The Sky Below
No one saw it happen.
There was no tremor, no storm, no strange color in the clouds. No sign at all.
One Tuesday morning, the sky was simply… beneath everyone.
1. The First Glimpse
Mara was the first on her street to notice. She lived on the eighth floor of a narrow apartment block, a little too high for traffic noise but low enough to still hear the sound of shopkeepers rolling up their shutters in the morning.
That morning, she heard nothing.
When she slid open the curtains, her stomach lurched. The street was gone. In its place stretched a vast, churning ocean of clouds. They swirled and billowed in impossible slow motion, glowing with molten gold where the sunlight pierced them from beneath. Somewhere deep in that ocean, she could glimpse enormous shapes — mountain peaks, forests, towers — forming and dissolving like breath on glass.
Above her, the familiar blue sky had vanished, replaced by a vast, starless black. It wasn’t night — it was more like staring into ink, or a depth so complete it seemed solid. She had the sudden, irrational thought that if she reached up too far, she would touch it.
Across balconies and rooftops, neighbors stood frozen. A man two floors down clutched the railing so tightly his knuckles were white.
“What happened?” someone shouted from another building. The question went unanswered.
2. The Birds
The first sign that something was deeply wrong came from the birds. Pigeons, swifts, and sparrows darted frantically in the thin strip of air between the buildings and the void above. Some flew up toward where the ground used to be, colliding with invisible surfaces, fluttering helplessly until they turned and dove straight into the glowing abyss below.
Some never came back.
Others returned… wrong. Their feathers shimmered faintly as if dusted with starlight, and they moved in stiff, mechanical patterns, circling in perfect, unnatural loops before disappearing again.
3. The Scientists
By afternoon, the radios crackled to life. Calm but strained voices spoke in measured tones.
“It is… a spatial inversion,” one man said. “The Earth’s orientation has shifted in relation to—” Static swallowed his words. Another broadcast spoke of an “anomalous optical phenomenon” and urged everyone to remain indoors. But no one explained why there was no wind. Why the air tasted faintly of metal. Or why shadows now stretched downward, into the clouds, as if light itself had reversed.
4. The First Fall
On the second day, someone jumped.
It was a young man from Building 14, barefoot, wearing only a thin T-shirt despite the morning chill. He didn’t scream. He just climbed onto the ledge, closed his eyes, and stepped forward. The clouds below swallowed him instantly.
An hour later, he came back. But not by climbing. He rose out of the clouds slowly, like a diver breaking the surface of a lake. He landed gently on a rooftop across from Mara, his clothes dry, his eyes… glassy.
When a neighbor tried to talk to him, he only smiled faintly and whispered, “It’s beautiful down there. You should see it.” Then he walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the building and never reappearing.
5. The Voice
That night, Mara awoke to a sound from above. It wasn’t loud — it was more like a voice speaking just behind her ear. It said her name. Once. Clearly.
She froze.
It wasn’t a stranger’s voice. It was her mother’s — soft, warm, exactly as it had sounded when she was a child, long before illness had taken it away.
Others heard voices too. The old man next door swore his wife was calling him from the void. Children claimed they heard friends laughing. The temptation was unbearable for some. By morning, three people had climbed their rooftops and reached upward into the black. None came back.
6. The Pull
Mara tried to avoid the balcony, but every day the darkness above seemed to press lower, like a ceiling bending toward her. At the same time, the clouds below grew sharper in detail. She could now see streets there — her streets — with people moving, but reversed, walking backward, faces blurred.
One evening, she spotted herself. Or something that looked like her, standing on a balcony in that upside-down world, staring upward. Their eyes met. Mara stumbled back from the railing, heart racing. When she dared to look again, the other version of her was gone.
7. The Choice
On the seventh day, the blackness touched the rooftops. The air grew heavy, each breath slow and deliberate. The clouds below flared with a final, blinding light, revealing an entire mirrored city.
Voices called from above and below now, overlapping — her mother from the darkness, and herself from the clouds.
“Mara,” both said at once.
She stood on the balcony, feeling the pull from both directions, knowing that whichever she chose, there would be no return.
And then, quietly, she stepped forward.
☁ When the sky falls, it might be from beneath your feet. ☁
Note:
Thank you for reading “The Sky Below”! This is a story in a series created for avid readers and English learners who want to enjoy captivating tales while practicing their language skills. Stay tuned for more stories and language tips to enhance your journey!
Explore more short stories in English and Spanish by visiting the section:
Short Stories / Cuentos Cortos
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