Member-only story
The Empty Riverbed
The Weekly Prompt for Jan. 15–21, 2022
There was nothing left but a pile of stones, stretching from one bank of the riverbed to the other, a path set for a lost traveler. I dropped to my knees, mud seeping into my rainboots, but I hardly noticed.
I’d erased everything.
The fish, the otters, the microscopic bacteria, the very water in which they lived, all the life was gone. All that remained sat before me, dry rocks that fanned outward like the limp hand of a dead body.
“Lenna? Lenna! What did you do?!” I heard the rush of someone running towards me, a slight sucking sound each time a foot lifted out of the wet ground. Heard the gasp leave their lips as they saw the empty river. Felt their rough hands grab my arms and turn me towards them.
I looked up. Rinoa stared down at me with her wide, violet eyes.
“I–” The words stuck in my throat, and I glanced back at the dead riverbank. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I swallowed the sobs demanding to escape my mouth. “I just wanted to end the storm.”
Rinoa whipped her gaze from the riverbank to me and back again, releasing me to walk to the edge of the wet grass. The forest around us dripped with water from the recent rain, but the dirt in the riverbed was completely dry.
