Horror from the Sky/narrative

Some people said it would pass us. Other said it would hit. I didn’t know what to believe. Only thing I knew was fear.

Every night it grew larger and brighter. The horror from the sky.

In the end it was so big and bright that we could see it even during the day. That was the worst. Sometimes it partly eclipsed the sun and there was this horrible shadow all over us.

One evening it seemed to be so large that you could have just reach out your hand and touch it. Next morning we didn’t see it. It was gone. People in my village celebrated.

They celebrated too soon. Around mid day we heard the noise. First it sounded like far away thunder. And then came the tremors. The earth itself was shaking. My father’s house collapsed as did several other buildings.

When the sun went down the clouds came. Grey clouds of ash.

The ground was trembling all through the nigth and people became scared. I was scared.

Next day we couldn’t see the sun. Sky was all grey but there was no rain. Only the shadow. We begged the rain to come and wash the sky, we begged the earth to calm down.

When the rain did come four days later we hoped it hadn’t. It was not water. It rained wet soot.

The rain lasted for two days but the sky didn’t clear. There was hardly any water to drink, and that little we had tasted like ash.

In a week more than one quarter of our people were dead.

Two months went by and we still saw no sun. People were dying left and right. Most desperate of us started to eat the dead in secret. There was hardly anything else to eat.

Our cattle was dead. There was so much ash that grass was all covered and they had nothing to eat. All the water was spoiled and they refused to drink.

Some of us went to the nearby village, but came back soon. They were worst off than we. Half of the village had fallen to a huge crack that had opened to the ground. That what was left of the buildings was all deserted.

Over half of our people is dead.

I can feel the first winds of the cold season. There is no stores of food for the winter. My people have no strength to travel to find a better land. This is going to be our death. None of us is going to see the spring, I know it now.

That horror from the sky did this. There is no escaping it. The horror will kill us all.