The Last Sunset

The sun crept towards the horizon, tendrils of pink and orange slowly stretching across the dimming sky. Sam sat on the cliff's edge, watching the sun make its final descent. This would be the last sunset on earth.

Behind him, the last remnants of civilization crumbled. Abandoned skyscrapers stood like hollow skeletons, their windows shattered, doors hanging by rusty hinges. Weeds poked through cracks in the pavement and wrapped around lampposts long deprived of electricity. The hustle and bustle of the human world had gone eerily silent.

It had started with whispers, rumors of something terrible on the horizon. But no one wanted to believe it, to accept the unthinkable. Even when the night sky started to change, the stars shifting position as the celestial orbits warped, people found ways to rationalize it away. A trick of the light, they said.

Until the day the scientists confirmed the terrible truth. The earth had been jostled out of its orbit by a passing black hole. Within one year, it would spiral into the sun and be consumed. The planet had been sentenced to death.

There was panic in the streets then. Riots, looting, mass suicides. The stock markets, governments, the entire human systems of order collapsed in despair. But before long, an eerie calm set in. What was left to do but wait for the end?

Sam had watched it all unfold with an odd sense of detachment. He had never felt he belonged in this world anyway. Awkward in social situations, more at home with numbers and codes than people. He worked remotely as a software engineer, communicating with colleagues only through a screen. The coming apocalypse didn't scare him - it just felt inevitable.

When the news hit, he quietly loaded up his old pickup truck with non-perishable food, oxygen tanks, and his cat Coco. He drove until he found a nice spot overlooking the ocean to have a front row seat for the final chapter. He passed the last year in solitude, finding an odd comfort in facing the ending alone.

As the reddish glow reflected off the dark waters, Sam scratched Coco behind her ears. "It won't be long now," he murmured. In the distance, the last sputtering lights of humanity blinked out. The power grids had finally failed, plunging the planet into primeval darkness save for the setting sun's otherworldly aura.

Sam took a deep breath of the salty air. He had made peace with this ending long ago. The endless cycles of human folly, cruelty, and waste - soon the earth would be free of it all. Perhaps, in time, new life would sprout from the ashes. Coco purred softly, and Sam stroked her fur with sadness and love. At least they would see the end together.

The sky shifted from red to a brilliant gold, the light glinting off the horizon one last time like a beacon. Sam welcomed the approaching night, the cleansing veil of darkness. He kept his eyes open as the remaining sliver of sun disappeared below the sea. The stars emerged slowly, billions of pinpricks in the gathering blackness.

Sam lay back and studied the unfamiliar patterns overhead. The earth had drifted far from its old celestial home. One star, brighter than all the others, caught his gaze. It had never been visible from earth before. He wondered if it might even be the sun, gazing back at its lost planet.

As Coco curled up beside him, Sam's eyes grew heavy. Tomorrow, the surface would begin to burn. But tonight, a tranquil oblivion settled over the earth. For the first time in eons, the planet rested in true darkness and silence. The world Sam had never learned to love finally found its peace.

As sleep drifted over him, Sam kept his eyes fixed on the bright lone star, a beacon in the darkness. He let the gentle night embrace him, grateful to witness the earth's final slumber. In this moment of ending, there was only quiet acceptance. A chance to rest before all returned to stardust. The earth would sleep, and it was good.