The Ending

-One-

An echo of a scream waded through the air.

The owner of the scream is a petit girl of five years old getting tackled to the ground by her older brother, aged eight and a half. They are tickling each other in their exotic garden filled with peach and apple trees, the fruits surrounding them like a halo.

The girl has a mass of golden locks as freckles form a shield over her nose and half of her face - the boy, an unruly mess of dirty, brown hair that forms a mask over his features and a cheesy grin spreading along his lips.

Suddenly, another young boy comes to join in; their cousin. His eyebrows stretch over his forehead, threatening to fly away if a strong breeze dared get near. He's wearing a soldier outfit and has a water pistol clutched into his hands. He lands on top of his only boy cousin and squirts him with a cooling blast of the water which his victim swallows in one large gulp. "No fair!" he whines as his cousin steals the gun and abducts him.

"Well, Gally - life isn't fair. It's not my fault that I am amazing!" He grins, cheekily as he runs off to find something else to amuse himself with as his sister rolls around on the grass, laughing as she goes.

"Play with me." Gally tries. But she is too busy giggling over an imaginary world that she's  glued into. He huffs and stands over her, threateningly.

"Okay. Just promise that I can be the princess." She replies, wanting nothing more than for her cousin to step out of the way. He nods and agrees, just before another child walks through their front gate. "NEWT!" The girl squeals as he enters. She rushes towards him and tackles him to the ground, sitting on top of his torso like she was riding a pony. "And promise that Newt gets to be the prince. You'll be the prince, won't you?"  Newt agrees as he and Gally target each other with wads of their own spit.

"Okay, okay. I am the king and you, Rose, are my daughter. Newt's is the prince. Thomas is the evil master." They all chuckle to themselves as Thomas wanders back outside, pouting like a lunatic. All he wants to know is what's going on and then he gets dragged into a game! Pfft. Typical. But who could resist his sisters sweet smile and pleading eyes?

"Sure! Newt, we need to get married. Come on, let's go to the church." The use a bamboo arch in the garden as a makeshift church as Gally becomes the vicar and Thomas, the jealous kid. "Can we skip to the kissing bit, please?" Rose ponders.

"Yes! The kissing bit!" Newt leans forward, as does Rose. But, before their lips can connect, a boom roars nearby.

They children run around, screaming their heads off, for real this time. They had thought that the sun flares were the last of it. They had thought that them and the rest of their family could get back to normal now that everything had subsided.

Little did they know that things were just about to get a whole lot worse.