It's The End Of The World As We Know It

by Samey90


18. A Very Sunny Day

An empty bottle fell off the windowsill and broke, waking Sunny up. She groaned and looked around, noticing that she’d fallen asleep after coming back from the hospice, still wearing the same clothes as she had at night – a greenish lab coat over a completely unfashionable tracksuit. The shards of glass on the floor reminded her that she’d thought that getting drunk was the best way of forgetting of what she’d seen. Thumping pain in her head told her that it wasn’t.

To her credit, when twenty minutes later Sunny Flare walked out of her house and headed towards the bus stop, no one could say how hungover she was. Dressed in her pristine uniform, with perfect make-up, she looked as prim and proper as usual, ready to face every challenge the world had in store.

Her expression faded slightly, when she didn’t see Indigo’s car coming to pick her up from the bus stop. She groaned, wiping her nose – the day was rather cold and she immediately felt sick.

“No wonder…” she muttered to herself, buttoning her blazer. “Everyone in the hospice is sick, therefore I must be too.”

She looked around, but Indigo still weren’t there. Eventually, the bus came and Sunny had no other choice than to take it, carefully wiping the railing with hand sanitiser before grabbing it. As usual, the bus was full of people, sleepy, coughing, and badly dressed. Sunny gritted her teeth, and looked at the screen of her wrist devices, filled with lines of code. She raised her eyebrows – it was apparently something she was working on before the alcohol finally overcame her. All of the variables had nonsensical names and the program ended with a random cluster of letters when Sunny’s fingers had slipped off the keyboard.

“Was I trying to turn off all the power plants in the country with that?” Sunny whispered to herself. “Meh, I’d better save this file.”

The bus stopped in front of the school. Sunny jumped on the pavement and looked around before going towards the building. Indigo wasn’t there; several students looked back at Sunny, apparently surprised that they didn’t come to school together. Sunny shrugged and walked to the classroom.

She met Lemon Zest sitting by the wall, next to the classroom door, away from the other classmates. Interestingly, she wasn’t wearing her headphones, instead staring into the distance, her chin rested on her knees.

“How was Halloween?” Sunny asked, sitting by Lemon’s side.

“I don’t know, they didn’t tell me yet,” Lemon muttered, rubbing her temples. “I think I teleported to my bed at some point and then Sour Sweet came to drag me to school.”

Sunny nodded. “Where’s she now?”

“She said she needed to have a shit,” Lemon replied.

Sunny winced. “That’s a bit more than I wanted to know.”

“Then why did you ask?”

Sunny looked at Lemon, and for a moment they were both silent, staring at the opposite wall. Finally, Sunny said, “So, I was thinking…”

“What?”

“You’re still afraid that you’re gonna die when you’re twenty-five, right?” Sunny asked.

“Yes,” Lemon Zest replied. “Why are you asking?”

“I spent a day in a room with a woman who was ninety-five.” Sunny Flare shuddered. “Dying at twenty-five seems like a nice alternative. You know, for starters, you remember that I’m not your daughter. And you can walk. Not to mention seeing or eating normally. Really, if I’m going to live to that age, I’m gonna shoot myself while I still can.”

Lemon nodded. “Would you do that to me if I got sick?”

“What?” Sunny raised her eyebrows. “After leaving the hospice, I handled my feelings like a true adult and now my head feels like I got ran over by a steamroller. It’s most definitely too early to discuss assisted suicide.”

“I’ll ask Sour Sweet, then.”

Sunny Flare sighed and shook her head. At the same moment, they heard the nearby door opening and saw Sour Sweet. She slammed the door shut and headed towards her friends. At first, she failed to notice Sunny and walked by her, but then, she turned back to her, saying, “Oh, hai Sunny.”

“Hello,” Sunny replied. “How was, umm… the visit in the toilet?”

“I have colon cancer,” Sour Sweet shrugged. “Or I just ate too many burritos.”

“Why did I even come to school today?” Sunny muttered, rubbing some sanitiser into her hands. “Could’ve called in sick, instead of sitting here, hungover, talking about death, illness, and shit.”

“Three most certain things.” Lemon nodded.

“Don’t forget taxes,” Sour said. “And that disappointment in your mother’s eyes when she’s looking at you.”

Lemon hid her face in her hands and wept.

“You probably shouldn’t have mentioned her mother,” Sunny said.

“What?” Sour Sweet raised her eyebrows. “I was talking about my mother!”

Sunny threw her head back, banging it against the wall.


The equations were filling the page, piling at the top of one another like old cars in a junkyard. Sunny gritted her teeth; she tried to achieve certainty without doubt and truth without error, but placing the foundation of knowledge in mathematics was pretty hard when biochemistry was hitting her hard. More exactly, against her better judgement, Sunny’s liver kept breaking the alcohol down to acetaldehyde, causing the numbers to blur and prance around the piece of paper while she tried to focus.

“Oh, feckin’ cumbubble…” she muttered to herself.

“What?” Indigo asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m getting an F, that’s what,” Sunny whispered, lowering her head and staring at the equations. They were apparently trying to tell her something, but her ears felt like the sound was cranked up to eleven and all she was getting was feedback. She grabbed a pen and tried to solve the problems, ending up getting lost somewhere in the forest of seventh roots and multi-storey degrees. When the test was over, she groaned and rested her head on the table.

“Are old people really that tiring?” Indigo asked.

“I caught something in the bus,” Sunny replied. “Why didn’t you pick me up?”

“I didn’t sleep at home.” Indigo smirked. “And my car doesn’t work. I need to clean the upholstery.”

“What happened to it?” Sunny looked at Indigo and noticed that her uniform was even messier than usual; it seemed that she’d put it on without taking the pirate outfit off first – she was wearing long, black sirwal under her skirt.

Indigo blushed. “Lemon puked on it.”

“Hey, I didn’t!” Lemon exclaimed.

“You were high as a kite, how do you know?” Indigo groaned.

“You’re making that face again…”

“Oh, fuck me…” Indigo shook her head and turned to Sunny. “What is wrong with my face?”

Sunny shrugged. “Dunno. I need some painkiller. And coffee. And a loaded gun.”

Somebody patted her back. She turned in her chair and saw Sour Sweet, who handed her some white and green pill. “Thanks,” she said, swallowing it.

“You’re welcome,” Sour Sweet said. Something about her smile didn’t seem right.

“That was a painkiller, right?” Sunny asked.

“Yes.” Sour grinned. “Among other things.”

“Are you sure?” Sunny managed a half-smile. The headache slowly disappeared, replaced by a warm feeling in her stomach. “Or actually, nevermind…”

“At that rate, you’ll need a new liver soon,” Indigo muttered. “Especially with the drinking.”

“I didn’t drink, you holy teetotalling virgin,” Sunny replied. “Does my face say that I lie?”

“No,” Indigo said. “Your breath.”

She ducked right in time to avoid the ruler being thrown at her.


For Sunny, the time passed in a blurry haze, as if she went rafting in a rough, rocky rapid. However, the lunch break came, throwing her raft on the rocks of hangover, and leaving her there, bloodied, cold, and bruised.

“Sunny, are you listening to me?” Indigo asked.

“Her eating disorders are coming back,” Sugarcoat said, staring at Sunny’s plate. “Although I also think this isn’t something one should give to teenagers to keep them in good health.”

“I don’t have an eating disorder, you twat,” Sunny muttered, rubbing her temples and looking at her food. “Also, I need a few hours of sleep which I don’t get because I have to learn after I’m done with nursing old people.”

“About that,” Indigo said. “Coach Sombra wants to see you at the training. Not to mention that the philosophical society keeps asking me about you.”

“Ask him if he knows what a court order is,” Sunny replied. “I won’t help the team if I end up dropping the soap in prison. As for the philosophical society, instead of discussing death according to various philosophers, they can come to the hospice and experience it first-hand.”

“I guess they’d be thrilled,” Indigo muttered. “Someone really does it because they want to?”

“You’d be surprised,” Sunny said. “I ended up with a bunch of volunteers. No one from our school, though, thank fuck.”

“I wonder why…” Lemon Zest shrugged. “So many people in here and no one wants to help?”

“Maybe because we’re not a bunch of hippies who feel guilty because they’re better off than the others,” Sugarcoat replied. “Like Sandalwood.”

“Or maybe we think that earning and investing money in geriatrics would help more than volunteering ourselves,” Sour Sweet said. In the ensuing silence, she looked at the faces of her friends. “What? Why does everyone look so surprised every time I’m trying to say something deep?”

“No one invests money in geriatrics anyway,” Sugarcoat muttered. “Can we stop talking about old people? I’m trying to eat.”

“Yeah.” Sunny nodded. “It’s enough for me that I’ll have to go there for the next month…”


The changing room, just like the rest of the building, was painted in pastel colours, which always made Sunny want to punch someone. She looked at the papers she had been given in the court, and sighed, seeing how many more hours she had to spend there.

What was worse, when she arrived to the hospice after school, she found out that Sweet Leaf was already there, trying to tie her long, green hair in a ponytail, so they wouldn’t get in her way. Always energetic and upbeat, Sweet Leaf was one of the volunteers, and she was universally adored by the staff, the patients, and their families alike.

Needless to say, Sunny Flare hated her guts.

“How was your day?” Sweet Leaf asked, emerging from behind the row of lockers. She was wearing only her underwear, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “We had an interesting discussion with Sandalwood and Starlight today, about modern feminism.”

“Sandalwood and feminism?” Sunny shook her head. “I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Yeah, he’s still in the stone age here,” Sweet Leaf said. “Also, you know Sandalwood? Seems that everyone knows him…”

“Unfortunately.” Sunny took off her blazer and opened her locker. “I was gonna ask… Why did you volunteer to go here?”

Sweet Leaf shrugged. “Well, I chose this place because my grandma was here before she died. Also, I always wanted to become a doctor, so…”

“I once wanted to be a plastic surgeon,” Sunny said. “They make a lot of money.” She took off her wrist devices – any jewellery was banned by someone who thought it’d transfer bacteria from patient to patient. “But in case of electronics, you don’t have to deal with people.”

“A plastic surgeon?” Sweet Leaf asked. “No, I’d go to Africa to help people.”

Sunny slammed the door of her locker and turned to Sweet Leaf. “Another one? Please, if everyone who says that actually went there, they’d have more doctors than patients.” She rolled her eyes. “Sure, you may become a doctor, but as soon as your parents stop giving you money, you’ll stop thinking about Africa.”

She couldn’t help but smirk, seeing that Sweet Leaf finally shut up, her mouth agape. However, this moment of triumph didn’t last long. “What do you know?” Sweet Leaf asked. “Maybe my parents don’t give me money? And maybe I really want to help people?”

“Sure. You are at school and then you come here,” Sunny muttered. “Unless you whore yourself at night, I don’t believe you’re earning your money yourself.”

“Not everyone is like you,” Sweet Leaf replied. “No wonder you ended up getting drunk and breaking into a store… You think everyone is horrible and that makes you–”

“Oh, stop being my psychologist!” Sunny groaned. “Can we, like, go upstairs and work, so I can do my hours and get out of here? Talking to me is not necessary.”

“You must be pretty sad, huh?” Sweet Leaf asked when they left the changing room.

“And you can’t shut up,” Sunny muttered. “If you let me work, I’ll eventually leave and you won’t have to look at my face if it ruins your little world that much…”

“Please, it takes more to ruin it than that,” Sweet Leaf muttered. “And if you’re really so cynical, I can always send you a postcard from some place in Africa.”

“Okay then.” Sunny smirked. “Or you can send me a postcard from any famous hospital you end up in. I’ll be waiting.”

“There you are, you two!” The head nurse, Ms. Care Heart, approached them, staring in horror at the state of their lab coats. “Someone has to help me bathe Ms. Cardigan.”

“I think Sunny will gladly do that…” Sweet Leaf said with the most innocent smile on her face.


When Sunny reached home, the first thing she noticed was a bottle of wine standing on the coffee table, next to a stack of papers and several sharpies in different colours – an unmistakable sign that her mother was working on a new script.

“Later, mom,” Sunny muttered when her mother walked to the cabinet to grab another glass. “I think I still smell of old people.”

She went directly to the bathroom and came back fifteen minutes later, wrapped in a sleeping gown. Then, she sat on the couch next to her mother and looked at the script, marked with notes and colourful lines.

“So, how was your day?” Sunny’s mother gave her a cup of wine. Sunny looked at the bottle and saw that there was only some of it left at the bottom, meaning that the famous Lens Flare worked for quite a while.

“Mostly fine,” Sunny replied. “Except that one volunteer who’s a cunt.”

Sunny’s mother nodded. “And what do you want to do about that?”

Sunny took a sip of her wine. “A few things come to mind.”

“Good.” Sunny’s mother smirked. “Nice to see that you can deal with your problems yourself…”

“Yeah…” Sunny furrowed her eyebrows. “Gotta do my homework.”

She walked upstairs, listening to her mother saying something about the importance of education and trying not to burst in laughter, thinking how her mother’s life turned out after meeting the heir of a real estate empire.

After Sunny locked herself in her room, she opened a drawer and grabbed some device. With a USB plug that looked like it’d been yanked out of some other device and soldered to a piece of copper wire wrapped in orange tape, she connected it to her wrist devices. The screen went black, and then filled with some symbols.

“Okay, Sweet Leaf…” Sunny muttered. “Let’s see what secrets you keep…”

Getting the contents of Sweet Leaf’s phone was far too easy for Sunny. When she finally gained the access to the gallery, she was disappointed – not because there was nothing in there, but because of how little challenge it presented.

“Not bad…” Sunny nodded, opening a rather inconspicuous folder and smirking. “Not bad at all, Sweet Leaf. Would be a shame if those ended up all over the internet…”

She downed a glass of wine and lay on her bed, untying the belt of her sleeping gown. “But worry not. I’m only gonna need them for private use…”