# Read the first page of We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune Read the opening of We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune free, no signup. An elderly married couple road-trips as a black hole nears Earth. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/we-burned-so-bright-tj-klune - Genre: Fantasy - Year: 2026 - ISBN: 9781250881243 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781250881243&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781250881243 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781250881243 ## The opening Don switched off the television. He’d spent the morning in the garden, those pesky weeds returning with a vengeance. All that spring rain, he thought. And for what? His husband, Rodney, sat in a recliner a few feet away. At seventy-eight, Rodney was a gruff and quiet man, his bushy eyebrows doing most of the talking for him. Forty years together, and Don could tell what he was thinking without a word between them. “I know,” Don said. “It’s time.” Rodney grunted in response, leaning forward in his chair, hands on his knees. His back was bothering him, though he wouldn’t say as much. But Don knew. Of course he did. He knew everything about Rodney. Rodney, who looked over at Don, expression softening. “You all right?” “No, I don’t think I am.” Rodney nodded and stood from the recliner, groaning as he did so, knees popping. “Stay right there,” he said. Don did, staring off into nothing. He didn’t know how to feel. Frightened? Oh yes. Angry? Perhaps; a little spark that whispered how is this fair? But mostly, Don felt relieved, and oddly so. Not over the fact that the entire world would be gone in thirty days, give or take. No, he wasn’t the type to revel in the misfortune of others. His relief came in knowing how it would end. Getting older meant he was running down the clock as it was, thoughts sometimes straying to darker corners: Would it be the colon? The heart? A little pop in a blood vessel of the brain that caused one to drop dead? The human body was a miracle that was not meant to last. He felt it in the stiffening of his joints. Stretch wrong in the morning? That was a week’s worth of discomfort. Get a blood test? Ooh, what could be found in that? Now, though. Now, it was different. Now, the mystery of death—when, how, why—was solved for everyone. Rodney returned. Don didn’t know how long he’d been gone. He carried a small box with him—oak polished within an inch of its life, a brass keyhole in the front. Roughly the size of a jewelry box, it wasn’t large nor was it heavy, but Rodney was careful with it. He said, “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it now.” Don lowered his head. “I know. It’s … You always think there’s going to be more time.” “We have enough,” Rodney said. “That’s what counts.” Don looked out the window. Clouds in the sky, wispy clouds that stretched above a green forest. The sun, shining. Birds singing. And if the people who knew about these things were right, all of it would be gone in a month. Either the planet would be cracked apart, chunks of rock being pulled toward infinity, or it would be stretched and stretched and stretched until the entire world was a thin, straight line, unable to support life. The cause? A rogue black hole. A one-in-a-trillion chance, they’d been told breathlessly. There was a one-in-a-trillion chance a black hole would find its way to our little corner of the universe. Astronomical odds, and yet, now a reality. Which meant chaos, of course. Military vehicles in the streets of most cities and towns. Looting, rioting, the burning of cars and buildings and people, all of it had already happened. They’d known about the black hole for close to a year, and in those early days, more things were aflame than not. When backed into a corner, an animal could be dangerous. Humans were animals, and deadly ones at that. ## Books with a similar feel - [Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas](https://uncovered.ink/read/throne-of-glass-sarah-j-maas.md) - [The Once Upon a Broken Heart Series by Stephanie Garber](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-once-upon-a-broken-heart-series-stephanie-garber.md) - [The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-lives-of-saints-leigh-bardugo.md) - [The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-name-of-the-wind-patrick-rothfuss.md) - [What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher](https://uncovered.ink/read/what-moves-the-dead-t-kingfisher.md) - [The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-sleeper-and-the-spindle-neil-gaiman.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.