draliman on life

Here is my story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle. This week’s photo was contributed by Dale Rogerson. Thanks, Dale!

That brightness in the sky is definitely an explosion, don’t you think?

Copyright Dale Rogerson

Cheers resounded as the sky lit up, the revellers clinking glasses in salute. Members of “Project Assured Destruction”, they had worked long and hard to realise the dream.

Antimatter.

A new source of energy. Or the most devastating weapon ever devised. So devastating, their government had elected to test-fire on the moon.

It would be days before observers noticed the change in the moon’s orbit. Weeks before the first storms hit. Months before the lucky died in blinding, super-heated fire as fragments of the moon impacted. For the remainder – the lingering, painful deaths of a freezing nuclear winter.

Here is my post for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle. This photo was originally posted a few months before I started, and was supplied by Rich Voza.

To read the other stories, click on the blue froggy.

Copyright Rich Voza

“Are we not getting on the plane, Mummy?”

“No, sweetheart, not today.”

“But… the sun is nearly down and you said it would be daytime when we took off.”

Sophie looked to her husband for support, eyes moist.

“That’s not the sun, pumpkin,” he told his little girl. “Let’s go back inside.”

“Are we far enough away, do you think?” asked Sophie quietly as their daughter scampered back to the terminal.

“From the initial blast, yes,” said her husband, “but the wind’s blowing from that direction. Fallout.”

Sophie shuddered, her tears drying in an instant as a second sun burst over the terminal building.