The road stretched out before Jason Miller like a promise he’d long since stopped believing in, a ribbon of asphalt cutting through the Nevada desert under a sky that hadn’t yet turned traitor. He gripped the wheel of his rig, the rumble of the engine vibrating up through his palms, a steady growl that had been his companion for more miles than he cared to count. The cab smelled of diesel and stale coffee, the latter sloshing in a chipped mug wedged into the console beside him. His leather jacket creaked as he shifted, the worn patches at the elbows catching faintly on the seat’s cracked vinyl. Outside, the desert sprawled—sand and scrub and jagged rock, baked dry by a sun that had set hours ago, leaving the world in a bruised twilight.

  It was 8:49 PM, February 27, 2025, though Jason didn’t glance at the dashboard clock to confirm it. Time didn’t mean much out here, just the rhythm of hauling steel pipes from one nowhere to another, chasing a paycheck that barely covered the gas. His hands ached, knuckles stiff from years of gripping wheels, and his back twinged with every jolt of the rig over uneven pavement. Forty-one years old, and he felt every one of them tonight—grit in his eyes, a five o’clock shadow scratching at his jaw, and a weight in his chest that had nothing to do with the load in the trailer behind him.

  Sarah was on his mind again. His daughter, sixteen now, living with her mom up in Idaho—a state Jason hadn’t seen in months. He’d meant to call her this week, check how school was going, maybe ask about that robotics club she’d been so excited about last time they talked. But the road had a way of eating intentions, and his phone sat silent in the cupholder, screen dark from a dead battery he hadn’t bothered to charge. Later, he told himself, the same lie he’d been spinning since the divorce five years back. Later always came too late.

  The CB radio crackled faintly, static weaving through the hum of the engine. Some trucker up ahead—voice half-lost in the hiss—grumbling about auroras, of all things. “Sky’s lit up like Christmas,” the guy said, a laugh cutting through. “X-class flare, they’re callin’ it. Hope it don’t fry my rig!” Jason reached for the knob, twisting it down until the noise faded to a murmur. He didn’t care about lights in the sky—his world was the road, the load, the next stop. Vegas glowed faintly on the horizon, a smudge of yellow against the dusk, twenty miles off. Another hour, maybe, and he’d pull in, grab a burger, sleep in the cab. Same as always.

  Then the sky changed.

  It started subtle—a shimmer of green threading across the horizon, like a tease of dawn that didn’t belong. Jason squinted, leaning forward, the wheel slick under his palms. The green swelled, curling upward, then erupted—red and violet crashing down in waves, a riot of color that drowned the stars. His breath caught, a sharp hitch in his chest. He’d seen auroras before, faint wisps up north, but this—this was something else. It pressed against the windshield, alive and angry, painting the desert in hues that didn’t fit.

  “What the hell…” he muttered, voice rough from disuse, the words swallowed by the cab’s confines.

  The dashboard flickered—gauges twitching, the clock blinking out. A heartbeat later, the engine coughed—once, twice—then died. Silence slammed down, heavy and absolute, the rig coasting on momentum alone. Jason stomped the clutch, jammed the key, but nothing— no grind, no spark, just a dead click under his fingers. The trailer’s weight dragged at him, pulling the truck to a slow, grinding halt on I-15’s cracked asphalt.

  “Son of a—” He cut himself off, slamming a fist against the wheel. Pain flared up his knuckles, sharp and grounding, but the rig didn’t care. It sat there, a hulking corpse, tires still against the road. He tried the key again, then the lights—nothing. The CB was mute, its static gone cold. Even his phone, useless as it was, stayed black when he snatched it up, thumb jabbing the power button.

  Panic clawed at his gut, but he shoved it down, years of hard-earned calm kicking in. He’d broken down before—blown tires, busted axles—but this felt different, wrong in a way he couldn’t name. The auroras pulsed outside, brighter now, their light spilling through the windshield, casting his shadow long and warped across the passenger seat. He squinted past them, toward Vegas—its skyline a faint smear against the chaos overhead—and saw it flicker. One by one, the lights winked out, swallowed by darkness until the city vanished, a ghost erased from the night.

  His mouth went dry, coffee turning sour on his tongue. “No power,” he rasped, the realization sinking in slow and heavy. Not just his rig—everything. Vegas, twenty miles off, blacked out like someone flipped a switch. He’d seen outages before, storms knocking grids offline, but this—this was too fast, too complete.

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  A horn blared behind him, sharp and fading. He twisted in his seat, peering through the side window. A sedan coasted past, its driver—a middle-aged guy in a flannel shirt—pounding the wheel as it slowed, engine dead like Jason’s. The car rolled to a stop fifty yards ahead, hazards blinking once before they, too, died. The guy kicked his door open, stumbling out, his curses carrying on the still air.

  “Hey!” Jason shouted, shoving his own door wide. Cold desert wind hit him, sharp with the scent of sand and sage, tugging at his jacket as he stepped onto the gravel shoulder. His boots crunched, loud in the silence, and he squinted at the guy. “Yours dead too?”

  The man turned, face flushed red under the auroras’ glow. “Yeah—friggin’ thing just quit! No lights, no nothing!” He gestured wildly at the car, then up at the sky. “What’s this crap? Some kinda storm?”

  “Dunno,” Jason said, voice low, eyes scanning the road. Another vehicle—a pickup—rolled to a stop further back, its driver climbing out, staring at the same dark horizon. Something twisted in Jason’s chest, a knot of unease he couldn’t shake. He’d hauled through blizzards, breakdowns, but this—this was bigger, wilder, like the world itself had hiccupped.

  He turned back to the rig, grabbing his crowbar from under the seat—cold iron, solid in his grip—and slung his backpack over one shoulder. The cab was a tomb now, useless metal and glass, its load of pipes a burden he couldn’t drag. He slammed the door shut, harder than he meant to, the bang echoing across the empty road. Sarah’s face flashed in his mind—her crooked grin, the way she’d roll her eyes at his bad jokes—and he clenched his jaw. Idaho was six hundred miles off, and he had no wheels, no phone, no plan. But standing here wouldn’t get him closer.

  “Gotta move,” he muttered, more to himself than the flannel guy, who was still swearing at his sedan. Jason started north, boots scuffing gravel, the auroras painting his shadow long and jagged ahead. The air felt charged, electric, like the moment before a lightning strike, though no clouds hung overhead. Just that sky—red and violet and green, swirling like a painter gone mad.

  He’d gone maybe a hundred yards when he saw it—a shimmer on the road, faint at first, like heat rising off asphalt in summer. But it was February, cold as hell, and this wasn’t heat. He slowed, crowbar shifting in his grip, the weight of it a comfort against his palm. The shimmer grew, a gray glint spreading across a mile marker ahead—aluminum, bent and faded from years of sun. As he watched, it buckled, metal softening like wax under a flame, edges curling inward until the whole thing slumped into a puddle, gray and lifeless on the sand.

  Jason stopped dead, breath hitching. “What in the…” His voice trailed off, swallowed by the desert’s vast quiet. The shimmer moved—crawling, spreading—a wave of tiny specks glinting under the auroras. It hit the asphalt next, pavement softening, cracks widening as it sank into itself. His stomach turned, a cold sweat prickling his neck. He’d seen weird—floods, fires—but this was something else, something that didn’t fit the rules.

  He took a step back, boots crunching louder now, heart thudding against his ribs. The gray tide rolled toward the sedan up ahead, and the flannel guy—still pacing by his car—didn’t see it coming. It washed over the hood first, metal groaning as it buckled, tires sagging into goo. The guy yelped, jumping back, his face a mask of shock as the car melted around him—glass cracking, frame folding—until it was a shapeless heap, gray and still.

  “Holy hell!” he shouted, voice cracking, stumbling away. The shimmer stopped at his feet, parting around his boots like water past a rock, leaving him shaking but whole.

  Jason’s grip tightened on the crowbar, knuckles white. Whatever this was—some freak spill, some weapon—it didn’t touch flesh. He glanced at his rig, saw the shimmer creeping toward it, the trailer’s steel pipes already softening at the edges. No point staying—whatever it was, it’d eat the truck alive, and he wasn’t waiting to see how far it’d spread.

  “Hey!” he called to the flannel guy, voice rough against the wind. “Get off the road—move!”

  The guy nodded, dazed, and bolted for the scrub, sand kicking up behind him. Jason turned north again, legs pumping now, the crowbar banging against his thigh with every step. The auroras roared overhead, their light warping the desert into a nightmare of color and shadow. Vegas was gone—dark, dead—and the road ahead stretched into nothing, a path he’d walked a thousand times now alien under his feet.

  His mind churned, thoughts tumbling over each other—Sarah, Idaho, the rig, this… whatever it was eating the world. He’d always been a doer, not a thinker, fixing problems with his hands, not his head. But this wasn’t a tire to patch or an engine to coax. This was bigger, deeper, and it sank into him like the cold sinking into his bones.

  The shimmer trailed behind, slow but relentless, a gray whisper against the sand. Jason kept moving, breath fogging in the chill, the weight of his pack dragging at his shoulders. He didn’t know where he was going—not really—just north, toward something, anything that wasn’t this.