Flash Fiction: February 25, 2025
The writing prompt: A whole town finds out they are not connected to the rest of the world.
The water ran dry just moments after he turned on the tap. There was nothing but emptiness sitting between him and the rest of the world–idle, yet intimidating enough to pull every ounce of dread from his subconscious mind up to the surface.
The connection between the town and the rest of the world seemingly went dead one week ago. This was when the man’s neighbor found that she could no longer reach her mother in a distant city by telephone. From there, he started to notice little things on his own. Two days ago, his lamps began to flicker before electricity stopped pulsing through his home altogether. Mail stopped being delivered, although that had been somewhat of a relief.
Two houses down, a fire was now burning on the front lawn. The clouds that had gathered overhead last evening showed no signs of clearing, but they wouldn’t concede with rain. As soon as the man stepped outside to observe the flames, he noticed a fountain gushing from a nearby fire hydrant. Two cars were crushed together harmoniously in the pooling water, their drivers nowhere to be found. The man could hear several people screaming in the distance, but he couldn’t make out any words. What did it matter if no one would hear from them ever again?