The Night the City Turned Red
The moon shattered like glass above the skyscrapers—a thousand silver shards scattering across the ink-black sky. Miriam sprinted, her leather boots thudding against the wet cobblestones, the worn soles skidding as she veered around a corner. The red glow behind her grew brighter, looming like a tidal wave of light. Her breath came hard, clouds of condensation erupting into the chill night air. She couldn’t stop. Not now. Not when she was this close.
The city was older than time itself, or so the stories said. Art Deco facades and Gothic spires clawed greedily at the sky, drenched in neon glow from the massive holographic billboards that flickered and sparked against the climbing red haze. Steam hissed from underground grates, enveloping the chaotic streets in ghostly plumes. Miriam dodged a vendor cart that had toppled, its glittering collection of cyber-trinkets rolling into the gutter. Somewhere behind her, someone screamed—a sound of terror cut short too soon.
Her outfit did little to conceal her: a sleek black leather jacket that gleamed as though cursed under the city’s artificial light. It clung to her form, its high collar snapping upward against the wind like a shield. Beneath, a fitted heather-gray turtleneck hugged close to her skin, warm yet breathable, its pragmatic elegance at odds with the desperation painted on her face. Her indigo trousers—tailored to perfection—whispered as they moved, holding the promise of mobility without sacrificing sophistication. Around her waist, a minimal holster looped an energy dagger. Miriam’s raven-dark hair, wind-swept and cascading in loose waves, framed her high cheekbones and piercing umber eyes, eyes fixed with grim determination on the waypoint ahead.
The target was close. Close enough to hear the hum of its energy core, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat beneath layers of reinforced alloy. It sat at the heart of the District, guarded by patrol drones gliding the streets in perfect synchrony. But tonight, everything was chaos. The drones faltered, sparking and spinning drunkenly in the air. A city-wide mechanical failure—the Rebellion’s uprising—had the entire metropolis upended. Miriam had the window she’d been waiting years for. But she wasn’t the only one hunting.
“Miriam!” came a voice through her comm, a frantic crackle amidst the static. It was Ash, the voice of reason—or perhaps her conscience on worse days. “The red wave is closing in! If you don’t get out of there—”
“I know,” Miriam hissed, pressing a gloved finger to the comms button embedded on her collar. “I’m buying time. I need to find the reactor.”
“You’ll die. Or worse.” His voice dropped, soft but heavy, as if whispering might turn the tide of inevitability. “You’re not invincible, no matter what they told you.”
“Save the philosophy lesson for later!” she snapped, skidding once more and ducking into the shadows narrowly avoiding another patrol. “Just track me an exit for when I get what I came for.”
The checkpoint loomed into view. A massive gate, intricately carved yet unapologetically industrial, stood in her path. Emanating from the seams between its panels, a faint red light pulsed systematically. It was alive, or at least semi-sentient. Miriam slowed to a jog and crouched, her black boots scraping silently against debris-strewn tiles. A bead of sweat slid down her temple, mingling with the rain as it trickled down her ashen face.
“Disable the grid,” Ash’s voice crackled back in her ear. “You only have minutes. Destroy the core or we lose the city.”
Miriam clenched her jaw and removed a spherical device from the pouch strapped against her thigh. Her father had designed it decades ago but never lived to see it used. She swallowed hard, thinking of his weathered hands as they tinkered endlessly in their underground workshop. The final escape route. The last resistance. A fight for a freedom she’d never had.
“Here goes nothing,” she muttered to herself, crouching closer to the throbbing gate. The sphere clicked as it expanded, revealing a serrated mechanical arm that extended outward into the key slot.
The wave of red drew closer now, a spectral tide devouring everything in its wake. Streets flooded with energy; humans dissolving into motes of crimson dust. The sound of it was deafening—like the roar of an angry god. The device began its hack, wires snaking into the Pulse Gate’s circuitry. The seconds dragged, each one an eternity as her hands worked to adjust the nerve-rackingly slow calibration. Then, with a final hiss and hum, the gates parted just as the wave breached the alley behind her.
Miriam broke into a sprint once more, leaping through the opening, the destructive red surge licking at her heels. The reactor chamber lay before her. Vast and cathedral-like, it glimmered with fractured sparks of blue energy, encased in a hypercube of tangled wires and luminous veins. Miriam had seconds to act. She threw the containment breach sphere at its core and braced.
The explosion wasn’t what she’d expected. Instead of sound, there was silence—complete and haunting. The red wave disintegrated mid-surge, folding into nothingness. The air that followed was crisp, clean, even breathable—a strange gift for a city that had forgotten what purity felt like. But Miriam didn’t stay to marvel. Limping, bleeding at her side from a shard of debris, she gripped her comm.
“Ash, it’s done,” she whispered. Then she slumped to the ground, the bright stars above—what remained of the luminous city skyline—fading to black.
The Source…check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: Sleek Black Leather Jacket with Heather Gray Turtleneck and Classic Blue Jeans: The Perfect Minimalist Chic Look for Fall
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