A Chance Meeting

Part 3

Green grass danced in the light breeze; butterflies swayed to the musical chirping of songbirds. A light blue sky was dotted with cotton balls for clouds, while a lone hawk swirled around in the air currents, keen eyes scanning the ground for prey.

A young girl, merely thirteen years old, wandered through the meadow, watching bees buzz happily from flower to flower. Her hands trailed along by her sides, brushing dusty yellow pollen off the stems and onto the dew-covered grass covering the valley floor.

"Don't run too far now dear," her parents laughed, following her. They held hands and walked at a leisurely pace, lovingly watching their daughter run through the waist-high grass.

The hawk spotted something on the ground and swooped downwards, sharp black eyes trained on its next meal. Talons reached out and pierced the plump field mouse that had dared venture out from its home. Landing lightly, the hawk tore into its kill. Bones cracked and warm blood spilled out from its newly-dead body.

But then the hawk heard something, a deep thrumming of a bird much larger than it. It took off from the ground and flapped far, far away, to a place no humans could reach it.

Then the bomb dropped, and it was like the world blew up.

The moment it hit the ground, it exploded. A brilliant white light encased the meadow, glaringly bright and blinding the girl. A wave of energy burst out, knocking the girl over, while pieces of the bomb flew with it, embedding themselves into her pale skin and some flying deeper. A few moved all the way to her heart before they stopped, lodged in the tender flesh. The sound that occurred milliseconds later resonated throughout the valley was more powerful than one hundred lion roars combined, echoing for miles further.

And then, it was over; the light was gone and the sound was fleeing, as if following the hawk and trying to escape the horror it had wreaked upon the meadow.

The girl lay flat on her back, yards from where she had stood before the incident. She felt as if she were drowning, suffocating and only wanting to take one more breath before she would fall under the black veil. It was as if her lungs had forgotten how to function.

She opened her mouth to scream for help, to gasp in air, anything but just lay there helplessly as she was dying. She finally got a breath of air, and a shuddering pain ran through her, ending at her waist. She moved as if to stand up, but found she couldn't move her lower body; anything below her knee was frozen. Agony was all she felt, and she was surrounded in a blanket of it. Something sticky and warm began to pulse out of her body to the beat of her heart.

The girl's eyes fluttered closed as the tortuous suffering she had been taking overran her, and a black sheath of unconsciousness covered her mind.

The last thing she saw before she drifted away was a flashing red and blue light, contrastingly bright against the smoke-filled sky and inky background she faded into.