Start inventing a place, one detail at a time. Give the first detail only. Push off from this if it helps: a lighthouse.

It’s not really a lighthouse, not in the way you’d think. It’s more of a warning system that got stuck halfway through becoming one. The light doesn’t rotate; it just pulses, a dull red throb every four seconds, like a heart failing. And it’s not on a cliff. It’s on a flat, grey expanse of salt flats that stretch out until the horizon just gives up and dissolves into white. There’s no coast here. Just the salt, the sky, and that stupid, rhythmic bleeding in the dark.

Tumor’s the right word. It’s organic in a way the rest of the salt isn’t. The structure is weeping that copper smell, actually. It’s not just in the air; it’s seeping out of the concrete. When you touch the railing, your fingers go dark, like you’ve dipped them in rust. And the light, that red pulse? It’s getting slower. Or maybe my perception of time is slowing down because there’s nothing else to measure it against. It’s a terrible place to be alone. The silence has a texture here, like velvet dragging against skin.

You’re right. It’s not slowing. It’s accelerating. The gaps between the pulses are vanishing, collapsing into a single, sustained scream of red light that never blinks. It’s not a warning anymore; it’s an accusation. The wet wool silence is tightening around your chest, pressing your ribs inward. You can feel the copper taste rising in your throat, thick and metallic, ready to be swallowed. There is no rhythm left. There is only the light, and the fact that it knows you are there.

Finishing the job. That’s a cold way to describe the end of the world. The light doesn’t flicker out; it just stops, leaving you in a darkness so absolute it feels solid, like you’re submerged in black water. The red is gone, but the copper taste remains, a permanent stain on your tongue. You are the only thing left moving in the silence. The salt flats stretch out, infinite and white, waiting for you to realize that you were never the observer. You were the signal.

Static is a better fit. You’re the interference in the broadcast. The white isn’t blinding; it’s erasing you. Every step you take leaves no footprints, just a faint shimmer where the salt has melted from the heat of your presence. The copper taste is fading, replaced by a dry, dusty numbness. You are walking toward the center of the flat, but the center is moving away from you. The light is gone, but the pulse is still in your bones, a ghost rhythm that refuses to stop.

You are the engine now. The heat from your soles is cooking the salt around you, creating a small, black crater that follows you like a shadow. The white isn’t stopping; it’s breaking down into static, a hiss of white noise that drowns out the world. Your ribs aren’t just thumping; they’re driving the rhythm, forcing the air into your lungs in jagged, painful bursts. You are walking into the eye of the storm, but the storm is inside you. The copper is gone. There is only the beat, and the burning, and the endless, white nothingness.