When she opened up the briefcase she realized just how wrong she was. It’s not very easy to prove to yourself something you never believed in the first place, these stories about interatmospheric wars. But the evidence was there, not at all hot air, pun not intended, except that it was. That was the end of everything, because in another six hundred eighty-six characters the story would have to end, and there was nothing she could do, no way to prolong Armageddon, except to hope for the lifesaving sequel, that afterlife of the short story character, to save her from such premature death.