Diana Auer

Light.

Kaiya willed her eyes to blink, but it were as though her mind had fully separated from her body. She couldn't believe her eyes. How could there be so much beauty among so much chaos, so much destruction? The beams of light seemed to shatter and reassemble, not in the same way as they were, but in a stunning calamity, both delicate and volatile. The rays pierced through the haze, brilliant vermilion and amber, muted by ash and soot and smoke. The brightness tore through the opaque veil of smoldering devastation, clawing away, desperate to penetrate. The light danced and darted with no semblance of a rhythm, as Kaiya’s eyes tried, to no avail, to catch the elusive glisten. Every time she seemed to match the tempo of the rays, the beat changed, the chords augmented and she was lost again.