Free Into This River I Drown by TJ Klune

snapping underground.
    Coming from the previous silence, this destruction is ear-shattering, massive. The world begins to roar around me and I can do nothing but watch. The boulder that my father’s truck had struck, causing him to flip, begins to split, the divide running down the side like a fault line. It breaks in half and both sides rise into the air.
    The light is brighter now, and I hazard a glance, terrified, but unable to look away. For the split second I allow myself to look at it again, my mind registers the light for what it is—fire. Blue fire tinged with arcing lightning, snapping and sizzling. The hmmmmmmmmm has become HMMMMMMMM. My teeth vibrate in their sockets, my bones quake in muscle. The noise crawls along my skin, hairs stand on end, my spine straightening as if electrified. I cry out as I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t know how much more I can take , I don’t know how much more I can stand , because I’m about to be blown apart and I’m sure all that’ll remain of me, my only mark on this earth, will be a fine red mist that falls into the river.
    It gets worse before it gets better, a cacophony where all my cells and the membranes of those cells are pulsing and screaming and boiling. My flesh is alive as it crawls, and behind the blackness of my eyelids, the blue light penetrates and explodes, at its brightest now, fireworks blasting in the dark.
    I hear the light smash into the ground and feel the earth roll underneath me harshly as if absorbing the blow. A second later, I’m pummeled by a hot blast of air that knocks me off my feet, end over end. I cry out as something scrapes up my back, and then there’s another bright flare in the dark. I land sitting upright, my back pressed against the embankment.
    Open your eyes, I tell myself, panting.
    No.
    Open your eyes!
    No! Just my luck, that was a fucking nuclear bomb and there’s a mushroom cloud forming right in front of me and I’ll—
    OPEN YOUR EYES!
    I open my eyes.
    Trees have been uprooted and lay on their sides, their needles and leaves smoking, but not burning. The ground is littered with stones. The river is covered in debris, ever flowing. And across the river, a pillar of smoke is rising just inside a clearing beyond a hill. My shirt is singed. In my right hand, impossibly—
    improbably
    —is the blue feather. My blue feather. From a dream so far away from now.
    A meteor? Was it a meteor? That’s all it was .
    But a sense of urgency befalls me. I want to see it, whatever it is. I want to find out what causes the sky to light up blue and fall to the earth. I want to find it first. Others will have seen it. Others will have heard it. Others will come. I don’t know why, but I know I need to see it first.
    The nearest bridge is ten minutes away. I won’t make it in time. People are probably already piling into their cars and trucks, wanting to collect themselves a piece of space rock for their very own. Did you see that? they are asking each other excitedly. Did you feel that? Load up, boys! Let’s go see what the fuck that was ! More and more of them will come and whatever it is that fell will be for everyone and not for me. I don’t know why I think it’s important for me to find it first but—
    oh someone please help me i can’t do this on my own
    —I can’t shake the feeling that I must get there. I must get there now.
    No time to cross the bridge.
    The river. The river is shallow here. Unless you’re trapped.
    I can do this. I can do this.
    I strip down to my boxers, fold the clothes, and hold them under my arm, the feather safely tucked inside. I leave my shoes on the bank. The night air should be cool, but there’s heat radiating from across the river. The water is cold, freezing really, still carrying a melted winter down from the mountain. My nipples pebble and my teeth chatter. The water is up to my knees. I pause as a thick tree branch floats by. Heat pulses against my face. The rocks are slippery against my