Beginning's End

We do not remember it, nor do our parents or grandparents, but the stories persist from generation to generation. How the mountains awoke and belched forth great pillars of black smoke and ash. How the earth writhed in pain, fissures growing, the earth tearing from side to side. How great holes opened up, swallowing towns and cities. How the waters roiled and heaved, casting great waves upon the tortured land, burying and engulfing coastal towns.
Nor was this all. Great lightnings shattered the sky, again and again, leaping from one point to another across the heavens. Bolts pierced the ground, flames spewing forth from the impact, burning whole cities. The roar of the mountains in pain, and the shattering thunder, partnered the lightning's screams. The growl of the waters rushing upon the earth, eager to devour all within its reach, each in turn, each together a place of hell and demons to those few who survived.
Eventually, the roaring stopped, the lightning ceased, the earth calmed, but it was not over. For days it was dark, the difference between night and day impossible to determine. The air was thick, hard to breathe and no fire could be started. Homes and places of worship, shops and mansions, all destroyed, thatch burned, and streets and exposed surfaces covered with inches of blackness, fine dust and gritty particles, filling eyes and mouths and lungs.
Not many lived, and no one escaped the terror of those days. Families were torn asunder, some dead, others vanished. All water was filled with ash, the fields just beginning to sprout forth were burned or buried. There was no shelter, or succor, there was only hunker down and endure.
Finally, daylight began to penetrate the gloom, the air cleared and the full extent of the devastation could be seen. Oh, the weeping for lost loved ones, the grief, the pain. All the words of love not said were remembered, and angry words last thing said were sorrowed over again and again. Wretchedness dwelt as a constant companion.
Life endures, people go on. Communities are rebuilt, others constructed anew. The ash washes to the sea eventually and people forget. Only the stories, faded and incomplete remain.
Or is that all?

Localization

The location of this series of catastrophic events is unknown.

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Type

Natural