The last ray of the last day.

The closer the star was to the grave, the bigger it was. It’s increadibly rarefied "body" even starts to lose it’s shape. Life on one of it’s planets somehow managed to adapt to this environment, and even keeped diversity, burrowing under the ground more and more diligently. The most resistant species sometimes emerged from their hiding places into an inhospitable hilly landscape, meeting their agonizing sun, which was colored in crimson tones by the excess of carbon dust… Until it have "melted" completely, scattering hot matter and expelling the last survivors deeper and deeper - into the bowels, to certain death.

The Great Scorch has happened and after it the Eternal Night came.

But paradoxically, the end of the chapter have not become the very end of this world, but only lead to its incredible rebirth. Other nearby stars, gravitationally bound together, following the same fate - will drop their outer shells in the same way, and the tiny dense skeleton of the closest of them, the companion twin - will approach close enough for the touch. There will be no catastrophic explosion, but the matter will fall inside itself - and the ghost of the Star will become even smaller, denser and heavier. An excess of wandering substance, falling on its surface, will spin it up, turning it into a flickering fire. There will be a new source of energy for the planet, but more brutal and mad. Creatures get used to survival deep below the surface for millions of years will be able to adapt even now. In the darkness of the tunnels, they will lose their eyes and limbs, but due to one of the most unusual types of symbiosis they will be able to preserve their brain and develop their mind. Millions of years later, when the radiation of a pulsating thirty-kilometer ball of neutrons softens, their descendants will return to the surface of the planet, acquiring new eyes on eyestalks, and creating technologies and culture based on the biology. They will no longer need the daylight, and dim night will be enough. Weakly lit by a scattering of small dead stars, this world without sun and moons will exist for many billions of years and will acquire its greatness.

P.S.
This is the only finished work in all my painting practice, which was made in one day. The progress is obvious - I have a lot of works from the past, which I slowly tried to finish for years. My long time watchers could see this pathetic show.
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And this work also lifts up the very edge of the "veil" behind which one of my worlds is hiding, revealing it.
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The composition of the picture have "lit up" in my head when I saw the cover of the group The palace of life in Russian social network Vkontakte, and have received permission from its owner Ulyana Krysova to borrow it for the artwork. This cover evoked the memory of my older brother's drawing made for me when I was seven years old. Unfortunately, the drawing didn't survive the time.
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In making of this concept I was inspired by works of artist Wayne Barlowe, as well as by the mod Shrine for the old Doom.
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Another drive – dark ambient by musicians like Asphodela and Ugasanie.
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Red giants don't usually look so literally red and dim, I know it. They have an ocher yellow color and high luminosity. Therefore I am talking about carbon star like R Leporis. If it is still too farfetched, then I assume that the picture is given by specific vision of local creatures, adapted to the incinerating flame of an overgrown star. As far as I could, I tried to make the whole idea not too grossly in conflict with science, so here are articles from Wikipedia: Red giant, Carbon star, White dwarf , Neutron star, Stellar evolution , Pulsar planet
...and also an article whith reference on Nature magazine: Two white dwarfs collide, may end up as neutron star
...and this one on Arxiv.org: Neutron Star Planets: Atmospheric processes and habitability
...and so I gave up on initial idea of the Star as supergiant, which could turn into the neutron star unaided – that kind of stars are too short-living to produce life, not forgetting that supernovae could certainly smash the planet. Popular science lectures have also inspired me, for which I thank Sergey Popov.

Music for the mood:
Asphodela - New Moon,
Ugasanie - Dead Wasteland,
Ruptured World - Future Cries of No Tomorrow,
Polterngeist - Crisis Point,
Polterngeist - The Ash.