He’d waited in the basement, in truth he’d hidden in the basement since he saw the flashes in the sky and heard, even felt, the stomach shaking impacts of the flying saucers as they rocketed into the earth all around the city.
The hours of silence had started as reassuring and were now nothing but a balancing act of a razor edge of tension. As scared as he was it was only a matter of time before he had to see what had happened.
The front door on the ground floor above was blocked, debris in the street piled against it and bulged the wood inwards and the glass was black as no light penetrated it’s dense tangle. He climbed the stairs.
At each landing, he passed the exit door with increasing urgency until the roof became his only goal. He reached the little roof structure that ended the climb and he put his hand on the handle to the outside world to find his first pause since leaving the basement. Cool air brushed his damp brow and he flinched, the pause was over and he opened the door.
It was dusk and at first he looked across a prehistoric landscape, volcanoes and rocky bluffs as smoke sank to the valleys below. As his eyes adjusted reality came into focus and the rocks became the broken silhouettes of buildings and the orange fire came from their burning shells. In less than a day they’d destroyed it all.
It was too much, too big, he stepped back from it and all he could think of was that he’d left his jacket in the basement. He needed it, is wallet, his keys, he turned and
Now, I’d like to point out that that whole passage above came into my head as soon as I saw that bit of solder above splashed onto a black Formica tabletop. This kind of shit is why I never get stuff done on time.