Prompt : By the light of the moon.
Moonlight
Supersonic sound blasted across Jarred’s space. He felt, rather than heard, thousands of windows shatter. The earth vibrated with a mighty tilt. He covered his ears and tried to breathe through his, very real, fear. The world had receded into black. Ash rained from the sky in torrents.
Volume, suddenly, drained; muffled out by the debris.
There was no room to breathe, but he pulled his mask across and tried to take it slow.
A subliminal will to survive gripped him, galvanized him into movement, but his sense of direction was gyrating like a spinning top; out of control; out of commission.
...and still the ash fell, coating pylons, covering roofs (entire houses in fact), piling on the paving at his feet in a thick sludgy gum of mud.
Black mud…he kicked his way through it, understanding instinctively that stillness would be death.
Then he saw the unmistakable glow of mortar fire; twisted flames of orange-tipped red iridescence bloomed with a low din.
He needed to run, but he just couldn’t energize enough speed. He jogged, though; kept moving, but his breath was failing him. The enemy was streaming at him on the back of a neon glow; a lethal glow of extinction.
He pushed himself harder. A dull shine, eclipsed into black ahead of him; understanding dawned, they were being herded towards the mechanical ants.
‘Dear God!’ There was no way forward, no way out…
From the very fabric of the dark a thousand tiny yellow pinpoints of light meshed, menacingly, into the scene ahead of him. He heard the low metallic clunk of steel-on-steel as the ants flooded the vista from all sides. Mechanical movement was barely discernible; he felt them coming at him with their vicious pincers ready to carry him into oblivion. His only hope was that he knew they were slow, steady, cunning, but slow.
But, there were so many…
His agitation compounded, he couldn’t think straight; he wanted to sit down and drink a tall glass of ice cold water, splash it on his bare face. The image grew distractedly in his mind’s eye and he tripped, he saw the black mud spiral towards him…
Black, total blackness..
He sighed, loosening his headgear. “Damn Electricity!” He swore under his breath.
Moonlight streamed, bright and clear, thought the picture windows of his living room.
‘Just when the game was getting really interesting,’ he thought, ‘what a waste.’
But, the crystal light from the window caught his attention; he wandered over, VR headset, dangling from his neck, to take a closer look.
He literally gasped, the garden outside, bathed under the glowing light of the moon was almost painfully exquisite. It’s beauty was all the more striking when compared to the grit of the game he’d been playing.
He opened the window and hoisted himself outside into reality.