They told us not to look as the world ended behind us.

Clouds and blue sky fell behind us as we ascended. The jostling of the shuttle didn’t help my stomach as we cleared the atmosphere. We pushed further and further up, and eventually the turbulence settled as the blackness of space greeted us. People seated around me clapped and cheered, and even I found myself smiling briefly.

I turned my head to the window next to my seat, desperate to get a glance. The countless stars I could see twinkled and shone brightly in every corner of my vision.

And there she was.

Earth. In all her faded glory.

Colossal mega-hurricanes stretched across her surface, the whirling winds twisting and clashing in the atmosphere. The eye of these hurricanes stretched for hundreds of kilometers, and even the visible land inside looked like a corrupted wasteland, not the lush green from countless years ago, but instead a dirty, lifeless brown.

But that wasn’t what killed the Earth.

A massive shadow grew over the little porthole window I was glancing out of, and threatened to consume the ship.

Alarms went off everywhere, red klaxons blaring inside the interior of the ship as the people beside me began to cry out loudly. I gripped my seat tightly as the shuttle swerved sharply, the metal around me groaning in protest. Light filtered back in through my window as the alarms quieted down. The voices around me were whispers again, as the people pointed to the outside of the ship.

I saw the villain now. The hurricanes were nothing in comparison to this thing.

It looked like the moon at this range, as it spun down towards the only home I’d ever known. The rocky outcrop, fissures and craters were frighteningly visible as it floated past the shuttle. I watched it pass, unable to cut my vision away. I saw the jagged cliffs, saw the sunlight kiss off the edge of the trenches, followed the trail of debris for as long as it stretched. I burned the sight of the killer of humanity into my retinas, and I would not forget.

Voices came over the intercom, but I didn’t listen. My body was forced back into the seat as the ship accelerated, and I strained my neck to keep my eyes locked on the asteroid as it began its final descent.

Fire raged across the face of the gigantic rock as it clashed with Earth’s atmosphere, the tendrils of orange and red trying their best to ward off the invader, but to no avail. It pushed through the barrier like it was paper. I saw the atmosphere pop, as the force of the asteroid ripped it from the face of the Earth. The clouds and mega-hurricanes dispersed and cowered away as the missile of rock and fire tore through them.

The intercom sparked to light and told us that the light from the blast would blind us. And then the shutter came down over the windows.

I wondered about all the people left behind, all the animals, everything. I’d seen the simulations of the impact. Watched the crust of the Earth explode out into space, watched the landscape be consumed by the molten super-fires that raged across the entire planet. Only the darkest, deepest bunkers had a chance at survival.

I turned away from my window and learned back into my seat. The people around me were deathly quiet, no one bothered to say a word.

A voice over the intercom told us we had cleared the debris zone, but no one cheered, no one celebrated.

We all sat and stared ahead, now homeless with nowhere to go. The dark depths of space were the only welcoming arms we had.

And those arms were cold and lifeless.