A mist had drifted in off the water. Thick and wet it unfolded like a great blanket until all the beach was covered. Damp and grey it swirled heavily on the still air. Muted was the glow of the moon slowly sinking from the new morning sky, muffled were the sounds of the day soon to come. At first nothing moved, nor did it stir amid the piles of driftwood and clumps of seaweed scattered along the shore. All was silent save the crashing of waves off from the Pacific Ocean. It reeked vaguely of salt, and forgotten corruption.
Then came a sudden flare of light from the sky. A streak of magnesium brilliance tore a rent in the fog from out of the north. The near funeral silence of the beach was shattered by a hideous shriek of noise that sounded as if a thousand times a thousand tea kettles were releasing steam all at once. It ended with a sudden boom which bent the fog away from it, and the ground shook from an abrupt impact.
Life can often be mundane. Days have a routine, and years might pass without incident. Rarely for the regular person can it be more than simply living. Only once or twice in a lifetime does such a person find moments of living that are exhilarating or terrifying. So when faced with them one of three responses is usually called upon. Freeze, fight, or flight.
When the meteor smacked down into the sand, carving out a crater of instant glass and vaporized water a hundred meters in diameter, Nathaniel Callahan froze. For his trouble the shock wave as it washed outward from the impact knocked him from his feet. It felt as if he had been struck by a horse. The air was punched from his lungs, and he was thrown back a distance of a dozen or more yards. Heat riding on the concussive force flashed across the exposed skin of his hands and face. Though still conscious as he soared through the air he felt he had been ripped from his body. He floated, frozen in one timeless instant, almost like a bug trapped in amber. Then he hit the earth, and the world gave him clues he was still alive.
Minutes passed for him in pained gasps as he struggled to assert control over his shocked limbs. Those choking first attempts spun his brain, and made him want to vomit, but finally persistence won out. Then for a time he lay as he was, feeling only the frantic beating of his heart, grateful for its painful thumping. He marveled that he was still awake though most of his thoughts were turned sluggishly. Nothing seemed to be broken, and yet he was hesitant to move. Had he not heard somewhere that it was best not to move a person struck by a car? Had he been hit by a car? No. That did not sound correct. A frown creased his brow, and the skin wrinkling there brought a gasp. Damn, but it felt like he had been sunburned!
Nathan worked up his nerve, and finally moved to bring himself to a seated position. A meteor! Yes, it had been an actual meteor. Why did that seem so implausible?
Sitting was awkward, and full of a sense that he had been beaten with clubs, but he felt no bones shift or twist in unnatural ways. The fog had been shredded away by the heat and blast from the meteor, and so the moon's light was shining down to reveal that he was more or less well. He looked down at his hands, saw that the palms were a bright red from the instinctive moment he had tried to shield his face. The sleeves of his coat, however, once a dark blue, had been crisped black. The jacket, itself, from what he could see of it, still smoked.
Hastily, he pulled at the half melted buttons that closed the coat over his chest, finally worked himself out of it, and tossed it away. The ocean licked at the jacket, rejected it by shoving it once up the beach, and then dragged it away like a hungry monster changing its mind. Nathan watched the jacket float off into the distance, and thought he might have been too hasty. Then he felt the first touch of water on his leg from a tide creeping in. Be it an impartial monster the ocean would not hesitate to pull him out as well if he did not move.
Slowly, as if he were someone much older than his forty-two years, he stood up. The flabby muscles in his abdomen twitched and flexed in protest, reminding him he still felt gut-punched, and that he should have worked on his abs a bit more.
Clutching a hand over his middle he groaned, and again fought a sudden urge to empty his dinner onto the sand. The air smelt of burnt glass, and molten rock. The ocean had resumed its discourse with the shore as if nothing untoward had happened, but not more than twenty feet in front of him spread a hole of a size comparable to a small football field. The edges of it closest to the water hissed, and steamed from the waves that touched it, and then retreated as if scalded. Though his first thought was to turn around, walk away to the nearest hospital, and leave this situation behind him, he found that he could not.
Now that the initial shock had worn off he was struck with awe by the unreality of what he was seeing.
He shivered at the thought of what might have become of him had he been just a little closer to the strike. The chill from the images ran down his arms and legs, cooled the tender tightness of his face from where he still felt sort of flash burned. But chill or no he hesitated only a moment before walking a few halting, stumbling steps to the edge of the crater. Its slopes were a cracked and fused glass the color of old cheese, and sea foam. It popped, and sparked. Little bits of light and fire that shot up from the crater like fireflies. It was not at all deep when compared to the kinds of craters he had seen on TV.
Strangely, though, he could not see to the bottom of it. The base of the hole glowed with light. Not the hot blinding brilliance that had burned away the fog, but a softer yet still harsh white that was only bearable to gaze upon with eyes squinted.
Nathan touched his face, winced at the raw burn of it, but was relieved not to feel any charring or blisters. He supposed blistering might come later, but he set such a thought aside for the time being. Having determined himself to be mostly undamaged it occurred to him that he was the only person here. Others from the town that bordered the beach would be coming to find out what had happened, but he was the first, and the closest to the incident. This could actually make him some money if he played it right. A picture! That would be perfect. Not just of the crater but maybe the meteor itself; if any part of it had survived. He could snap a couple of pics, and name a price for them. Perhaps even get a chunk of the stuff could be salvaged for a later sale.
His phone? Nathan patted himself, not sure if he had even brought the thing with him. But that was silly. No one in this day and age parts with their cellphone. He checked the pockets of the black cargo pants he wore, came up empty, and moved to the search to the grey sweater he had worn under his jacket. With sinking feeling replacing or perhaps amplifying the punch to his gut he glanced away from the crater back to the ocean. His jacket! The coat was gone, pulled out by the undertow, and lost forever in the deep. He swore silently; a curse under his breath. He remembered that the phone had been in the inner left pocket of the thing.
A siren cut over the silence in the distance, followed by another and then another. Police or Fire? Maybe a medical response from an ambulance? Clenching his fists as a panic began to set in, he tore his eyes away from the water and back to the crater. That hot glow in its center had dimmed, and a roundish shape could be discerned now. Not yet cooled off, whatever it was, but with the tide now starting to leak into the hole, it would soon be beyond his sight. A hasty plan forced itself to the front of his mind, and he hauled off his sweater. Underneath it he wore only a green short-sleeved tee-shirt. He dunked the sweater into the nearest wave that swept over the sand, making sure it was heavy with water, and then tied it around his waist. Figuring that sand-glass would be sharp he used a bit from the edge of the crater to tear some of the cloth off the sleeves. This fabric, wet with seawater, he wrapped around his hands, and then as prepared as he could be on such short notice, he took a cautious step onto the slope nearest him.
As his foot crunched down onto the glass from the slope Nathan chuckled sardonically. Had he not seen this horror movie, already? Aliens from space, symbiotic creatures, blob monsters, or ground zero for a walking dead virus. He even recalled arguments he had had with friends, and even his wife about what one was required to do in such scenarios. No! Don't open that door! Don't go near the meteor! You idiot! Run away! In defiance of this he took another step, almost slipping this time, and knowing a tumble from here to the center would likely cut him to ribbons. After that second step the descent became easier, and while he asked himself why he was doing something so foolish he already knew the answer.
The real world, life itself, was most of the time usually a boring grind that melted one day into the next. However on the rare occasion it presented something more, and whether it be horrific or fantastic it demanded a first look. Nathan was determined to be the one to have that look; even if it killed him.