Luna variabilis

A busted moon. Its pulverized remains were strewn from one horizon to the other. A molten cloud of scorched debris. Shanna looked up at the lunar wreckage and nearly swooned. That giant grey sphere had been meaningless once, just a decoration hanging on the night. Now it loomed above in an apocalyptic arch of chaos that declared its proportions with emphatic clarity.

Snap out of it! Shanna commanded herself. Find the hatch before the next wave.

Whatever struck the moon had blown a sea of rubble into orbit around the planet. An accretion disk was coalescing around earths ancient gray satellite and the planet was passing through the cloud in 24 hour cycles. A day in perdition; the clock tolls inferno.

"I've been here before."

Even through the greasy black smoke, she recognized the smoldering skeletal structure.

"The perimeter!" She screamed in jubilation knowing the hatch and salvation was just beyond it.

Shanna sprinted for safety as the first meteorites came screaming down. She ran faster her melting sneakers sticking to the ground trying to slow her. She choked through a cloud of sparks and ash; she could see the hatch now. She could smell her burning hair.

A pin prick of light slammed down a mile away and converted an entire build to a wall of fire, it rolled towards her at an infernal speed.

Shanna seized the steel blast door of the hatch and pulled with all her might. Her hands seared and hissed on the burning metal as the heavy door creaked open with agonizing sluggishness. She squeezed through the gap just as the blast wave slammed the hatch shut in a final storm of dragons breath.

Inside was only darkness. She wondered if it was death.