Earth was doomed, and everyone knew it.

Even in the very beginning of it all, it was quite obvious to any astute observer that something had gone horribly wrong.

The decay of the planet came in slow steady waves that were quite easily recognized. So much so, that its decay was quite often compared to the sad collapse of a cancer patient. A sad, miserable, incurable, and spherical cancer patient. A spherical cancer patient that held the interests of quite a few people. Mainly everyone who lived on Earth.

First, the diagnosis came.

It wasn't all too surprising. By the time the sky had taken on a greenish tint and the seas a gainly yellow, most people figured that things were about to take a drastic turn.

Nature itself had become fed up with humanity's games. Taking fate into its own hands the enranged primordial spirit unleashed a plague upon the planet warping and twisting its inhabitants and all that lived upon its surface.

By the time plants had started turning pink and wilting, people had begun to start seriously talking about it.

Now, that's not to say the decaying nature of the very ground people walked upon wants talked about beforehand. It was just kept on the down-low and was spoken about in hushed tones, in case just ignoring it would cause it to go away like most other problems.

The mass panic only happened after everyone confirmed that ignoring the collapse of Nature itself wasn't just going to fix anything.

By the time every single natural disaster out of the book of man hit every single large metropolitan area of the earth at the same time; well, let's just say people got busy. But not too busy, some people still thought the end of the world was easily avoidable. They had the nerve, the audacity, and the gumption to, as they claimed they could "weather it out".

That was until people and animals started to change of course. Growing. Transforming. Evolving into something a little more primordial. Turning into something straight out of a B-rate zombie movie. Something a little more insane, something a lot more corrupted. That was when things got serious.

So that was when the first round of serious treatment for the dying earth started. The lighter stuff of course. The stuff that the ordinary people tried doing. The governments took a week or two to even pass the needed legislation. And the corporations ??? They refused to move until the stock market literally died out.

Factories shut down, people tried recycling ( a bit too late really), and doomsday bunkers became all the rage. A lot of people really got into gardening for a few years, trying their best to appease the great beast that was mother nature. Either that or they just got mind-controlled into doing it by the now eldritch plants.

Tragically, no amount of government policy or hobbyist gardening could really solve the problem.

Not when entire forests were turning Pepto Bismol pink and the oceans were literally boiling.

So the second stage of treatment started. I feel like there was much more that happened around this time but for some reason, I am unaware of it. Things for me started to get a little fuzzy around here. A little more colorful..... twisted even.... This was the point when I got into gardening. But I was still conscious so I know the gist of what happened.

At this point governments, corporations, and people alike really started working hard to fix the whole dying earth problem. In my opinion, people probably just got sick and tired of staring at green skys for a month or two. Well, that or the famine.

Everything was tried from what I remember.

When I say everything was tried I mean EVERYTHING. Ecological experiments, green tea, nukes, robots, solar pannels, human sacrifice, mass migration, the closing of the wage gap, aura realignment, the global legalization of gay marriage, mass meditation, the abandonment of fossil fuels, cryptocurrency, kindness. The Canadian government even revealed the fact that they had a form of male birth control hidden for half a century. It's really amazing what people can get up to when everyone has at least a 99.9231% chance of death within a good five years.

But in the end, not unlike the sudden death of a moody houseplant that just got moved out of its favorite corner, nothing could be done to prevent the wilting of the Earth itself. Because in the end it was scientifically proven that the earth itself just decided it didn't want to go on any longer.

I really don't know how that was proven, but it was. I saw the studies. Studies that were probably written by an overdosing overstressed intern with hopes to save the world collaborating with an older more over-rated scientist who would undoubtedly take credit for whatever findings were made. So take that all with a bit of salt.

I sure did.

So I turned to the second world-famous scientist online and learned that they really had no clue what was going on. A suicidal planet was really their best guess. That or aliens.....

To be honest I really almost did hop onto that whole suicidal planet bandwagon. That was until the aliens actually did show up. Real big shocker that was.

I was out in my front yard, really trying to catch onto that whole gardening trend. It was odd, strange even to just start gardening in an apocalypse, I admit it. But for some reason, I just felt compelled to take care of the strange twisted oddities that sprung up in my front yard.

The plants they spoke to me. And I spoke back...

It was nice....

Pleasant even ....

Comforting....

E̷͚̦̖͐́̿̈N̴̺̙̪̲̥͔̩̉̈́̆̔̚͠C̵̤̙̯̜̗͎͉͐̂͂̐͜͝O̴̪̳̰̝̾̄̈́̄̊̂̚̕Ḿ̷̳̻͍͔̲̠͐̄͜ͅP̶̘̄͝A̷̺͕̘̭͑̊Ś̵͎̈́̅̇̓I̷̛̙̥̳̦̱͇̪̱̽͒̌͝ͅN̷͔̊̋̒͜G̵̻̻̻̘̻͔̀͗͗́͆̽͛̾͘͜ͅ ̵͙̫̈

Well, that was until a little blue box shook me from my revelry. Waking that little mote of sanity that rested deep within my brain, something that had been taken up by the odd whispers of strange plants for far too long.

-- Code 1232125 - Entropy corruption detected - Intelligent Lifeforms detected -- Code 1231242134124 -

-- System Integration Failed --

-- System related consequences have been determined as the driving factor behind planetary extinction --

-- Procedures updated --

-- Emergency aid and remuneration offered --

-- Calculating --

-- Ding !!! Hello there Ben Aetherus Dover this is m̷̧͓̳͙͇͉̝͍̩̠̱̩̩̈́r̵̘̙̝͉͈̭̹̹͓̃̾͑̈́̊̅̉̀̚ ̴̪̗͚̘̫͔̖̔̓̓̐̌͘͜b̵̧̛̤̳̝̞͍̱͆̌͆̓̒͐͗́̌̕l̶̨̓̉̏͌̂̽̈́̔̀̈̍̏̅̀̂͘͝u̷̠̰͓͈͎̠̘̩̲͛͊̿̌̿́̍̀̌̕͠ȩ̵̱̊͛-

-- As a recompense for the accidental extinction event that your species has gone through you and the rest of your species have been offered a second chance. Sadly we will have to replace your physical form as it is mostly corrupted beyond repairing but we are sure to give you a replacement that you are sure to enjoy. Depending on your actions in this life we will make sure to put you in a place where you can live out your new life to the fullest ( Physical body not guaranteed ) . --

-- Accept -- -- Decline --

-- Warning * by accepting you choose to forever leave this dying planet behind --

Taking one deep breath and looking around at the horrible state of the world around me and myself I did the sensible thing. Rush into my house and rummage through one of my oddly decayed wardrobes. I really could have sworn that the wood wasn't that rotten just yesterday... But thats not the point....

If I was to disappear I was to do it in style. Something was wrong but and I couldn't tell what.

I couldn't tell if the blue box was actually a real thing or the last vestiges of my humanity, desperately trying to lure my muddled brain to a peaceful rest, but in the end, I couldn't help but comply.

My brain never really hallucinated up a " Get The Hell Out Of Here " sign often, but when it did It usually paid off to listen.

So, I ran into my house, or what was left of it, and wrapped myself up in my most expensive finery. A suit that I hadn't worn since the end of days started, and an overpriced gender-neutral cologne. I threw on what used to be my mother's favorite golden wristwatch and my father's favorite tie that also got passed onto him. A pair of silk gloves gifted to me by a good friend that I couldn't remember topped the outfit off. I even applied several heavy layers of makeup in order to cover up my half-melted multi-colored face. I dusted the long faded pictures of my family and closest relatives one last time and I gave the floors a clean sweep to rival the end of the world. I placed freshly cut flowers in the many antique vases that lined the hallways of my empty house. Though quite the noisy little things they did spruce up the half-crumbled walls quite a bit.

In the end, I decided to end it all with a cup of tea. Black, Earl Grey with a dash of milk.

I didn't know where I found the milk or the tea. It was the apocalypse after all. But I did find them in the end and that was all that mattered.

A loaded antique colt revolver sat loaded in my left hand, in case this was all a hallucination of course. One way or another I decided It was about time to leave this dying Earth.

Sitting upon a white embroidery couch I watched the multicolored light of a dying sky slowly dance as it made its way through the windows. The ways the spores danced and played in the air. The way the once green plants of the Earth shifted their hues in strange and unexpected ways.

Radio chatter crackled as a strange symphony of screaming flowers filled the air.

I was leaving this world one way or another. No amount of gardening could change that.