Nepenthe | Sapnap |

Outbreak

September 27, 2013
4:48 AM
Collingswood, New Jersey

It was pitch black when I opened my eyes and felt my bed shaking. When some kind of bright light flew past my windows, I had to roll over to block my eyes from it, groaning from the flash of pain I briefly got.

The low rumble of a plane was gone as fast as it came when I sat up in bed looking around to check the time. Where my clock was supposed to be displaying the time was empty and black.

My whole room was dark, darker than usual. Pushing myself up to my elbows, I glanced in the direction of where my door was. The lamp that we usually kept on in the hallway was off. The lamp was so old that it would always produce just enough light for us to not run into any walls while walking to the bathroom at light while also not blinding us or pulling anymore sleep away.

Did the bulb finally blow? Nah, maybe the power was out. The low glow of red from my clock wasn't there.

"Mom?" I called out as I pulled up my legs to sit crisscross on my blankets, reaching over to my night table for my phone. "Ma? Did the power go out?"

Mom had to be awake. She was the lightest sleeper I've ever met. The slightest change of light or quietest creak of the floorboard woke her up.

Hand fumbling on the surface for my phone, I eventually found the small, curved rectangle and pressed the button in the middle to wake the screen. My eyes squinting when the display lit up with the screensaver.

The time displayed in the corner of the screen above the keypad read a little past quarter to five, but what really grabbed my attention was the missing bars up at the top where the words 'No Service' was written instead.

That's weird. The last time we lost service was during Hurricane Sandy that was almost a year ago. And it was only gone for a few hours due to the rains and wind.

It was silent outside. More silent than usual actually. It was a bit creepy. The only sound being my own breathing and the hum inside my ears.

Sticking my phone in my pants pocket, I crawled to the end of my bed to peek through the curtains. There were no headlights going by or any streetlights on. It looked like the whole street was out of power.

The rumbling of the plane returned as the bright lights came back, resulting in me flinching away from my window with my hands over my ears, practically yelling out in pain from the sounds of the engines being above my head. It felt like an earthquake was happening with the plane's presence shaking the whole foundation.

Why are they flying so low? Newark was nowhere close. It was on the complete opposite side of the state. And we've been out of Philly's flight pattern for about a year now. What is going on?

"Mom!" I tried again as I climbed out of bed only to end up tripping and yelling out as something screamed once I placed my foot on the ground.

"Shit!"

I landed on my ass as I hissed and groaned. My floor was littered with all the stuff from my shelves. The plane shook the house so much that all my things went tumbling to the ground, effectively making traps all over my room with this darkness.

Digging my phone back out of my pocket, I hit the flashlight shortcut to light up a good portion of my room. Yellow eyes glowed back at me from a few feet away, surrounded by Pokémon figurines and other random crafts from school art projects.

"Oh," I let out a breath as I rolled forward onto my knees. "Sorry, bud."

My cat stood in the middle of my room, hunched low to the ground and ready to pounce at any second. The hair on his back was practically straight up in the air as his eyes followed me while I got up to my feet and kicked the area clear around me. His whole tail was puffed up. He was clearly on edge as well.