Submitted for the November 2025 prompt: Celestial Signals

The children came to me again that night — or what we called “night” in the bunker — their cracked lanterns casting an orange glow across their dirty, expectant faces.

 

“Again?” I asked.

 

“You tell it best,” said one of the older girls. The younger ones huddled together. They wanted to hear the story, but they feared it too.

 

Hell, so did I.

 

They knew the date was approaching, even if they didn’t fully understand. The adults in their subterranean world were busy preparing, which only sharpened their curiosity.

 

They settled onto the damp floor. I lowered myself onto an old crate, adjusting the lantern to push back the gloom.

 

“The unknown is the scariest thing in the world,” I began. “One night, long ago, there was a light in the sky. A light that should not have been there. We knew at once it was a visitor. A visitor from far, far away.”

 

Their eyes widened.

 

“People were frightened of this light. They feared the end of our world was near. They were half-right.”

 

As I spoke, the low drone of the ventilation turbines rose a notch, the great fans on the level above us laboring like beasts in harness.

 

“To our collective surprise, the visitor did... nothing. It just circled the planet, gazing down at us as we all gazed up. A month later, more arrived. Dozens. A month after that, hundreds. Tiny lights in the sky, bright as welding sparks.”

 

The children fidgeted in anticipation.

 

“All wars stopped. Suddenly, our arguments felt small. These lights brought the world to a standstill just by existing. They had our undivided attention.”

 

I leaned back.

 

“After twenty-eight days, they moved away. Far enough that we could no longer see them except in our largest telescopes.”

 

A boy raised his hand, forming a circle with his thumb and index finger pointed at the ceiling. “The ring,” he breathed.

 

I mimicked his gesture.

 

“You’ve heard this story too many times,” I said, smiling in the dim lantern gloom. “We hoped they were leaving, but no. They formed themselves into a ring, set against the stars of Sagittarius. They should have moved against the stars, the way orbiting things do. But they stayed perfectly still, like someone hammered a tiny halo into the night. It must have taken a tremendous amount of energy to hold their position against the gravity all around them. What was the meaning of this strange behavior? One night, almost by accident, we learned it.”

 

I lifted the lantern.

 

“It happened on live television.”

 

A child asked, “What’s live television?”

 

“Imagine everyone on Earth watching the same lantern shadows,” a girl said. “All at once.”

 

Some children rocked backwards, trying to ponder such a thing.

 

“Every night,” I continued, “scientists gathered to discuss the ring on television. One night, they were reviewing time-lapse pictures slowly gathered by our finest telescopes. A whole month compressed into a single minute. One of the scientists stopped the conversation and said, ‘Can you show us the first and last frames?’ The control room did. First frame. Last frame. First. Last.”

 

A collective inhale.

 

“And there it was,” I said. “A new point of light. Impossibly faint. In the dead center of the ring. Suddenly, it made sense. The visitors were pointing.”

 

A girl asked, “Pointing at what?”

 

They all knew the answer, but they wanted to hear me say it. “A rogue planet,” I said. “A small, frozen world from another star system, dark as charcoal, wandering the galaxy for billions of years. And it was coming here.”

 

Water dripped from the ceiling against the stone floor like an ancient, indifferent clock.

 

“The only logical conclusion,” I continued, “was that our visitors had been watching over us, learned of this object, calculated its trajectory, and then…”

 

“They warned us,” a boy said, who had clearly been waiting for this moment in the story.

 

I nodded.

 

“When our scientists calculated the trajectory, they found it wouldn’t hit Earth — thankfully — but it would pass close enough to disturb our atmosphere. Like a stone skipping over a pond.”

 

A hand tugged my pant leg.

 

“What’s a pond?”

 

“Like the cave water down in level six,” I said. “Still water, disturbed.”

 

“Oh,” the child whispered, imagining.

 

“It wouldn’t end us. But it would try. Dust would blanket the sky. Drop temperatures. Crops would fail. Plants would die. Animals would starve.”

 

The oldest girl said softly, “Ash Winter.” Not exactly accurate, but it was the term adopted by consensus in the early years.

 

“Ash Winter,” I confirmed. “We had one year to prepare. Governments dug shelters. Families dug cellars. Large cities sealed up subway tunnels as best they could and filled them with food and supplies. We were told we’d be underground for one year.”

 

A boy shook his head. “But they were wrong.”

 

“Twelve years,” I said. “Ash Winter has lasted far longer than anyone could have predicted.” My voice lowered. “We no longer hear from other shelters. Some think we might be the only ones left.”

 

The older children intuited the great despair and tragedy behind the curtain of my words.

 

“But now, a date has been set.”

 

The children drew close, breath trembling, for here is where the awful prelude of their lives would finally end.

 

“We are going to open the door. We have our seeds. We stored a great many machines to help us, some powered by the sun itself. Some will plant. Some will build. Some will explore, looking for others.”

 

The words stirred within the children an almost manic excitement even as they felt a sheer, abominable fear.

 

“But, sir,” the smallest girl asked, “are they still up there waiting for us, the visitors?”

 

I took a long breath. Turned the idea over in my head.

 

“I don’t know,” I said. “But part of me hopes so.”