Impact

Writer's cramp daily entry - I actually have no idea how to summarize this story

Prompt ▶︎

For tomorrow, write a poem or story about someone discovering a previously unknown object within the Solar System, and what this means for humanity. One of your genres must be SCI-FI.

Word count: 926

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They spoke, “Behold the return of god’s wrath as all shall fall to his embrace.”

Others shuddered. “Kill the heretics! Vanquish the witches!”

In all reality, it’s just noises diluting the atmosphere, really. It was already hard to see with dust speckling high and plight.

Just what does it take for people to swallow a single breath, look up in the sparkling sunsky and admire those many twinkling stars dyeing the blue-stroked canvas?

I guess nothing. Reality is already dissolved, blurring at the seam: blazing scorches, reminiscences of the mundane days scattering the streets. Nothing felt real. It felt like we had all wandered into a seamless dreamscape of hellfire, hoping that the utterly incomprehensible false faith could purge us of our sins and bring peace once more.

But peace, is it truly something you define outside of your own making? If a heart beat fast, it would colour the promises. How to be brave? How can you love when you’re afraid to fall?

“Befall the monsters! Heed my words and cleanse the world of its sins. Only then, god will have mercy for us, and take us in his embrace!”

The distant voice on the speaker crept into my room through the tiny crack on my broken doorframe.

I got up, approached the window, whose frame was crackling under the chanting and roaring of a feverish crowd.

My own reflection didn’t shine through it anymore. All I could see was the thick, dusted trails distorting the stilled air, like clawing its way out from the belly of the nightsky in the far horizon. Clouds of smoke frolicked to the wind.

It wasn’t long before another meteor landed.

The Earth screeched. The ground shook in resonance of echoed screams and erupted chaos.

I sighed, sat back on my broken stool. My frame dwindled to the quake, but I managed to catch it before it fell.

With a brush in hand, I continued to paint the picture. The day it all happened. Careful, careful movements. So that it could resemble the blue sky the day disaster struck. Don’t tremble. Control your breath. Close your eyes. Remember it.

…

The night I found it, the sky was the clearest it had been in months. A single pixel drifting across four consecutive frames. I ran the calculations twice. It became clear. I snatched the phone - not my supervisor's number.

The next day, the news had already trended. Some doubted, some laughed, but everyone all looked at the sky, eyes filled with uncertainty. We all saw it - The first ever asteroid slowly landing. For a moment, time stopped. No sound. No movement. Then came the thunderous crash. Ashes rained upon the muddied cries.

The next thing you knew, it was a meteor shower in broad daylight. A hurricane of burning pebbles. Muffled screams muddied together with ashened air. Everything, everyone. They all ceased functioning.

It wasn't a single asteroid. It was a scattered congregation - one celestial body, broken into many, each piece carrying the same destination. It came fast. Without warning. There was no time to prepare any counter measures. It was hard to imagine just yesterday was just any ordinary day we’ve had.

The relentless storm. It didn’t stop. Never did. Thousands of voices stripped away. Lives lost. Nothing that could have been done. But to spend your last moments with your loved ones, I could feel the ache in my chest soothing.

Then came the outcry - a prophecy: A humble god’s wrath, for he is purging the wicked and wretched. People listened, and they believed, a glimmer of hope that everything could still be saved.

Mayhem. Masqueraded as salvation. They hampered. Impeded. Staked anyone they deemed wrong.

And I couldn’t save him. I really couldn’t. I wanted to believe that I couldn’t have done anything as he burned and ashed in front of my eyes. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I wasn’t brave. I could only remember his glittering tears evaporating under the heat. I wasn’t ready to fall. My heartache was only for my own - a selfish hope. His glimpse. His pupils.

…

It was a gentle blue. I remembered it now. His eyes, under the tranquil sky. Calm breezes, winds fluttering. The peace we’ve made in Spain. A gentle blue, how could I have forgotten?

I dipped the brush in water. Gentle. Then slowly, I raised my hand, perfecting my last drawing.

When the moon had risen once more, I put the painting down from the rotten easel. The silvery light lent glimpses to my masterpiece - broken, shattered, stained.

Shreds of paper fell to the ground as I glanced at the sky above once more.

A bright spot marked the atmosphere, glimmering just like how the first asteroid landed.

It descended without ceremony.

No warning. No sound at first, just the bright spot growing, filling the sky the way a held breath fills a chest. Bigger. Then bigger still.

I didn't run. There was nowhere left to run to.

It hit the moon like a painter's fist through a canvas, violent, irreversible, the kind of impact that changes the shape of everything around it. The sky split white. The ground lurched. Outside, the chanting stopped for the first time in weeks, swallowed by something larger than faith or fear.

Then silence.

I opened my eyes.

The moon was still there. Cracked along one edge. But the meteor was gone - deflected, scattered, swallowed by the collision into something smaller and survivable.

We were still here.

But the sky, the canvas had changed. It seemed… Beautiful.

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My thoughts on the story ▶︎

long time no see! i was fairly busy with my progress tests for programming fundementals and computer organization so i didnt have time for the past few writer's cramp, but i made it for this one!

but uh.. well, sci-fi is not one of the genres im strong as. i thought about skipping today, but then i thought, hey, isnt this a challenge to my writing too, and here i am -w-

the prompt painted a picture quite clearly for me actually, in fact, i could almost imagine the entire story by the time i finished writing the opening (the part before the first ellipsis) but then.. as i took a moment back to reflect, i quickly realized that it wasnt going to be within 1000 words had i kept up with that pace, there was simply so many details to tell. The death, the reckoning, the aftermaths, seriously, it wasnt gonna meet the 1000 words requirement, so i had to resort to telling more than showing for the rest, so im not particularly quite proud of what i did, but at least the end result still captured some of the vision i had when i started out writing this!

honestly, had it been 2000 words, i think i could have definitely made the final image about the canvas land with more cinema, as well as a better recall to capture the same canvas image i used in the opening, still, its what writer's cramp is all about. i hope today's read was enjoyable for you!

as always, thanks for stopping by one of my work, and ill see ya one day.

peace~