I sit on the grass, watching the river. A small ship starts to sail by and I wave to it. A few people on deck wave back. Where are you going? I think as it slowly moves away.
I am in the middle of my daydreams o traveling when I hear a huge CRACK and then a BOOM! I look to the river to see that it has turned thick and red, and it was bubbling as if boiling. The people aboard the ship are screaming bloody murder, and the sky has turned a deep burgundy color. There appear to be stars in the sky, even though it is daytime. One by one, they start to explode, and objects on the ground randomly light themselves on fire.
It has come. The day I have been watching for. The end of all life. I know I need to move away, but my charm is vibrating and I'm rooted to the ground, just watching. Watching as everything is consumed, as the world stops, as life dies. Everything is different, nothing will ever move. It could go on forever, the destruction, but it wouldn't change afterward. Nothing can survive Evening Day.
I finally turn and walk away, slowly.
--
I keep walking. I have been walking away, all around the world, for definitely over a year. Everything looks the same, now: things burning, craters and sinkholes appearing at random, and the sky that beautiful burgundy color. But over a year of walking slowly and aimlessly, people have to get tired, to run out of energy. I am not, though. I want to stop walking, but the charm is vibrating, forcing me to walk farther and farther. I need to stop, I realize. I try to fight the charm, but it explodes into me, burning me, scorching me. I don't give into the pain, though. I finally rip it off my neck and throw it about ten feet away.
It all slams into me at once: exhaustion, starvation, and intense pain in my muscles. Why am I so tired? I wasn't tired a minute ago. When had I last eaten? I don't remember a thing. I need to find some food and shelter in a ruined world. I know I'm the only one left on Earth. Had the charm been protecting me from death, or killing me from the inside out?