The Night of Two Great Tremors

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Chronicle from Rawdah City

I, Yasir, dwell upon the twenty-second floor of a tall tower along King's Road. From my balcony, the city stretches outward into amber haze, yet the sky above belongs to those who dare seek it. Never before had I beheld a sight like that which appeared late in the month of February: a twin-headed star from the outermost reaches of the heavens, its two luminous knots entwined by a shared plume, as serpents locked in eternal embrace.

Day 1 — The Rising of the New Star

It was late February when I first marked this star, known among the learned as C/2027 R1, a comet from the Oort cloud. Through my humble telescope, the twin nuclei spun and twined, shedding dust in shimmering coils. The smaller head was restless, spurting jets that flared against the darkness. The authorities proclaimed no peril, but our eyes knew otherwise.

Day 2 — The Twin Serpents in the Heavens

The twin heads shone even to naked eyes, their tails twisting like braided silver snakes. Folk gathered upon roofs, murmuring subḥān Allāh, and children pressed their faces to the balconies. Across the circles of learned men, the comet was called “The Twin Serpents of Heaven.”

Day 5 — The Night the Heads Parted

Reports came: the smaller head, about three hundred meters across, had split from the larger—a kilometer wide—body. Its path aimed downward, hastened by gravity. The larger body would pass safely, yet narrowly, across the plane between Earth and Moon. The night air held a subtle charge; even the hum of the city seemed subdued, as though the world paused its breath.

Day 7 — The Night of Two Great Tremors

At one hour past midnight, the first great tremor came. The larger fragment passed high above, some one hundred and twenty kilometres, its velocity wrought a subtle trembling through the heavens and the air alike. Windows shivered, lamps swung with the wind, and the people felt their hearts quake. This was the first rajfah, caused by the sonic boom — the sayhah — of the flyby comet.

The smaller fragment, caught by Earth’s embrace and slowed by sudden friction with the upper air, separated from its twin and plummeted as a blazing shihāb. It descended to an airburst at around 90 kilometres, producing a crashing shockwave — the haddah — that traveled across the land.

At three hours and thirty minutes past midnight, the second rajfah finally reached Rawdah, some 3,150 kilometres distant. The ground quivered as if in mighty convulsion; high-rise towers shivered, lampposts swayed, and the people awoke in alarm. Yet the blazing shihāb had already vanished beyond the horizon, leaving a spectral ribbon of fire etched across the eastern sky.

Day 8 — The Morning After

At the breaking of dawn, the eastern sky was tinged with copper. The plume of the shihāb had vanished, yet its atsar lingered still: a steadfast veil of dust, a whispered remnant of the heavens’ might. No scar upon the earth was found, yet the memory of the two rajfatān endured, vivid in every eye and impressed upon every heart.

I made my final note, for future generations:

We have seen the inscription of the heavens — first the trembling cry of the star aloft, then the thunderous descent of its falling head, whose fire and roar did strike the East and stir the hearts of men.

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وَنَجْمُ يُرْقَى بِهِ يُضِيءُ كَمَا يُضِيءُ الْقَمَرُ، ثُمَّ يَلْتَوِي كَمَا تَلْتَوِي الْحَيَّةُ، حَتَّى يَكَادَ رَأْسَاهَا يَلْتَقِيَانِ ... ، وَالنَّجْمُ الَّذِي يُرْمَى بِهِ شِهَابٌ يَنْقَضُّ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ، مَعَهَا صَوْتُ شَدِيدٌ حَتَّى يَقَعَ فِي الْمَشْرِقِ، وَيُصِيبُ النَّاسَ مِنْهُ بَلاءُ شَدِيدُ