Thanks to lilgreenmomo for pointing out I had muddled up tenses. It's been fixed now :)


Starlight

.

The stars were going out.

One by one, the night sky was getting darker, starlight swallowed up by the blackness. Chavra shivered and wrapped the blanket more firmly around herself. What had they done? What was going on? Had they angered the great gods of the sky somehow? The blackness was spreading, terrifying in its nothingness. How had it gone wrong so quickly?

In the distance, smoke rose from the city as petrified citizens burned whatever they could to stave off the darkness; the thin veneer of calm had well and truly snapped. Everyones' nerves had already been upset and set on edge by the eclipse as, one by one, the six suns had vanished from the sky. The stars had leaped out from the gloom, comforting orbs that loomed above the darkened horizon. It was just as the scientists had said, once every millennium Lavash would be darkened, but the stars would be there for them. Their world didn't have to disappear in a maelstrom of fire and panic like all the other civilisations that came before them. But why hadn't the scientists warned them that the stars were going out?

At first the stars had shone above her, a pale yet comforting parody of the great suns. Then, so slowly she hadn't noticed, they had started winking out of existence. Snuggled in a blanket on her treetop platform staring at the unfamiliar night sky, she had seen the stars vanish. Slow at first, then faster and faster, they were disappearing, the darkness swelling.

She stole another glance at the growing blackness above. Terror uncurled in her stomach. She could hear the panicked screams echoing through the stony city streets and was unreasonably and irrationally glad that she had chosen to the spend the eclipse tucked away in her treetop getaway. Most of her friends and family had taken refuge in numbers and small rooms, crammed in tightly in the vain hope that the darkness wouldn't follow them inside. Who knows what was happening into those cramped spaces as people panicked.

She wished for one of the suns to rise; the bluish light of Delta, the red rays of Velo, even the pale beams of Ghett, something, anything to disrupt the shadows that stretched over the land. The acrid smell of smoke reached her nose. She could feel all the hairs on her arms standing up, prickling against the rough weave of the blanket, her breathing was getting shallower as she wrestled unsuccessfully with her fear. Please, please, just one ray of sunlight, she prayed soundlessly. Time dragged on and she found herself desperately trying to recall how long the eclipse was supposed to last for.

There were fewer than a handful of stars left in the sky now. She could feel her grasp on sanity slipping, terror of the black overwhelming her. Please, just one spark of light

Then the last star went out.


A/N: I came across Asimov's wonderful short story about a planet illuminated by six suns, whose occupants were driven mad by the appearance of stars during an eclipse. Then I wondered what would happen if meanwhile in the 'verse, the stars are going out as a result of the reality bomb from the Doctor Who season four finale (the one with Donna). Tada, this snippet.