Day 28

 

This comes from the Gr. 6 class I subbed in today. 

Prompt: I walked down the dry dirt path, the dead bushes still burning. Near the horizon, I saw a blinding, glowing, red, diamond-shaped thing. 

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My ears were ringing from the explosion that happened only moments before. The ground was still shaking, and the air filled with an acidic smell. Outside, screams and cries for help began to swell in volume. What just happened? I felt the building around me begin to shudder. Get out! One thought flashed through my mind - get out! 

I stumbled outside. The air was filled with smoke and ash; in the distance, there were flames shooting out of a nearby building. What had just happened? Where did this come from? There was no warning, no alarm that said something was coming. Why didn’t the city sound an alarm? What was this? 

A man appeared in front of me, covered in soot. He almost didn’t look like a man. He looked like a ghost. With just his black eyes glazed and staring.

“Adam? Adam, is that you?” I called out. 

“Marcus? What just happened? What’s going on?” 

“I have no idea. Was this a bomb? Was this the beginning of an invasion? Was it something else?” 

“My house is gone,” he wept. 

“Come, let’s get out of here. If there is another bomb, another something, we need to get out of here. The city’s on fire,” I called. 

I grabbed his arm. 

“I can’t, Marcus. It hurts so much,” he pulled back. 

It was then that I realized there was a massive gash in his head. The side of his face was almost gone, caked over with the soot. His clothing was soaked in blood, and coated with the ghostly dusting of the building remains from around us, still floating to the ground. Like snow, but not. 

I couldn’t wait, I turned and ran. I didn’t know where, but I had to get out of there. 

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I don’t know how long I ran, but eventually, the hazy skyline was behind me. Along the road, I saw cars in the ditch - some were overturned and burning, others were piled together in a mangled, metal mass of chaos. I didn’t want to look too closely, to see if anyone was still inside. I know I should, especially if someone was still alive, but I couldn’t stomach seeing what else I might find in a vehicle. All down the highway, bushes were still burning. Did the explosion reach this far out of the city? What happened? 

In the distance, I noticed a glow in the sky. Different than the ashy smoke over the city - red and gold. A fire? Or something else? I decided to head towards it. Maybe I could figure out what happened. Maybe I could make sense of this.

The closer I got, the more the amber glow filled the sky. Soon, I could start to make out a blinding, glowing, red, diamond-shaped thing. A huge thing. Not a saucer, not a tank, not a building … a thing. That’s the only way I can describe it. And I couldn’t even tell if it was human or not.