31

With the sun swimming ever lower, the two of you don't spend much longer sitting outside. After saying goodbye, Marlowe starts home a little ahead of you so they can feed their ferrets (plus Eliot's dogs), and soon afterwards, you begin to head back towards your house as well.

Now that it's just beginning to get dark, the streetlamps along your road have come on and are already casting a slightly unreal glow on the sidewalk. You move along slowly, feeling just slightly detached from your surroundings as your thoughts trail back through the day, landing inevitably on the most climactic moment of the meeting, when it was finally announced—

Halfway along your street, you come to a stop. You're not quite sure why at first; you're still so caught up in your head that you can't think what it is that's suddenly different. But something is—you're sure that something—

And then, looking around, your eyes land on one of the streetlamps just across from your house—and you realize. A second ago, you were walking through an amber-tinted world, but now, every single one of the streetlamps has blinked out. All that's left is the heavy blue of the oncoming evening, and the last few wisps of sunlight.

Blinking a few times in confusion, you watch to see if they'll come back on. When they don't, however, you just carry on walking, shrugging it off as some kind of random glitch with the power. After everything else you've seen today, this is hardly—

With a burst like a lightning bolt, all of the streetlamps light up so brightly that you have to throw a hand in front of your face. Squinting through your fingers, you turn to take in a street which is suddenly engulfed in sheer white light. You've never seen streetlamps shine so powerfully; but even so, you know there could be a very simple explanation.

And then, without warning, the streetlamps start to flash like burning stars.

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