Run. That was all Margret Eisenhower thought, all she could think. Run. Run for her life, their lives, for she lives for them. Run. With all she has, everything she's got goes into it. Run. As fast and as far as she can.
***
My feet are bare, my tears unshed. I should be crying, stumbling around blind because the tears in my eyes and pain in my heart are just too much. But I'm not. I'm not doing anything but running. I don't know why. Why I'm not falling into pieces, why I'm alive and my parents aren't, why I don't just go back now and let them finish me off. Except I made a promise to my mother as she held my dead father.
"Margie, Margret- My beautiful- beautiful daughter, you have to live. You have to live for me, for your father. I love you sweetie, I love you so much. You have to do this, you have to live. You have to live for us."
She knew she wasn't making it out of the house. She chose not to make it out of the house, so I could. She died for me.
I feel numb. Nothing feels real, like I could wake up tomorrow, tucked under the covers like a child in a story book, and this would all be a dream. I want my mom to hug me one last time, I want my daddy to pick me up and swing me around again, like when I was little. I want to tell them I love them more than anything else in the world, and take back all the times I screamed I hate you and slammed the door on them. Just keep running, I think, just keep running... And that's what I do, I just keep running.
***
I wake up the next morning on a couch in an unlocked abandoned furniture shop, where I slept after going until my lungs were in flames and my legs could take me no farther. During the last stretch of road the pain in my, now raw, feet made the situation a little to real for comfort. I convinced myself that everything was in my mind, that I went to sleep last night and that I'd wake up in my bed. It takes me a minute to come to my senses and realize where I am, not wanting to believe this unfamiliar world around me. I can feel my sanity being pulled apart bit by bit, as I slide to the ground, the reality I convinced myself of in tatters.
"No, no, no, no..."
I start picking up a chant. Leaning against the couch as I curl myself into a ball, I press my hands against my ears and jam my eyes shut.
"This can't be real, this can't be real... No, this can't be real! This can't be real... It can't. It can't! No, it can't... it can't be real No. No. No! No. No...
I break down into hysterical sobs. I know I'm having a panic attack, but I don't care, I just don't care. I want my mommy and daddy. I want them so much I feel like pulling my heart out and ripping it to shreds, just so I don't have to feel this! I want my mom to hold me in her arms and tell me that it'll be okay, that I won't have to do this alone. That I won't have to keep on living alone.
"Mom! Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mom, Mommy. Mommy, please! Please! Please, mom, y-you... You can't... You can't- you can't... You can't! You can't leave me! No, mommy, please, don't leave me! No, please, don't leave... Don't leave me...
I fall onto my side, removing my hands from my face, and wrapping one arm around my head, one hugging my knees to my chest. My once blood curdling screams slowly transition into quiet sobs and whispered wishes that they'll never hear. I want to die, but I can't. I promised my mom I wouldn't.
"Promise me, Margie, promise me that you'll live. Please, promise me that. Promise me! Sweetie, promise me, please... Please... You have to live, Margie... Promise me that, okay? Promise me."
I promised.
I feel my tear stained face wetting my shirt, I sniff, and try to take control my ragged breathing. I take deep breaths, just like my mom taught me, letting the oxygen return to my brain. Somewhere inside me I find the courage to open my eyes, and find myself shocked at what surrounds me.
Standing up, I look at the furniture, or rather, the remains of the store, which are completely destroyed. When I woke up barely fifteen minutes ago everything was intact. A few displays were missing and some strangely charred, but everything that wasn't taken was fine. I start to get uncomfortable with the fact that I'm, not suddenly, aware of everything around me, in a way that I shouldn't be. I feel the broken furniture against the air, but I feel the air separately too. What I'm feeling feels like myself, or an extension at least, and it gets stronger the more I think about it.
I shake my head, trying to ward away the peculiar awareness, shutting it out of my mind. I look around and if the situation were different might have smiled, I see a radio not far from where the kiosk used to be. I walk over and bend down to pick up the small device, praying that it's not broken.
When I go back to the somehow still intact couch to turn it on at first all I hear is static. Frowning, I try changing the frequency, still nothing. Turning the knob in the other direction as a last attempt, I find myself on the channel of the man I listened to last night with my parents and the one robber and surprisingly it works.
-al activity is rising as the structure of our society, and many others, break down. The team I've put together have reported bodies of manslaughter, murder, and suicide, robberies, armed robberies, vandalism, property destruction, and cases of rape and attempted rape. As crime rises, business and public services have started to cease. Many residences are empty on account of millions of people packing up their things and heading out of town. Most in search of someplace unaffected, although there is little hope for that now. The naturally occurring molecule with an undiscovered atom is reported as not being able to be confined in even a sealed chamber, hard to believe, but apparently true.
I look around the destroyed store, laying my eyes on the furniture that was burnt. I sigh, stuck in a decaying world, if a thriving one was enough to make me want to kill myself, what would this one do. I shiver, a chill going up my spine. I think once again of the ominous awareness that I have, which is getting harder and harder to ignore. If everyone was affected, than so was I. I close my eyes, the radio in my hands, taking a deep breath and holding it in, letting myself feel my surroundings. I can feel every inch of the store almost as if it were part of me. I can feel the energy that coats everything, every little particle in the air, every molecule of oxygen that I breathe in. I can feel it. I can feel the energy tensing and contracting, being wound up, responding to me, for I can feel that I'm connected in the web that entangles everything. I open my eyes, still holding in air. Finally, I let out my breath.
Immediately everything in the store is thrown away from me, a large wave of visibly blue energy repelling it towards the wall, which itself is cracked. I stand in the middle of the cleared floor, breathing heavily, still holding the hand held radio. I didn't wonder what happened because I knew. This was my power... This was me.
ns 15.158.61.21da2
