For two seconds, it dropped in silence, the wind plucking at its paper casing. The technician stepped back, thumb hovering over the detonator. Below, the test range yawned—a cratered half-mile of scorched earth and silence.

He exhaled, checked his watch, and thought: From rest to rest. Just a 46‑meter scream in between.

But he’d stopped doing the math aloud after the last accident.

From rest. Zero velocity. All its future velocity borrowed from gravity alone.

Here’s a short piece based on the prompt The pyrotechnician’s fingers uncurled one by one, deliberately, as if releasing a captive bird. The 3-kg firecracker—a dull red cylinder packed with black powder, fuses coiled like sleeping snakes—hung for a heartbeat in the stillness. Then it fell.

The firecracker struck the packed dirt with a dull thump , not a detonation. A puff of dust. For a moment, nothing.

Three kilograms at terminal velocity , he’d calculated. Impact force, approximately…

Then the fuse caught—a tiny orange eye blinking to life in the settling debris.