Chapter 1
I stare blankly at the ceiling of my living room. Why? Why did
these people show up? Where did they come from? Why are they even here? Too
many questions, and if there is one thing I know I hate, it is a question
without an answer.
My life has turned into a series of
unexplainable events that I would rather not delve into, but for some reason I
constantly find myself thinking about the illogical facts that now makes up my
existence.
I scowl and pull my sheets higher
on my makeshift bedspread over the cold, unforgiving tile floor. I think about
all of the past occurrences in the last seventy-two hours. Has it really been
three days?
I was walking to the whole foods
market down the street, when all of the sudden a mass of random people formed.
In an understandable sense, it was if the heavens threw up a tidal wave of
assorted living things into the world. People were everywhere. And I mean everywhere. In cars. On roofs. Everywhere.
Everywhere.
People of all different races and
people of all different clothing were crowding the streets, stopping cars,
making all of the original people freeze in their tracks. For what seemed like
an hour (but was only probably only around 17 seconds), everyone just stood
there, awestruck.
Silence.
I am normally the calm under pressure type of
person, calm in competition, having a naturally relaxed composure. Let me just
say I felt like I was going to faint when I saw myself shoulder to elbow with a
six foot male with a four foot sword dangling from his side.
Everyone looked different. I don’t
think I saw one new person who looked like an average American. My mind
unconsciously began to sort different colors and clothing, involuntarily
putting people into different categories into the depths of my mind. Some
people looked like they were going to a Renaissance Fair, while others seemed
ready to dive into a reenactment of World War II.
I was one of the first people to
move. I cautiously pushed myself away from the mass of people, but it was no
use. I found myself being pushed in, slowly being encased by the sheer quantity
of living souls. I was getting claustrophobic fast, so I crouched into a
squatting position and thought. It appeared that everyone was just as
about-ready-to-make-a-break-for-it as me, because just as I got comfortable,
people started stirring. I stood back up hastily, today is definitely not a day
to get trampled on. Anniversary
That’s when the smell hit me.
You have never smelled a dying
person that looked as if they have never seen a doctor until, well, you have. Curiosity
got the best of me, and when I glanced to my right where the smell was
stronger, I saw the most gruesome thing my eyes have ever soaked in. This man
was clearly coming from some heavy business, due to his left arm severed in
half and with the dagger still sticking out of his thigh. His face was streaked
with an allotment of bruises, blood, and sweat. A green-white puss mingled with
blood trickled in a steady stream down the gash in his sweat-dampened clothing,
forming pools of the thick liquid beside him. A deathly, painstaking moan
escaped his lips. About three people closest to him vomited onto the
cobblestone ground.
Everyone turned to the retching
sounds the small group was making, staring openly. I think that is what set
everyone off.
People began to babble in assorted
languages, most that I didn’t even recognize. The man with the sword beside me
began shoving, roaring past people, rambling unintelligibly. It is probably
simplest in words to say that all hell broke loose.
Some burrowed into nearby stores;
others resumed brawling and yelling at one another. All in all, it was mayhem.
I began to scramble away from the onslaught of them, but the population just
seemed to multiply. Children cried for their mothers; mothers cried for their
children. I saw it all, a man in the middle of a very primitive-looking
surgery, feeding the injured patient an alcohol solution. A man holding a gun,
threatening anyone who came near by waving it in the air and firing warning
shots. It dawned on me that whatever the person was holding in their hands
during this…catastrophe, they took it with them. Some people dropped whatever
they were holding and just stared at the moving blades of approaching
helicopters, returning to the earth via the nearby land pad on the Air Force
Base, as if they have never seen a flying thing in their life. Then there were
people like me. Kids on their way to Mc. Donald’s, standing there who looked
like they have just been ran over by a truck.
It was clear. Everyone wanted out,
but there simply was no way out. Me, I just watched. My brain was desperately
trying to make sense of it all, but as I watched the military file in attempt
to sort things out, I only had one thought coursing through my veins, and it went
something like a whhhhhhoooooaaaaaa…oh Goodness.
Everyone that has ever existed is
on planet earth in 2050.
As I throw off my sheets and
leisurely stretch my sore and aching muscles to begin another day of repair, I
know things will never be truly the same again.
