Writing Prompt: Splintered

I know I've been slacking on writing posts, but there is a big reason for that which I will post at a later time. (Hint: I've been writing something big.)

So I wanted to post something to hold you over.

My writing group, Wicked Wordsmiths of the West, did a sprint prompt at this evening's meeting and everyone wrote such great pieces! We each drew a picture from a bag and had 15 minutes to describe the world in the picture as a worldbuilding exercise. 

So here is the short little bit I wrote for my picture:

Splintered

The constant barrage of early summer storms usually blocked out the second moon, but the brief moments in between, when the sky was clear, you could enjoy the strange view. While the clouds moved in each morning, we would rush to harvest what we could before they arrived, forcing us to flee back to shelter. It is not wise to carry a scythe in a thunderstorm.

In the late summer, the storms will calm and the moons will give us just enough light to gather the rest of the wheat. When the sun returns in the autumn, though, the earth will be scorched. The annual slaughter of Gaea's orb that prepared it for the devastating winters that covered the barren earth with ice and snow.

No one suspected we would last this long after the splintering of our planet. When it began to tear itself apart, we expected the frequent quakes to swallow us, the storms to batter us, and the massive eruptions to bury cities as if in tribute to Pompeii. Instead, we began to move, as if Earth was seeking refuge somewhere away from itself, but it simply wandered among our surrounding celestial neighbors like a lost child searching for its mother.

To the moons. To the sun. To the emptiness. Then rushing back for what seemed familiar.

And each day, the atmosphere shifted and cracked under the pressure of the constant journey. No one knew how long she could keep this up; how long she would stay together. So we only do what we can from day to day. Continuing to do the work that distracts us from the day she will eventually shatter.