Jordin and Pepper lay lazily in a park when the lights go out. All of them. A blackness opens up that fear fills with every nightmare.

“Could be a power outage.”

“There's no light for hundreds of miles.”

The city tries to stay calm. On every mind, a single question arises. Will the light ever come again? And if it does, what ruin will it reveal?

Rei Rosenquist writes the Broken Circle stories from a dark place, holding a black hope close to a faintly beating heart. These stories bring you a gritty speculative future so hollow it will leave you hunting, squinting, begging for light.

A short story in approximately 4000 words.