Light the Way

81%

August 5

I don't want to accept that I'm starting to freak out, but I think maybe I am. Just earlier while I was doing my homework, I realised all of a sudden how dark it had gotten, the sun having dropped beneath the horizon, and went to turn on my bedroom light.

Only it didn't turn on.

I may have freaked out a little bit more than I should have. My heart started beating a million times a second and I froze, the dark shadows suddenly a lot more threatening than they had been just seconds earlier.

I tried again and still there was nothing. By this point, I was finding it hard to breathe, the air thick on my tongue – a glutinous mass slowly rolling down my throat and into my lungs. Surely Middle Society hadn't lost all power already?

Panicked, I ran out of my room and straight into my younger sister's room, where I found her reading on her bed in the semi-darkness. Reading, for Chrissake! In the near blackness!

"Avia," I said, my skin prickling as the shadows ran their fingers over my arms.

"Mmhm," she replied, her head still buried in her book.

"Avia!" I said, louder.

She slammed her book shut. "What? Can't you see I'm trying to read?"

"Have you tried your light?"

"What? No. Why?"

I reached for the switch and flicked it on.

And the room swelled with light.

"Hey, I had that off for a reason!" Avia protested as I frowned up at the globe. "I wanted to see if I could read in the dark. And what do you know, I can!" She seemed to notice how little attention I was paying her and stopped, cocking her head to one side. "What is it, Kiran?"

"My bedroom light wasn't working. I thought – well, this might sound ridiculous – but I thought we might have lost all our light."

Avia started laughing. "You're right, that does sound ridiculous. Seriously, Kiran, the Black Wave isn't really a thing. I thought you were smart enough to know that."

"Why don't you try telling all of Lower Sector that the Black Wave isn't a thing? They lost all light yesterday. We're completely cut off from them."

Avia scoffed. "You're just making stuff up so you have an excuse for being a scaredy-cat."

"I am not!"

"You are!"

I let out a breath and did my best to control my temper. "I am not getting into this again," I said, and turned away, striding back over to my own room.

This time when I flicked the switch, the light turned on, just as it has a thousand million times before. So I returned to my homework and did my best to pretend that the incident never happened.

But I've never been good at pretending. And even now, as I sit on the couch with my mum, the television playing a program I'm only barely watching, the fear lingers in my mind. Lingers, lingers. Waits. 

It's only a matter of time now, before the Black Wave strikes.

Only a matter of time.