Morning all and happy Friday. I don’t know about you but this week felt like a long one. So let’s not dither about ending it. Timers set and let’s jump into the last prompt of the week.
It took me a while to figure out where this was going. I sort of liked it when I figured it out but it will need to be cleaned up with a single thought in mind before I do anything with it.
Friday, August 2nd: The silence was ominous.
The silence was ominous. Surely something in here should make some noise. All around me great hulking machines towered. They were shrouded in shadows. They had not been actively employed for some time, I knew that, but even when not in active use they had a hum to them as electricity cycled through keeping them in working order. While no longer in daily use everyone wanted them around as back up.
Now the steady hum of the waiting machines was silent. My breath sounded loud to my own ears and I tried to keep it ass quiet as I could. It felt as though I was disturbing something that ought to be left alone.
I knew the power was out. It had been out for three days. However there had been enough residual power in the system to keep these machines humming. That residual was no longer there. I found myself hurrying my steps and glancing nervously in corners. I knew there was probably nothing there. As I found the silence strange and needed to investigate, possibly there were others as well.
Not people of course. There were no other people this far north, not at this time of year. I was left merely to watch over the machines and make sue things kept humming along. ‘I supposed I’ve failed that,’ I thought.
Somehow I felt that in the silence creatures from the wild might come to investigate. Perhaps they would think that the interfering humans had finally retreated and left them in solitude.
‘They might be right,’ I thought. News from the south was not good. There was word of attack and invaders. The last news report had been reports of escalations of violence and then of weapons launching. People had been advised to go to bunkers. Then all communication went silent. It as expected that there would be radio silence, but I waited for a week and then two wondering how long it would take for the transmissions to resume. Then the power went out an slowly the world started to stop. I expected the lack of light on the horizon marking the nearest to me yet still distant city. After all the power was out.
But there had been no radio transmissions and no sound of the trains moving in the distance. I expected that even if the main power grid was gone there were some emergency systems in place and the sound of the trains moving troops had been a constant for the past two years. Their absence was as startling as the silence of the machines here.
Now I was beginning to wonder if I should leave, if I should go looking. My outpost was provisioned well. I had enough dried and dehydrated food to see me through a decade of isolation at least. But I was curious. Which is why I was walking among the silent machines now. I knew there was a small storage unit with some gear. I didn’t know if I could hike out or what I might find, but I did know that there was a small radar I could use to monitor the weather. With it, I could see if a storm was approaching. The storms here were fierce and while I was curious, I didn’t want to be caught out in one of them. I would have to time my investigations.
Ten til Midnight 