The morning began like any other. The massive suspension bridge, an engineering marvel stretching across the roaring river, carried its usual heavy traffic—cars bumper to bumper, buses groaning under their load, and trucks hauling steel, fuel, and food to the city beyond. Drivers tapped their horns impatiently, unaware that beneath the surface of the roadway, a hidden catastrophe was seconds away.
Without warning, a fiery blast erupted at the center span. The bridge shook violently as a thunderous shockwave echoed across the valley. Flames and black smoke tore through the steel skeleton of the structure. In an instant, the mighty bridge began to collapse.
Concrete cracked and split apart as steel cables snapped like whips, slicing through the air with deadly force. The roadway buckled, pitching vehicles into chaos. A city bus screeched to a halt, teetered dangerously, then plunged nose-first into the raging river below. Cars slid helplessly into the void, colliding midair before crashing into the water with bone-shaking splashes.
From beneath the surface, the river turned into a graveyard. Vehicles sank slowly into the dark depths, headlights flickering and dying as bubbles of trapped air streamed upward. Debris rained down—steel beams, shattered glass, and twisted concrete raining like hail.
Amid the destruction, survivors fought desperately. A young father smashed open his car window and pulled his child free as water poured in. Another man clung to a piece of floating debris, screaming for help. The river carried both wreckage and the living downstream, their cries swallowed by the churning current.
By the time the echoes of the blast faded, half the bridge was gone. Its remaining steel frame hung jagged and broken, fires burning across its wreckage. The once-proud lifeline of the city now stood as a smoking monument to destruction. Emergency sirens wailed in the distance, but for many, help had come too late.
The bridge had fallen, and with it, countless lives had been swallowed by the river.
