Darkest Day

It started out as a normal day for Fern, a normal and simple day. She was out searching for some food in the deserted town that she lived in. It was peaceful, there were no other dinos out, heck, there weren’t even any predators out today. It was peaceful, and quiet, even the birds were chirping for her.

But, the birds suddenly left her, and she found that quite strange. Birds don’t normally sleep until the sun goes down, but the sun isn’t down yet. Is there another dino around, maybe? She has noticed that even they get frightened around carnivore dinos too.

What is going on in the sky?

While Fern was looking around to spot any of the birds, she noticed that the sky was darkening. What… But there are no clouds in the sky! It was a perfectly sunny day just a moment ago! What happened-

What is happening to the sun?

Something told Fern to look up at the sun for whatever reason, but when she did, her eyes widened in horror. The sun…something was blocking it! It was something dark and round! It was blocking the sun from shining its rays down on the world! And the world around her… it was pitch black, like nighttime… No, wait, it’s even darker than at night! The world around her was completely pitch black!

Fern felt her heart beating heavily in her chest. Fear crept up her spine as her eyes went back up to the sun. She was scared, so deeply scared. Is this the new reality? Is this how the world is going to be now-

Ow!

It hurt her eyes when she stared at the black sun for too long. But the pain was different compared to when she would stare at the sun normally. No, this was a burning pain.

She hissed under her breath as she rubbed her eyes with her paws. It really hurt! She’s been attacked by other dinos before and yet the pain wasn’t anywhere close to this!

As she was trying to blink the pain from her eyes, she stumbled backward and winched as her back crashed into a chunk of concrete. Ow! And yet, the pain in her eyes just won’t go away! What is this?! What is happening-

Oh, oh, she can finally open her eyes now without feeling searing pain. Okay… Okay… Everything is still really blurry but she’s making progress-

Was that…birds? Were the birds singing for her again?

Through her foggy gaze, she lifted her head up to spot a few birds sitting on a pole high above her, and they were singing to each other like nothing had happened. But something did happen! Or…maybe not…

Cause then she noticed that the sky had returned to normal. It was bright, sunny, and blue once again. Maybe that’s just her eyes playing tricks on her but…

She continued to blink repeatedly to get the fogginess out of them, and after what felt like forever, she finally was able to see what was going on around her. Finally, she could look up to the sky properly once again. And that’s when she noticed that…everything was back to normal.

The sun was shining. The birds were singing. There were no clouds in the sky. The world was colorful and not dark anymore.

But…that actually happened, did it? The sky…just a moment ago it was dark…wasn’t it? Or maybe she just made it up? No…it was so vivid though! There’s no way she could’ve daydreamed that!

At the same time, she’d never experienced something like that before in her entire life. And her mother never told her about the sky going dark like that in the middle of the day! Course…her mother didn’t tell her a lot of things, so maybe this was just one of the many things that she kept a secret.

Her gaze went up to the birds once again, but she blinked as she stared at them. Wait a moment…why are they fuzzy? She squinted her eyes, but that’s when she was able to see them clearly, but only then.

Is this a nightmare? Sometimes she does experience funky dreams, maybe this is one of those dreams…it’s just really really funky.

To test this out, she banged her head against the concrete that she had just crashed into a bit ago. Ow! Yeah, that hurt.

Wait…she’s never experienced pain in her dreams before. So this is real…

Her gaze went back up to the fuzzy birds, and she breathed out shaky scared breaths. “Y-You guys…saw that too…right?”

And yet the birds continued to sing and chirp away like nothing indeed had happened.

Fern’s scared frightened eyes glanced down to her paws, and that’s when she noticed her legs were trembling. She gulped thickly and shook her head at the sight, even her own body was fuzzy!

“I… I think it’s time to head home… I’ll go without eating for today… Maybe I can…sleep this off. I could’ve just eaten something funky…”

Or at least she hoped so.

Without wasting any time, she turned and headed home. All the while her mind was reeling with what had happened. Did she hallucinate that? That can’t be right, cause when she hallucinated before it was nothing ever physical, only mental. And yet, she still can’t see properly. Maybe…she ate something that she shouldn’t have again? That’s a possibility.

Whatever it was, she was hoping that she could just sleep this off and when she woke up it was like nothing had ever happened.

What she didn’t know was that, when she woke up late that same night, her vision problems would never go away. She would be stuck with this fuzzy eyesight now for the rest of her life.

She didn’t know what she saw that day, with the sky suddenly turning dark and the feeling of the entire world’s life being sucked out in an instant, but whatever it was…it took some of her vision away. And that sight of the sun turning black will haunt her for the rest of her life, which she can promise right here and now.