Ambrosia

~ PT-II |

THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING. It leaves little room to register anything else I might otherwise already have—heavy breathing, racing hearts, the faint bumping of radio music. Everyone seems to be holding their breath.

Light flickers across the sky in the distance. A wave of cotton-ball clouds is roiling in, as is the heavy smell of warm rain. And I can't move my legs.

My gaze floats toward the general, and I just catch his gritty voice on the wind—"What the hell does this thing want?"

I'm snapped out of my stupor when I hear a familiar voice call my name: "Seleste!" Grace and Kennedy—two friends I made my Freshman year—are sprinting up behind me when I turn to look. Both of them are out of breath—I wonder if they ran all the way from campus—hair whipping in the wind.

"Bitch, we've been looking everywhere for you!" Grace grabs me by the wrist, her stubby fingers surprisingly tight around my arm. Her thinned fringe is blown down the middle, and a lock of strawberry blonde hair arches over the crown of her head. Her blue eyes flicker across my face. "Come on!"

The fog parts for a moment. "To where?"

Clenching his fingers around his thumbs, Kennedy says, "I have a friend who lives way out of the city—"

I blurt, "He wouldn't happen to have a red pickup with an American flag in the back, would he?" My words go unheard as another siren begins to blare, this one closer and only a street or two away.

"He invited me to bring anyone I choose!" Grabbing my other wrist, Kennedy starts to pull us closer to the scene. He runs his fingers through one side of his hair, though it just flops back in his face when he moves his hand away. The right half of his cream blouson is creeping out of his belt line. "Now let's go!"

"Hey!" A cropped-haired man in a camouflage jumpsuit approaches, hand out like he's trying to stop us. He has to shout to be heard. "Stop right there. You can't go any further."

Kennedy speaks for us. "We need to get to Summit." Again, Summit, the "wrong side of the tracks", but the only way out. I wouldn't be surprised if the gangsters had already invited martial law on their own terms.

The soldier shakes his head. "Summit's been shut down. No one's allowed in, so I'm afraid you're going to have to turn around—"

"But Summit is the only way out of the city."

"Right now the only open exit out of the city is Grande Hill."

There is a moment where Kennedy only blinks at the man. "It will literally take us all day," he snaps.

"Guess you'd better get a move on it then."

"Dude, we—"

The soldier lowers his hand to one of his weapons, a handgun strapped to his hip. "I don't care what you do, but you step any closer and you'll be arrested for obstruction."

Grace slides her hand between the two men, jabbing our friend in the chest with her elbow. "Kennedy." When he looks at her, she goes on, "Come on, let's just go."

"The sooner we leave, the better," I note, my eyes drifting back to the inducer of mania. The black metal exterior has a dark purple flint to it.

He clenches his fists. "Fine," Kennedy grits out. Grace is already turning away before he can.

A noise like like nails on a chalkboard roars out from the top of the ship. We covered our ears, wincing and instinctively crouching down. Others did the same, even the soldiers, even the general.

Lightning strikes a rod on The Everett building; the windows light up. The lightning doesn't come from the sky though; it, just like the sound, comes from the top of the ship.