After five heart-wrenching episodes, HBO’s miniseries Chernobyl has finally come to an end, and we’re all a little sadder and wiser for it. But is this really the end? During an interview with Chernobyl‘s creator and writer Craig Mazin, Decider asked if there was a future for the series beyond this saga.

Set right after the explosion of nuclear reactor No. 4, Chernobyl is a savage, thorough, and intimate look at one of the most horrifying manmade disasters in recent history. As half of the series tells sorrowful stories about the real men and women who risked their lives to prevent the spread of this disaster, the second half attempts to explain exactly what happened that fateful night. All of Chernobyl‘s stories, even its most shocking ones, were rooted in fact by the way.

With its finale, which focused on the trial of the three factory workers most responsible for the explosion, Chernobyl wrapped up this past week in a neat, radiation laced bow. But just because this story is over that doesn’t mean Chernobyl the series is gone for good. Just look at Big Little Lies and 13 Reasons Why. Miniseries have a habit of transitioning into anthology series if they’re popular enough.

Here’s everything we know about the possibility of a Chernobyl Season 2 from the powerful drama’s creator.

Will There Be a Chernobyl Season 2?

According to the miniseries’ creator and writer Craig Mazin, Chernobyl was always intended to be a limited series. It was actually initially a six-episode series instead of its current five. “I respect the audience too much and I want them to stay engaged and I just felt like, well, the events in the first weeks following the explosion are frantic and the show should be frantic. So I took two episodes and squished them into one, so now we have five,” Mazin told Decider.

“Now, what I didn’t know was that I was being paid by the episode,” Mazin joked.

However just because Chernobyl was always envisioned to be a one-time television event, that doesn’t mean Mazin is completely against the possibility of having other seasons. “If I came to HBO and said ‘I want to do another season of Chernobyl, except it’s gonna be about another terrible tragedy,’ whether it’s Bhopal or Fukushima or something like that, I would imagine they at least would give me polite interest,” Mazin said.

What Could Chernobyl Season 2 Be About?

Even though Chernobyl’s potential future is still up in the air, Mazin was open about what he would be interested in exploring if there was another season. “The disaster is not what drew me to Chernobyl. It’s the specifics of Chernobyl,” Mazin said. “If I were to continue this anthologically, probably it would be another investigation of another aspect of Soviet life because that part is something that is fascinating to me and kind of exciting to view again.

“It helps us reimagine our own paths, too,” Mazin added. “I’m a child of the ’70s and ’80s and my life, in part, was shaped by the existence of a nation that doesn’t exist. I wanna know more about it.”

Update, June 5: in a tweet responding to this piece, Mazin seemed a little more definitive than in his previous interview, stating, “All due respect to Decider, but the definitive answer to the headline’s question ‘Will There Be A Season 2 of Chernobyl?’ is ‘No.'”

That was probably better for our collective emotional well being anyway.

Watch Chernobyl on HBO Go and HBO NOW