Prompt
Firework displays are common this time of year, especially for the duration of the festival. By all accounts, the fireworks lighting up the sky seemed perfectly ordinary--until, suddenly, a light flashes so brightly that it immediately blinds everyone who was watching. For those staring directly at the explosion, they may find that their vision takes 2-3 days to return; for those who caught only a glimpse of it or were further away, they may still be affected with less severe vision loss. (Please see tomorrow's prompt for more information on vision recovery! You may respond to this prompt at any point in time or backdate, but this event will always have ICly occurred on the night of June 20th) To anyone who viewed the firework, it was unlike any other firework before; it was a beautiful array of colors and was accompanied with a loud boom and a strange gust of wind. Destiny City has reported that it was not an approved display but do not have further information on the firework’s origin.
Nataniel considered himself an observant man, not so much one of interaction, but someone who could look on quietly from the sidelines and typically do absolutely nothing besides see and think and wonder. He expected that with his reasonable degree of intellect, he could come up with a sound explanation for all of the inexplicable nonsense he'd been privy to within the past handful of weeks. It was all absurd- things he'd heard about in rumor and as hear-say that had happened to others, but no one he was close to.
Which perhaps wasn't surprising. He wasn't close to many.
He could live with that. But the fact that he didn't have a reasonable explanation for this basic nonsense was slightly less tolerable. How could there be monster boys and shadow demons and cat anthromorphs and no one know about it? Fine. Nataniel was prepared to admit that he routinely partook in substances that could addle the mind, but he wasn't an alcohol addict. It was a once-a-week activity. A brief activity that lasted but a handful of hours.
Surely he wasn't to the point of practically living in a hallucination? Where impossible things looked and felt real? He had marks from these encounters, but it wasn't like he could say anything to anyone. Not only would they not believe him, but since he hardly believed himself, he didn't even want to.
What was worse was that since he didn't want to admit to himself that he believed anything, there was no way to do further research. Typing 'shadow demon' into the search bar on his computer would be relenting to the notion that such nonsense could be real, when it couldn't possibly be. Nataniel scrubbed a hand down his face and twisted his computer away from his desk to face the window along the opposite wall.
Usually by the time the sky grew dark, he'd be ready to retire to his bed for the evening. Since Nataniel woke early, it was only on Saturdays that he stayed up later than usual.
But he wouldn't be resting early tonight, would he? From his window, he could see the bright flashes of light and sprinkling of colors of some firework display the city had decided to host on a Thursday of all days. What if he'd been a businessman with actual work early in the morning? How inconsiderate... He wasn't, of course, so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience, but the dull booms and soft crackles were still enough to keep him up.
Nataniel watched the display passively, mind still reeling with more prominent and concerning thoughts than simple fireworks. Maybe he could have even ignored it (such displays didn't feel relevant to his needs or interests), but with his gaze turned toward the window even in disinterest, there was no mistaking the bright flash and flare of something unlike the rest of the spectacle.
It erupted without warning in an instantaneous bloom of colors and an almost immediate subsequent rumbling of the panes of glass in Nat's window, as if they'd been buffeted by a sharp wind. The flash itself was blinding, almost disorienting, even with the distance Nataniel kept from it and the copious buildings between him. With a sharp hiss, he twisted back toward his desk, rubbing his eyes at the light.
The darkness of the night had obscured much of what he might have seen, and yet his vision was still spotty, as if he'd stared directly into the sun. And there was something else. It was minor in comparison to his disoriented vision, but...
Hadn't that flash seemed quite low compared to the rest of the display?
