The hum changed pitch. The sphere’s surface rippled like a pond struck by a stone, and from its centre, a single line of text appeared, etched in light:
By dawn, half the town had gathered at the edge of the impact crater. The meteor was not a rock. It was a sphere, perfectly smooth, about the size of a hay bale, embedded in a smoking bowl of black glass. No heat radiated from it. Instead, a gentle cold emanated outward, frosting the reeds and turning the marsh’s shallow water into brittle lace. meteor 1.19.2
In the brittle cold of a deep winter night, the sky above the small town of Hardscrabble split open. The hum changed pitch
The date was January 19th, year 2.