For the first time in the history of The Twilight Islands, the sun set. Darkness like in that pit swallowed us in a moment. We had no use for street lamps with our eternal sun, so our night was made all the darker without them. The islands shook, and the screaming of the crowd could just barely be heard over it's rumbling. I knew and I think we all knew in that moment that our island was through.

  Victoria knew it better than me. The moment her shock wore off she grabbed me by the shirt. "This island is going to sink, we need to get to that train!"

  A week ago I would have had questions, but now I knew enough to just do what she said. The Train People must have filled her in on some of the details that were missing for me. "We're going!" I shouted to Andie over the scream of the crowd. "We have to get off the island!"

  Andie's eyes were wild, and her mouth hung agape as if to scream or yawn. I'd never seen her be afraid in my life. She was always so brave and strong, but this was just asking to much. "What about my dad?"

  "We have to go!" Hayden cut her off and started to push his way through the shuffling crowd. "Get to the train station!"

  That became a rallying cry all across the square. People began to rush to Commerce station, our group among them. Others ran in different directions. They tried to go home, or find safety away from the crush of the crowd. It was a dire first few minutes. Children were getting slung over shoulders, and more than one person was crushed beneath the crowd.

  That magnitude of what had just happened had not fully sunk in when I saw the sea. It was wrong. The glittering blue waters, I'd surfed and swam in for my whole life was gone. Not it was that black muck I saw back in the forest. A thick slime that would never reflect the sunset. It barley rippled or moved as our island was slowly swallowed by it. The beaches were gone. The perimeter of the islands were slowly shrinking, the oil crawled further and further up the paths into town.

  The Central Station was not far from the square, soon folks were rushing into the station, boarding whatever train they could, hoping another island was faring better.

  We all knew where our destiny led. The Ghost Train, where this whole thing started was waiting for us. It now had several more passenger cars hitched to the engine, doors wide open. "It'll save us." Victoria said with more confidence than I had in the earth beneath my feet. She was at the head of the charge now. Our fearless leader. "It's going to take us somewhere safe, everyone board in an orderly fashion."

  One man didn't like the sound of that and pushed his way towards the door. Hayden grabbed the man by the back of the collar and pulled him out of line. "She said orderly, pops!" He decked the man, and pushed him back in line. The crowd gasped, but Hayden's loss to me hadn't done anything to hurt his reputation. If you got out of line he was going to attack, and that was that.

  "Come on Vance." I had our portly friend leaned on my shoulder. Running was not one of his many blessings. I was afraid he was going to get swallowed up if I didn't help me.

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He gasped.

  I brought him over to Victoria, who was directing traffic between the cars. It was unbelievable, this person had been inside of her the whole time. She probably would have said that it should have been obvious, but I felt like I was seeing her for the first time. She was a leader, a hero. "Do you know where this thing is going to take us?" I asked.

  "Away from here." She whispered to me. "Back to where they came from."

  My heart sank. "We'll be refugees."

  "We'll be alive." She said sternly.

  "How are you so calm?"

  She shrugged. "They told me something like this might happen, and what to do if it did." More secrets. That familiar anger was burning inside of me. Why had my friend been so determined to throw herself in with these people who'd done nothing but bring destruction to our home? Why didn't she warn us or anybody if she knew this could be the outcome?

  I couldn't even bare to look at her, but Vance could. Exhausted as he would he took his arm away from me and stood up. "You knew this was going to happen, and didn't warn us?

  She could only roll her eyes. "This isn't the time. Either help, or get on the train." Her voice was stone, immovable.

  Vance looked to me, and then with a defeated sigh boarded the train. So much for that. If even Vance couldn't stand going against her right now, there was no hope for any of us.

  I turned around expecting Andie to be right behind me, but she wasn't anywhere in the line. "Have you seen Andie?" I asked Victoria.

  "Last I saw her she was with you."

  "Andie!" I shouted, and started jogging along the line. "Andie!"

  My voice was only one of dozens, people were crying out for their own loved ones, mothers, fathers, wives, and children all looking for each other.

  Where could she be?

  I ran around the station, asked around, but found nothing. Had she been trampled, was she lost? Then I remembered the last thing she said.

  She'd been concerned for her dad, and rightfully so. He was stuck in their house, still recovering. A sick feeling formed in my stomach. "No, Andie no!" I growled and sprinted out of the train station. "No, no no no!"

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The darkness, that oil was now sputtering out of storm drains. The tunnels were filled with the sludge and now lapped ever higher at the stairs leading down. The island as a whole just felt lower. I found the bridge to Cilla and it was a gut churning sight all on it's own. The deep chasm that separated the two islands was now shallow, the bridge barley rose over a river of black sludge. What was beyond the bridge was worse.

  My home was gone, all that was left were the rooftops and even those sunk dutifully down beneath the surface of the dark sea. My house, the hardware store, my whole life was sinking away.

  I took a step back from the horror, intending to run back, when I caught sight of a certain someone running up the path that led to the bridge. Andie was running from the rising tide, as it swallowed the ground behind her. She sprinted up the hill, along the path and over the bridge, only to collide with me.

  We stumbled back, her collapsing in my arms. "I couldn't get to him!" She shrieked and clawed at my still painted skin.

  "Your dad?" I looked over her in horror at the sinking island. Andie's dad, and who knew how many other souls were just... gone.

  "I had to turn back, Yorick. I had to, there was nothing left." She was hysterical, and I don't say that condescendingly. I wasn't in full control of my faculties either.

  "I know. I believe you." I tried to calm her. "We have to get to the station, they're going to leave without us.

  That seemed to focus her. The threat of getting swallowed by the darkness was too much for her. She nodded and sprinted away without me.

  I followed, and together we tore through town as best we could but it wasn't enough. Pools of the nothingness were gathering in the street. We dodged around them, but larger deeper puddles kept forming. The blackness began to seep up from between the cobble stone street, eating away at the bricks. Again the oil had no substance, it was nothing at all. The brick under out feet felt like we were standing on a metal grate.

  Before it could give out beneath us we jumped onto the sidewalk but that would only buy as a few moments. "We're screwed." Andie cursed, looking out at the vast lake of sludge between us and the train station. "We'll never make it."

  She was right. "We have to get to high ground." I grabbed her hand and ran back into the square, which was at least up a hill. I turned my head and saw that the space we'd been occupying moments ago was already gone. The square was abandoned now. It was like Andie and I were the only souls left. Everyone else had either gotten away or was swallowed. I half expected to see the jester still behind his booth, rolling his dice. He was gone. Even his vast weirdness couldn't survive all this.

  "You know where we have to go." Andie said, pointing up towards Twilight Tower. The soul of the island according to her. Now that she mentioned it, it did seem inevitable. That's where our relationship started. It seemed a shame to let it die there too, but it seemed a greater shame to drown here at the base of the tower.

  We waded through the debris. Chairs were overturned, carts were thrown down, and Cyrus still laid in the arena, our champion until the end. Hard to believe that his death was the cause of all of this, in a way I still didn't understand. There'd been something great in him. Or he represented something great, something that was now gone. He deserved more mourning than we had time for. All I could do was spare him one last look, before we threw open the doors of Twilight Tower.

  The elevators were down, the generators for them no doubt swimming in the same black swamp as the rest of the island. We had no choice but to go round, and round, and round the stairs. It was hard not to notice that as we gained height, the tower was losing height, it was sinking beneath our feet, but there's nothing we could do but keep running.

  By the time we burst out of the top of the tower we were wheezing. My lungs were on fire, and didn't feel like I was getting in any air at all.

  "Oh god." Andie huffed as she took in the view. What an awful sight, there was nothing left. No island, no sea, no sun, no train station. We were the last two souls in the world, standing on the last bit of solid ground.

  "It's just gone." I gawked, shaking my head. How could our entire home just disappear in a few minutes? The sun set, the beaches, gone forever. What did we do to deserve this?

  "We'll be gone before long too." Andie said calmly, the hysteria from earlier replaced with a serene resignation.

  I wrapped my arms around her, and pulled her in close to me. "It's not fair." I sighed. "I thought we'd save each other." We leaned into eachother partly for the support in our exhaustion, and partly just to be near.

  Andie had nothing more to say. She just wrapped her arms around me, and held me close, as we waited for the world to end.

  Below us the clock tower rang out. It announced a new hour, to a world that would never live to see it.

  A blue light flashed, in the midst of all that darkness. Andie and I pulled ourselves apart at the sudden effect. We wheeled back to see what challenge we faced now.

  There floating in the middle of the air was a pair of rounded doors within a smooth stone arch. At the top of the arc there was a statue of a hooded clown, it perched over the gate menacingly, and stared down at us with two empty, still eyes.

  "What is it?" Andie asked, she reached out to touch the thing.

  The clown motif could only belong to one person. The Jester who'd asked me if I'd figured everything out yesterday. Standing there among the great nothingness of my hometown, I could safely say that the world had never been less clear. "It's some kind of test from the jester."

  "The one who gave you that ticket?" Andie looked at me. "Why would he..." She gestured to the doors floating in the middle of nothing.

  "The ticket!" I kissed her and dug the blue ticket out of my pocket. Thank goodness I didn't do laundry! He held the tiny strip of fabric up to the gate. "Here!" I said, already feeling ridiculous. "You said I could get in for free!" I threw my arm back around Andie. "That that I could bring a guest!"

  The ticket vanished from my hand, and the eyes on the gate glowed a ghastly green. "Accepted." It sang in a deep tone that spread ripples through the infinite ocean around us. "Rolling for Number of entrants..."

  Clutched in the clown's hand was a stone cube. The fingers came to life long enough to drop the cube. It landed on thin air, and danced about area in front of us. This was it. "All we need is a two." I guessed, holding her hand for support.

  "Our luck hasn't run out yet!" She thumped the railing and cheered the die on. "Come on big money!"

  But we'd forgotten, that the jester had been playing with a loaded die. After much fanfare, and all that hope it landed on a one.

  My heart sunk, I sunk. "No."

  "One shall be admitted." The door boomed. The doors creaked open, revealing more darkness in the room beyond. A different type of darkness. Sitting there in the midst of nothing was the jester, crisscross apple sauce. He waved at us with one hand, and beckoned us inside with the other. That bastard! He knew this was going to happen all along, and he did nothing! He just let everyone die!

  'Give it to Andie, give it to Andie, give it to Andie' I chanted over and over in my head. 'Be the hero. Save her."

  But it was all too much. My body climbed onto the railing, and jumped the distance to the door almost without my asking. My cowardice has been to great. I wanted to live!

  I looked back, god why did I look back. The last image of her I saw was her weeping face, and an outstretched hand. I reached out to grab her, to save her, to say I'm sorry, but the door closed shut and sucked me inside.

  I'm sorry Andie. I'm so so sorry for leaving you behind. It's just... I was afraid.