A burst of white plasma blinds innocent young eyes,
incandescent… iridescent… until all humour melts away to
a bone-white socket. Flesh flayed to the bone then sutured
from the heat. People vanished into nothing; their shadows
left behind. Permanent depressions, burned into wood,
etched onto stone. Pale apparitions tread scorched soil
in simple solace, as patient pleas for help go undetected under
rubble. Men bloody and broken – some die without weeping.
Damaged, fractured minds, try to grasp at some reality –

A punishment?

An aftermath…

Atomic shadows.