A vertical wound in the Earth

The Rift a jagged fault line

As if a split in dried, aged skin

We climb

Our hands clawing at stone shards

Humming with a dull, tectonic hunger

The dark below is a contracting throat

Ready to digest our shivering, frantic group

To pull us back into the crushing silence of the depths

There are no words between us

Only the scramble

The chase of that sliver of dusty light

And the fear of the walls finally closing in

Swallowing us whole

Then, finally, we crest the edge

Free of the belly of our planet

And we gasp

Confronted by a flabbergasting sight

The green valleys we remembered are gone

Now, a sprawling ocean of grey ash and rusted iron

The skeletal remains of cities drowned in silence

And endless dust

We called it The Rift

But, perhaps

It was something more

As we are now something less

This is for the latest round 3, part 2 of the LayethTheSmackdown Flabbergasting Flash Fiction Smackdown!