The TV was displaying a particularly morbid newscaster when she appeared before him, projecting an ethereal glow.

“Bernard,” she said.

Bernard looked at her in disbelief for a short time before deciding that this clinched it. The meteors that had hit Ghost Hill the day before, the sourceless glow emanating from his closet, hell, even the rain, he could write off as bizarre freak occurrences. But this? This had to signal the end of the world.

The dog attempted in vain to lick her.

“Please go away,” said Bernard, “The world is ending and I’m trying to be sad about you.”
“Bernard the world is not ending,” she said.
“I think it is.”
“It isn’t,” she said. “It’s beginning again.”
“Come again?”
“The world has been over for like 300 years, you guys just didn’t notice.”

Bernard realized that it would explain the drought, famine, and pestilence.

“What…what happens next?”
“Not sure,” she said, “Rain, apparently.”

She disappeared, and once again the only light in the room came from the TV and the closet.