The Wrath of the Gods, by Peter Shilston

As I write this page, it is six days since I saw the sun. Over us there hangs a pall of black cloud, lightning-crowned, and there is an evil stench in the air. Strange things fall from the sky. It is plain that we have incurred the anger of the gods. Perhaps I should have fled, as others did, but now it is too late: only thieves and murderers walk the streets. 
   I have locked and bolted my doors. I have sufficient food and drink, but it is tiring to read and write by the feeble light of this little lamp. But I should not have to wait long for the final doom: the death of this city; perhaps of the whole world. 
  I wonder; what did we do to so anger the gods? We always offered the prescribed sacrifices, with due reverence. Somehow, all unknowing, we must have committed a sacrilege so terrible that it shook the very foundations of the earth: so terrible indeed that the precise nature of it cannot be revealed even to us.
   My eyes grow tired. I shall cease writing and try to sleep. I wonder if I shall ever awake in this life? I do not know if anyone will be left alive to read this page, but I sign off thus: in the first year of the Emperor Titus Falvius Vespasianus; I, Marcus Barinius Scapo; citizen of Pompeii.

(Note: this story and the three that follow are all variations on the theme: "Write a story beginning with these words")