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Chapter One – Blackout Skies
Page 1
The sky cracked open like an electric wound, silent yet deadly. At first, it was just a flicker—lights across the city blinked, flickered, and died, one by one, as if the sun itself had been swallowed by darkness. Streetlamps sputtered out, plunging familiar streets into eerie shadows. The hum of electricity, that constant pulse beneath the city’s skin, vanished suddenly, replaced by a growing silence that felt heavier with every passing second.
Above, the heavens burned. What looked like a meteor shower lit the black sky—streaks of fire arcing down, glowing with an unnatural brilliance. People on the streets stopped, eyes wide, mouths agape. Phones were raised, cameras pointed skyward, capturing the burning trails as they seared the atmosphere and crashed into the earth.
But these were no falling stars.
Satellites, once silently circling the planet, were plunging out of orbit, torn apart by the invisible storm raging above. Each fiery descent brought destruction — a shower of sparks that rained upon the city’s fragile infrastructure. Power lines snapped, gas pipes ruptured, and fires ignited in the chaos.
Sirens wailed, then faltered and died, swallowed by the blackout.
The air was thick with smoke and fear, an unsettling quiet broken only by distant screams and the crackling of electrical fires. The city’s heartbeat had stopped. Humanity was left groping in the dark.
Chapter One – Blackout Skies
Page 2
Ava gripped the steering wheel of the ambulance like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to sanity. The dashboard lights had long since died, leaving only the faint glow of emergency reds flashing through the smoke-thickened air. Her heart pounded louder than the sirens she could barely hear, each beat hammering against her ribs like a warning.
Around her, the city had transformed into a nightmare. Streets were clogged with abandoned vehicles, their doors flung open, passengers fleeing in wild panic. Shadows darted between burning buildings — some desperate, others opportunistic, rifling through shattered storefronts as if the blackout had unlocked the city’s darker side.
Her partner Malik shouted over the chaos, but she caught only fragments. “Crash… two blocks… need backup…” she focused instead on the road ahead, weaving through the snarled wreckage, each second stretched by a thousand what-ifs.
Above, the sky continued its deadly spectacle, streaks of burning metal slicing through the darkness. Ava’s mind flickered briefly to her younger brother’s face, his laugh the last thing she’d heard before this night spiraled out of control. It was why she kept driving — because someone had to be the calm in the storm.
Chapter One – Blackout Skies
Page 3
Ava’s ambulance screeched to a halt several yards from the wreckage. Ahead, a mangled sedan lay crushed beneath a toppled power pole, its wires sparking dangerously against the cracked asphalt. The sharp tang of leaking gasoline filled the thick night air, mixed with smoke and a faint metallic scent that made her stomach churn.