Dandelion Sky

By Seraphina Gilbert @2026

The weeds were first to die.

And then one by one, by hundreds of thousands, the dandelions fell and turned to dust.
Then the thistles, and the brambles, and every other thorn in our sides. After that, the locusts and the black flies all fell from the sky; one by one, then all at once. And we all cheered. We all cheered, for the pestilences that plagued our fields were finally vanquished. We went about our days, enjoying our bountiful harvests and making merry until the early morn.

We enjoyed our newfound freedom for months before the high came crashing down. Like
the weak weeds before them, the flowers soon died, and the grass and the corn. And then suddenly, butterflies and bumblebees became as rare as shooting stars. Everything once alive slowly became a deathly, black dust that suffocated all that remained. The dust spread across the Earth like a swarm in the wind, until even the wind itself died like everything else. The world grew still, and then the world became cold. It was like the very universe itself choked upon its own breath and then never fought to breathe.

Our abundance became nothingness and we soon became alone on our world. We began to yearn for the days that mosquitoes would nibble at our skin. And for the bee stings, the wasp bites, and the cat scratches and the howling dogs. There were no leaves left to rustle or branches to crack and fall. The world was empty and quiet, and we drowned in the silence of it all. And soon enough, not before long, all that was left was us and dust of all that we once loved. In our misery, we turned to the night sky for guidance. And as we did, we realized that we were so lost in ourselves andntrapped in the loss our world, we never saw how the darkness did grow.

When we finally turned to the skies, only half the stars did shine like before. The stars were disappearing, fading away as the last shadows of night. And like all that was good to us, our star soon disappeared too — dead, like the empty world it once warmed. We watched in fear, as our people starved. One by one, no better than the weeds we once wished upon, we flickered and turned to dust. Night by night, first a star and then a friend.

We were a hungry people left to watch a tired horizon. Many of us simply laid down and
patiently awaited the dust. Others fought, begged and pleaded out to their god, yet to no avail. The suns of distant worlds continued to die. Our brothers, continued to die. Were there others out there like us? Other starless planets of wretched black dust? If not, why us? How did we deserve this? Despite the grief, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the void. I was frozen as I watched them die.

One by one.

One by one.

One by one.

I watched until there was nothing left, just darkness reflected in my eyes.

It took what felt like years to break my gaze from the sky. And when I finally turned away,
there was no one to turn to. There was just dust — mountains of it at my feet. Every grain, every molecule, once a person, once afraid. But there was a time, before all the fear. There was a time of family, of harvests and of love. What is now ash, was once a roaring fire cradled in the hearth. I was so lost in the greatness of the universe that I lost out on the last greatness of home. Without even noticing it, all that was left was me. Only me.

Until I heard the screams.

Like the world around it, the terror was silent at first. A quiet that even nothingness was
unable to perceive. And then like a shutter, a low rumble that ripped into my chest and very soul, I felt the cries. The vibrations cascaded from beyond the hills and cliffs, from beyond the skyless void above me. Slow. Low. Dark. Louder and louder still, until I too, could do nothing but cry out.

I seized — my knees buckling until they scraped the floor of rock bottom. The drone of
agony filled my body and took hold until I was a marionette of its devices. The ground beneath me, once the home of flora and fruitful splendor, now a dusty dark mess, clawing away the strength of my shins. My hands, once strong, the wielders of scythes for the harvest, now pinned to my ears — my aching fingers scrounging for purchase, for relief from the sound. A relief that would never come. A type of relief that had been erased from this world.

The screams devoured me. Consumed me. And for years, I existed for it to digest. A victim
of its misery, or maybe the final target of its last act of revenge. Whatever it was, I endured. Tears had long since stopped welling in my eyes, and my head became flat and hairless with both ears and strands having been scraped away by struggling fingers. All that survived was the blood and the scars of their memory. Existence became mindless; like the sky, I too was nothing. I had surrendered to my fate under the cries of the world. The sound became me and I had become the Earth all around.

Like a lesson begging to be taught the wails continued until even time died too. The ticking
of the clocks became the black sands left to fill its own hourglass. Moments flittered away, one by one, by hundreds and thousands, just like all before. With the stars all dead, the universe could abolish the sundial. Age has name and I had lived long enough to learn it and forget it a thousand times over. I had suffered for so long under the sky that I wasn’t even sure if there was blood left in my veins, or for that matter, veins left to bleed. It had been forever and a day, and I was still there. Still somehow there. Just me, alone. One by one we all fell, and like one, I was alone.

I am alone.

It was a shrill cry, an echo of my thoughts from outside my own skull. The piercing
frequency had replaced the heavy drone of before.

It’s cold, and it is dark.

No, the high pitch screeches were the same sounds as before. Simply a new, different
utterance from the same old, broken creature.

It’s dead, and I am lonely.

The banshee screams shook everything around me, and the world crumbled like an echo of Jericho. The sound itself demanded that I alone knew its name. The sheer vibrations themselves uprooted the rocks and dust, turning the flat, once-field around me into a jagged mess of cliffsides and rubble. As if I was carefully chosen by the hands of God, the ground beneath lifted me towards the blackened sky. Becoming the acme of the Earth I rose, and the violence of the cries grew louder and louder still. As the broken surface below me became a distant memory, I realized the sounds weren’t of this world — they never were. The were from beyond.

It is so very dark.

I looked up, my eyes struggled to see past the veil of the void; the pure darkness more
piercing than light itself. I fought to find focus, and it when it was found, I could finally see it. I could understand it all. It was still there. The Moon was still there. When the sun died, all hopes of the Moon died with it too. It’s brilliant white face was never to be seen again. Never, until centuries beyond, never until now. I could not see its surface, but I knew it was there; I knew I had been hearing its prayer since before death itself died. Beyond the dark, in the inky isolation of a universe new, our lonely Moon had been pleading to whatever gods may have been.

Please.

Please.

Please.

It was a harsh, layered howl — pain and anger intermingling into an enriched desperation.
The sound of the devastation itself laid somewhere between scratched chalkboards and grieving mothers. With that I finally understood that it was never about me, or us, or anyone. I was neither a victim nor the target; the same as my people, the flowers, the weeds and the bugs. The same as the poor moon, so high up above. We were all just lost, collateral damage, innocent bystanders watching a universe we truly never knew. The lonesome Moon was lashing out, crying for light, for love, for my people. It could not reach me, nor could I reach it. And yet, here we were adrift in our own reality, forever stuck together and cursed to always be apart. Finally, after centuries of drought, water welled in my eyes.

I shed my own tears, tears to accompany the Moon. We both cried, a wish for the light of
the world to return. We both wished for the loneliness to be spread amongst the world, instead of confined to a lowly two. We together could’ve coped with the torment, but apart, from afar, two will never dull the pain. We wished, and dreamed, and hoped, but with no focus to hone the magic of our desires, it was in vain. Everything was always in vain. The universe had disappeared and there was nothing left to wish on — so long ago did the stars stop falling from the skies.

And the dandelions, the beautiful and stubborn dandelions… they too were gone. Never
again would I see snow-like seeds fill the open skies, now instead in its place a veil of inky dust that suffocates. The rolling seas of yellow that were scattered along the plains — they’re gone. And then with that thought, my tears were no longer for me or the shrouded Moon above. I cried now, for the weeds and the blackflies, I cried for the dandelions and their white tufts. I cried because once, one day centuries ago, I laughed at their disappearance and cheered for the dust. If only I had known. If only we had known. I am alone now, and I am the only one who will ever know that the weeds were first to die and we all cheered —

The weeds were first to die, and then one by one, by hundreds of thousands, we all died too.