WEP-October Horor Fest-What Scares You?

 

Hello again everyone! Long time no see! Yeah, I had good intentions to post more often this year, which I clearly have not done. What can I say? Life frequently gets in the way. I have not written nearly as much as I intended when I set goals for myself at the beginning of the year. I'm sure I'm not the only one of us in that boat.

I definitely didn't want to miss the Halloween WEP event, though. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. However, when I sat down to write for this prompt, the traditional type of Halloween story I expected to emerge did not. The horror for me turned out to be much more existential. What scares me most? A complete lack of control. What may happen to us that is beyond our ability to prevent?

Anyway I hope you enjoy my little contribution.

They Did Not See

On a small blue and green world three quarters of the way down a spiral arm of a generic galaxy, several billion people milled about its surface, each individual preoccupied with their own brief lives and concerns.

               On any given day, millions were suffering from a lack of resources. Not enough money, not enough food, not enough power to advocate for their right to exist with dignity. Others had enough to eat, but they still fearede ending up on the streets, barely able to afford the most basic shelter.

               Millions of those people, on a given day, mourned the loss of someone close to them, via either death or estrangement. The pain gripped them at their core, threatening to consume them.

               And on this tiny world teeming with life, nature was often unrelenting. The ground frequently trembled. Mountaintops erupted with molten rock. Wildfires scorched wide swaths of the earth. Storm clouds swirled and unleashed destruction. Many perished or lost their homes. They lost hope. What was washed away in a single day could take years to rebuild and repair.

               Amidst it all, these mortal beings reached out and supported one another. They uplifted and inspired. They strove to make whole what had been broken. Despite all odds and adversities, they worked together to make life better.

               Yet, what these mortal beings did not and could not know, an event occurred decades before they were born. This event, more than 150 light years away, reached out across the dark chasm of space. Twin high energy beams stretched in opposite directions, one of them aimed straight at the little blue and green world.

               Scientists upon this world would have, had they seen this coming, called this event a gamma ray burst. They also would have said that such an event was highly unlikely to ever impact their planet. Yet science was an ongoing enterprise, and those scientists had not yet formed a complete understanding of the risks they actually faced. And unfortunately for them, they never would.

               It happened so quickly, those who were vaporized from the surface of their small world never even had the chance to wonder at what was killing them. Just a momentary sense of shock before all went dark.

               The planet continued to spin in the eons that followed, but the character of this world was forever altered.

Word Count: 391

FCA