A Second Home In Darkness.

[Rosco Agassi]

There's a small town just south of Radiant Junction, population low and ever-dwindling as shambling, old houses begin to become unliveable and the newer generations gain more self-preservation.

Rosco still visits when he can, finding solace in the mundane life Holdfast cannot give him as he quickly falls back into a routine. He helps his Grandmother as the sick and injured come and go. The excitement is nothing like it was before the mine closed, but it is enough to keep the nagging boredom out of the way.

Things are normal for awhile. The dreams are weird, as they always are, and Rosco dares not to look at the sky at night, fearing that the great weavers will take more from him than they already have, but these are all normal, albeit strange, things.

Then the sun goes out.

It starts gradually. Rosco is shovelling snow from his Grandma's porch when he notices. He brushes it off as an incoming storm and hastens his pace, hoping to clear the old snow before new begins to fall.

Instead it only gets darker, beyond that which a storm would bring. At some point Rosco stops shovelling long enough to just stare. He's waiting for the stars, for the constellations that have ruined so much of him in such little time.

They never come. He is entranced, or maybe frozen in fear, either way he does not pull his gaze away until the door behind him opens.

He practically tackles his Grandmother back inside, frantically running around the house to close the blinds and lock the doors. He can't bring himself to explain why he's so scared, but she sits in silence with him anyway. The two hunker under a table until the light starts to pour through the curtains again, and Rosco finally feels like he can breathe.

There is no destruction outside.

The stray cat that visits still meows outside his door, the birds still chirp and his elderly neighbour moves down the street at a crawling pace, looking just as confused but not nearly as traumatized.

The sun comes back, and as Rosco stands outside to bask in it's frigid glory he finds himself wondering if his family in Holdfast saw it too.

[I wanted to participate in the eclipse panic party. Less collaborative than some other things on here because he's across the island, but if someone has a way to talk to Rosco in the middle of nowhere feel free!]