Apocalypse: The Beginning of the End

Chapter IV: The Evacuation Begins

Phoenix Drakos

For the next few days, we received more news about such catastrophic events which was caused by the machines completely out of control.

Another major event took place. Along with our unusual life now, we began training for space travel. And Dad was helping build an enormous safety room that was supposed to be really, really strong. But it took thousands of workers.

We trained all day and night, and it was super tiring. We used to go to bed early. In all that time, spaceships were being built and that kept Dad really busy. The training included how to control the ship, and thanks to my great observational skills, I picked it up real soon. But Apollo had physical skills that helped in control, so I felt slightly jealous of him because he was picking it up faster than me. What was it that made me feel inferior to him?

I mean, there were many classes. There was surviving high acceleration training, was pilot training, anti-gravity training, in case the gravity of our ship failed. They also taught parachuting as there was a small chance that the ship would break during the take-off, and to make a safe landing, we had to learn that.

They told us that this disaster could hit us at any moment, so we had to be ready. In addition to all this, we had to attend self-defence classes to protect ourselves in case a machine showed up, but we watched in horror as one of our newly made friends just disappeared one day with no explanation. After that, I got a little harder on myself. The courses became incredibly hard within a short period of time.

None of these, however, were harder than landing the ship in a virtual environment. One moment it was in the air, we struggled to slow it down and give it a perfect landing. The virtual ship would either crumble into pieces after falling or would just go off-course.

It was so hard that it actually took a while before Apollo could land the ship. And he had only been able to do it then.

It barely lasted for a month. By this time, it was December, but strangely enough, there was just really heavy rain, with no sign of ice. I mean, yes, it's possible. But where we lived, it always snowed around this time. The year before this one, it had been bad too, no doubt, but this was something else, I could feel it. We'd keep getting news reports on mysterious disappearances, or holes in the ground, or bodies being found after machines did unspeakable things on them.

One day, I woke up as usual, getting ready for my training, but I got the feeling that something had changed today.

I looked at Melissa, who was having a sleepover with us. Apollo wanted it, don't blame me. I mean, it was weird, alright, having a girl sleeping on our sofa. Thing is, Apollo doesn't understand what's considered weird.

Dad was out for work again and Apollo was still sleeping too, but he was lying on his bed, comfortably spread out all over it. I looked at the sky, but fell back in horror.

It was six in the morning, and I saw some orange light, which was so unusual for this time of the year. The sky was a shade of pale red, and the first impression it gave was the end of the world. Then I saw the source of the light, which was not the Sun. It was a huge ball of gas, inside the atmosphere, which looked exactly like a star in photos. The close-up view. And it was expanding.

BOOM!

The noise was so loud, that the house shook. I saw pieces of the wall fall apart.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" exploded Melissa and Apollo in unison.

The dust cleared and then she saw me. Apollo walked into the living room because of that sound. I didn't understand what was going on.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, PHOENIX?" shouted Melissa almost as loudly as the explosion.