlight from penetrating the fortress that was his house. Throughout the next week, he hid within the house as the creature outside tried to enter. Sometimes, he’d hear ramming from the front door, but eventually the creature would give up, just like it always did. Every day, the sunlight returned with a vengeance, illuminating strips of his house the curtains couldn’t fully defend, and yet, Conrad didn’t utter a single word.

Days turned into weeks as Conrad endured the creature’s neverending harassment. Supplies were dwindling, and the creature slammed on the door day and night, screaming his name, begging to be let in. Still, Conrad’s will persisted. But eventually, even the sturdiest wall will crumble, and Conrad was left feeling all alone, with no human contact, and a monstrous creature at his front door, seemingly there whenever Conrad tried to eat or sleep, making its presence far too familiar, never giving him a moment of peace. And finally, when 2 months passed, and he was malnourished and exhausted, the creature broke him.

“My dear child, you have nothing left. I know you’ve run out of food. You’ve no supplies. Might as well come and join us. We’ll keep you fed, you know. You needn’t ever ask for anything ever again.” The creature said, gently but loudly, and the smashing on the front door started again with redoubled determination.

Finally, Conrad succumbed to the creature’s sadistic games. He no longer tried to hide as the door cracked, then shattered, and a large gelatinous thing made out of burnt flesh and molten tissue pushed its way through the door. There was a sense of acceptance as he was dragged out into the sun, and maybe even a bit of relief in his last moments as he was embraced by the sun’s rays, feeling warmth seeping through him, tearing his muscles apart, blistering his skin, and melting his body. As Conrad faded away, he saw his parents once more, and for the first time in the last few months a grin split the lump of flesh that was once his face. It remained there, until his frayed mind was absorbed into the creature that was once his mother, until his body had completely disappeared into the mass of flesh and bone, until he felt no more.