Eight Minutes

Dr. Elrick Moore stared at the monitor for eleven seconds before calling anyone.

Not because he didn't understand what he was seeing.

Because he did.

That was the problem.

He checked the solar neutrino array again.

Then the gravitational monitors.

Then the independent feeds from observatories in Chile, Hawaii, Australia, and lunar station Armstrong.

Every screen told him the same impossible thing.

The Sun was gone.

Not dimming.

Not collapsing.

Gone.

Elrick reached for the red phone mounted beside his desk.

His hand stopped halfway.

Outside the observation window, morning sunlight poured across the mountains of New Mexico.

The desert was gold.

Clouds hung lazily over the horizon.

A hawk circled above the ridge.

Everything looked exactly as it had five minutes ago.

Because the light hadn't reached them yet.

Neither had the darkness.

Elrick looked at the clock.

He picked up the phone.

The first thirty seconds belonged to governments.

Washington called Moscow.

Moscow called Beijing.

Beijing called everyone.

Satellites were retasked. Militaries went to emergency readiness. Presidents were awakened. Scientists shouted at one another across secure networks.

Someone asked whether it could be reversed.

Someone else asked whether it was an attack.

A general wanted to know who had done it.

Elrick listened for twenty seconds before finally interrupting.

"It doesn't matter."

Silence.

"There is nothing to retaliate against."

"What are our options?" someone asked.

Elrick looked through the window.

"None."

The word traveled around the world in less than a second.

They decided to tell everyone.

There was no point in hiding it.

Phones vibrated.

Televisions interrupted programming.

Emergency sirens sounded in cities that had never expected to use them for anything except tests.

For perhaps the first time in human history, almost eight billion people received the same message at nearly the same moment.

THE SUN HAS CEASED TO EXIST.

APPROXIMATELY SIX MINUTES OF SUNLIGHT REMAIN.

THERE IS NO KNOWN MEANS OF SURVIVAL.

Elrick expected screaming.

There was some.

He expected riots.

There were a few.

But six minutes wasn't enough time for civilization to collapse.

It was barely enough time to decide who you wanted beside you when it did.

A traffic camera in Chicago recorded hundreds of cars stopping in the middle of the street.

Drivers got out.

Nobody honked.

People simply stood beneath the sunlight.

A schoolteacher in France took her students outside.

A prison warden in Texas unlocked every cell.

At a hospital in Tokyo, nurses wheeled patients onto balconies.

An old man in Sicily carried his sleeping wife into their garden because sunlight had always been her favorite thing.

Across the world, churches filled.

So did bars.

So did beaches.

Some people prayed.

Some cursed God.

Some apologized.

Some finally said I love you.

And some said nothing at all.

Elrick's phone rang.

He looked at the name.

ANNA

His daughter.

He hadn't spoken to her in three months.

Their last conversation had ended with her hanging up.

The argument seemed ridiculous now.

He answered.

"Dad?"

"I'm here."

Her voice broke.

"Is it true?"

Elrick closed his eyes.

"Yes."

A small sound came through the phone.

Not crying.

Breathing.

She was trying very hard not to cry.

"How long?"

Elrick looked at the clock.

"Almost four minutes."

Anna was silent.

Then she said, "I don't want to spend them being angry at you."

Elrick sat down.

"I don't want that either."

"I was going to call."

"I know."

"No, you don't."

He smiled despite himself.

"You're right. I don't."

She laughed.

Just once.

It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

The observatory staff walked outside.

Nobody told them to.

One by one, they simply abandoned their instruments.

Thirty-seven scientists, technicians, engineers, security officers and custodians stood together in the desert.

Elrick joined them, still holding his phone.

Anna lived two thousand miles away.

But he could hear wind blowing around her apartment balcony.

"Can you see it?" he asked.

"The Sun?"

"Yeah."

"Between the buildings."

"Look at it."

"Dad, you're not supposed to stare at the Sun."

He laughed.

She laughed too.

Around Elrick, others were talking to husbands, wives, mothers, children.

One technician had no one to call.

A woman beside him quietly took his hand.

He looked surprised.

Then grateful.

Something unexpected happened.

The internet didn't collapse.

It became beautiful.

Pictures flooded across it.

Not celebrities.

Not politics.

Not advertisements.

People.

A grandmother holding her newest grandchild.

Two brothers who hadn't spoken in seventeen years sitting together on a porch.

A firefighter hugging the man he'd spent months feuding with over a fence.

A little girl holding up a handwritten sign.

THANK YOU, SUN.

The image was shared forty million times in less than a minute.

"Dad?"

"I'm here."

"Do you think it hurts?"

Elrick knew what she meant.

"No."

It was a lie.

He had no idea what would happen when the last sunlight passed Earth.

The planet would continue for a time.

The atmosphere would hold warmth.

Humanity would not die in an instant.

There would be hours.

Days.

Perhaps longer for those underground.

But civilization had minutes.

Hope had somewhat less.

So he lied to his daughter.

"No, sweetheart. I don't think it'll hurt."

"Okay."

The Sun hung above the desert.

Bright.

Warm.

Impossible.

Elrick suddenly remembered Anna at six years old, sitting on his shoulders at the beach.

She had pointed toward the sunset.

Where does it go at night?

Nowhere, he'd told her.

We turn away from it.

She had considered that carefully.

Then whispered:

That's sad.

Around the world, people counted.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Elrick didn't.

Neither did Anna.

Seven.

Six.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

Five.

"I love you."

Four.

"I love you too."

Three.

"Keep talking."

Two.

Elrick looked into the sunlight.

"I remember the day you were born."

One.

And the Sun went out.

There was no sunset.

No fading orange horizon.

No twilight.

Light simply ceased.

Stars appeared over the desert with terrifying clarity.

Someone screamed.

Someone prayed.

Elrick heard Anna gasp through the phone.

Then something strange happened.

His instruments began sounding alarms inside the observatory.

One after another.

Thirty-seven scientists turned toward the building.

Elrick froze.

Because he knew that alarm.

It wasn't monitoring sunlight.

It was monitoring gravity.

And according to every gravitational detector on Earth—

the Sun was still there.

Invisible.

Silent.

Impossible.

But still there.

Elrick slowly raised the phone.

"Anna?"

"I'm here."

He stared into the darkness where the Sun should have been.

"For the moment," he whispered, "so are we."

Far above Earth, something moved across the empty place where the Sun had disappeared.

Something enormous.

And for the first time in eight minutes,

humanity had a future to be afraid of.