TITLE: Night Shift at Weather Station Nine
An original short audio drama written for the Decosa demo (2026). Free to reuse.

SCENE 1. WEATHER STATION NINE, A HILLTOP HUT. NIGHT.

[SFX: Wind howling around the hut]
[SFX: Rain on a tin roof]
[MUSIC: Theme, then under]

NARRATOR: Weather Station Nine sits on the last hill before the sea. Tonight there is one person on shift, and she is not expecting company.
[SFX: A clock ticking]
ROSA: Twenty past two. Pressure still falling. Wind gusting sixty. Nobody sensible is out in this.
[SFX: A telephone rings]
ROSA: Station Nine, Rosa speaking.
DISPATCH (on phone): Rosa, it's Dispatch. The coast road is closed. There's a van stuck at the bottom of your hill. The driver says he can see your light.
ROSA: My light? The lamp's been off since midnight. I'm running on the battery.
DISPATCH (on phone): Then what is he looking at?
(Rosa crosses to the window.)
ROSA: (quietly) There's a light on the ridge. Moving. Slowly.
[SFX: Thunder rumbles in the distance]
[MUSIC: Sting]

SCENE 2. THE DOOR OF THE HUT. A FEW MINUTES LATER.

[SFX: Rain stops]
[SFX: A knock at the door]
ROSA: Who's there?
TEO (off): My name is Teo. I drive the post van. I saw a lantern up here and followed it. Please, it's freezing.
[SFX: A door creaks open]
ROSA: Come in, quickly. Sit by the heater. Did you say a lantern?
TEO: A lantern on a pole, swinging. Someone was carrying it. I thought it was you.
ROSA: I've been at this desk for six hours.
TEO: Then who is out there?
(A pause.)
ROSA: The station log says the keeper here, back in eighteen ninety, walked the ridge every storm with a lantern, to warn the carts off the cliff road.
TEO: That's a story.
ROSA: It's a log entry. I'm reading it now.
[SFX: A page is turned]
ROSA: (slowly) Storm of the fourth of March. Carts turned back at the ridge. Nobody lost.
TEO: And tonight?
ROSA: Tonight you turned back at the ridge.
[MUSIC: Theme, out]
NARRATOR: The road reopened at dawn. The van was fine. And the log for that night has one line in it, in Rosa's handwriting: Lantern on the ridge. Nobody lost.
