Here is the audiobook for this story:

https://youtu.be/-eH9qvFy0hs

Lauren glanced down. Maybe death would be a path to a reunion, but the moments before that holy union would be wrought with fire, and the twisting of a plane. Perhaps her death would be slow, and enraged embers would bite her body until it was blackened. She shuddered as she came to regret ever allowing herself to imagine her own death and looked out the window.

Military planes flew about. They wove between the tendrils and fired missiles at them—but it was all in vain. The iron core continued to be sucked from the planet, and the eye itself was too far away to strike. Whatever the tendrils were made of, they could withstand the blast of rockets and constant gun fire.

Lauren removed her phone and dialed for her dad. He answered, and she said, "dad, dad. I'm up in the sky and these tendrils are plummeting through planes like they're paper, and I can see them digging into the middle of the earth. Dad, I love you."

Charles said, "I know. Listen, I see it all down here, but anyway, I'm going to foot it as much as I can. If I don't talk to you again, I want you to know that I love you. Love David too, but not as much."

Lauren chuckled, "okay, thanks for that, but I just wanted to try and call you. The pilot is trying to land as soon as possible but can't because everyone else is landing as soon as possible. Dad, I love you, and I hope this isn't a goodbye."

Charles said, "I know sweetheart. I hope not, too. Love you and see you soon." Lauren stared at the phone for a moment as she thought about her father. Maybe it hurt too much for him to talk right now, or perhaps there were other things he had to do, or he was driving. She knew they couldn't talk forever but wanted to remain on the phone for as long as possible. She studied her phone, and watched as her cellular bars went from two bars to no service.

She said, "so, how long before the electrical grid and everything else is wiped out?" David sat for a moment and pondered the question. He guessed a few good shots at key power areas would do the trick.

Lauren double checked her phone while David tried to call his parents. She opened a photo album which held pictures of her when she was three, Charles, Sarah when she was eight, her oldest sister, Bethany, when she was ten, and her mother, Belle. She browsed through the album and found her favorite: a Christmas photo.

She scrolled through them, looking for a source of comfort but found dismay. She opened the video of her first birthday party and watched as everyone gathered around her. She wondered what her sisters would look like now, how her mother would have been. Lauren began to question whether her father would have ever developed an alcohol addiction, or if they would have all grown up as a normal family should. Her train of thought was broken by the buzz of a speaker.

The plane intercom clicked on, and the captain said, "hello, it is I, your captain. We have lost communication with air control, as such, we will do our best to land in the desert. We are about four minutes out from Las Vegas, but we deduced that there is, in no clear definitive way, a safe way to land this plane. We believe these things falling from the sky impaled a critical satellite, and because of that, our global positioning system is no longer functional. Please engage your seat belts, and hold on as best as you can, I will begin making our descent soon."

Lauren's eyes widened. Her stomach lifted as the plane began to suddenly descend. She grabbed onto David's hand and opened the blinder for the window. Somehow, everything had gotten worse. More tendrils, more fire, and part of the earth seemed to have caved in on itself. A valley, which she assumed once held a city, had sunken in. A split had formed across the planet and veered into a place unknown, farther than she could see.

She closed her eyes and tried not to think of her dad. Where is he? Where is he going? Is he in that chasm? No matter how hard she tried to push these thoughts away, they came. They persisted. She thought, I already lost my sisters and mom. I can't lose him too. Or my husband.

The intercom blared to life once again, "we will touch land in ten minutes. For the sake of your knowledge, we are near Henderson Nevada. A forty-five-minute walk from Las Vegas. We will do our best to land as close to the highway as possible, but bear in mind, we are landing on rocky terrain, and we will do our best to ensure a safe landing."

Lauren gritted her teeth and held onto David. She thought, Henderson. Southeast of Paradise. We can walk to my dad. She squeezed David's hand and held onto her armrest. The plane bobbed from left to right.

The intercom returned to life, "landing in two minutes. Brace for impact. I wish you all good luck, and a safe landing."

As the plane teetered from side to side, Lauren felt vomit emerge in the back of her throat as her stomach turned. She squeezed David's hand tight as the plane touched the ground. She closed her eyes and heard a snap, and all at once the plane jerked forward, then back, forward, then back.

Someone began to scream as children began to cry. The engines roared, and suddenly, the plane turned left and everyone in the plane felt their right side get pushed into their seat. The plane careened forward until the nose dug into the ground, and soon, heat. Unbearable heat, and the roar of an explosion.

Charles had abandoned his truck and began walking down I-215. Far in the distance he saw a plane try to land in the desert. Perhaps five miles out from where he was, and from what he could tell, the plane's left wing dug into the uneven earth, and from the cockpit spat a single ball of fire.

He hoped that his daughter wasn't on that plane but knew that she'd be lucky to land anywhere no matter where she was. As he walked down the highway, he turned his sight toward the gargantuan eye. Tens of thousands of tendrils punctured the earth and fed right into its pupil. The blood vessels had become swollen and glowed orange. The whites had now become yellow, and the iris resembled a color mixed with crimson and orange fire.

Though the eye did not move, blink, or shift. It remained frozen in a blank stare as more tendrils spiraled out of its pupil and gouged the earth. They moved like hagfish hunting a carcass and bore into the planet.

A vast pit formed in the wake of the tendril's destruction. Chasms, left behind in the place of consumed iron, had formed into entire valleys. As the liquid iron core of the planet was drained, there was little to hold up the planet's mantle or crust.