Excerpt: Something Great Here

The fires burned unabated. Alarms sounded unheard. Cities, once bustling and crammed with humanity, now stood empty. No one was there to see the sky fill with a light so bright, the Sun dimmed. The light grew to form a crack in space. It widened, spread. Flowing bolts of energy crackled. The Rift had arrived. Slightly larger than the Earth, the cosmic equivalent of a expelled static charge, the Rift barely noticed it's consumption of the moon.

In slow motion, Earth's crust and upper mantle were ripped away. The core, feeling the weight around it lessen, pushed outward and burst in a fiery ball. Molten rock, free from all constraints, lived short lives as the Rift sucked them in.
Beyond its reach, probes recorded the events, collecting data for further use.