Flora woke with a strange feeling, her senses tingling. Something had changed, shifted, in the night. She couldn’t even remember falling asleep. A vague memory plagued her that she’d been disturbed in the night.
She lay motionless for a while, listening acutely. Her bun was thrumming and she began to massage it with two fingers. The only sounds were the breaths of the sleeping kids and the dripping of water. Flora opened her eyes, still heavy with sleep. It was still dark, but the moon was bright behind the haze, casting deep cool shadows across the den. The familiar patterns of collapsed and teetering concrete beams and steel joists provided a welcome reality. One of the kids cried out; a bad dream. She laid still, wrapped against the cold in a pile of coats and blankets, gathering her thoughts.
Finally, she mustered the energy to rise, but only because she needed the can. She stood, shivering in the cold, took a step, then froze.
Strange patterns stretched away from her across the central space. Regular curved ripples, like a shell dropped into one of the drinking pots.
They spread outwards as perfect ridges of dust, drawing her eyes towards the epicentre where there was no dust at all. There, something else glowed in the moonlight.
