Five Years Ago

photo credit @s_a_w_a_n

September 11, 2026

Twenty-five years ago, one of my nightmares came to life, and it haunted me ever since. I remembered hearing about the people, falling from the sky. Plummeting to their deaths. My disbelieving eyes couldn’t look away. But, the nightmare continued.

It seemed like everything fell from the skies that day.

I remembered the shock and the numbness that lingered for weeks, along with brief glimpses of panic that didn’t fully manifest until fifteen years ago when the rest of my nightmares turned out to be true.

But none of it compared to five years ago, when everything fell from the sky. Five years ago, when everyone died, except for me.

© Sarah Doughty

For the #PiccadillyPrompts challenge
I’m hosting on Instagram,
based on prompts in their prompt journals.
This one is from 300 Writing Prompts,
which they were kind enough to let me share:
“Write a journal entry ten years in the future.”