Exopyrendo [WATTYS 2016]

Prologue I - Echo

Small fireballs cross the sky creating multicolored trails that rip through the darkness of the night. Watching this beautiful sight makes a smile creep upon my face and make my heart beat quicker than it normally does. I've never seen anything like this before, and I doubt I ever will again.

"How many wishes can I make, Echo?" my little brother Iasius yips, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. The wooden boards that create our porch creak under him, and he then launches his small body onto my lap. "I want to wish on all of the stars."

"You only get one wish, silly," I respond, readjusting how he is sitting so it is more comfortable for me, and for him. "This one wish is important. You have to think hard about it and make sure that the wish you make is a good one." His turquoise eyes look into mine and I can see all of the excitement he is enduring. I wish that I could be this happy right now.

His small face scrunches up as this hard decision rocks his brain. Iasius has always been extremely fascinated in shooting stars, although he has never seen one before. He must really be excited, much more excited than I am right now. Shooting stars are pretty, don't get me wrong, but they're just space rocks burning up in the atmosphere. Nothing more to it.

My thought process is quickly interrupted when Iasius jumps off of my lap and sits at my feet. The shaggy mop of light brown hair on his head brushes against my knees and the hem of my nightgown, and his continuous jittering cause small chills to go up my body from the tickling feeling. Iasius groans, though his high voice makes it sound like more of a squeak.

"I wish mommy and daddy would come home," he whines to the sky above us. My breath hitches in my chest and a bad taste spreads throughout my mouth. He shouldn't have to worry like I do. He's only 4. He shouldn't have to deal with the anxiety that I have to go through. But, I want them to come home too. They were supposed to be home 4 hours ago. And they won't call me back.

I exhale deeply and stand up. My throat feels tight and my heart is hurting. Mother and father have never been late coming home, and they've always picked up my calls, so why is today different? Their work is in a different area, but they come home by train, so it's barely an hour coming home. Did something happen to the train? "I'll be right back," I say with a severely strained-sounding voice. "Maybe mommy and daddy will pick up the phone now that you've made your wish." A forced smile comes onto my face for reassurance.

I hurry into the kitchen through the open porch doors and scurry over to the home phone that lies on its side beside the stove. They've missed 4 calls from me today – soon to be 5.

The phone makes its way into my hand unsteadily and my fingers dial my mother's cell number. The obnoxious rings start up and every one of them seems to last an hour. The anticipation makes my palms sweaty and my heart hurt from its heavy beating. She has to pick up; she can't leave her two children unknown to whether they are okay and if they are going to be making their way home anytime soon. She has to pick up.

Right before the phone goes to voice message, the ringing stops. But instead of my mother picking up, it's my father.

"Echo, please don't ask any questions. Just listen," he says, very out of breath. I'm terrified. "We are okay, and I know you've tried to reach us multiple times, but I'm sorry. We aren't coming home. Just make sure you're safe. Seek shelter. You and Iasius – go down to the basement and stay down there. Are you and Iasius okay right now?"

"Yes. Yes," I say. I turn to look at Iasius, and everything seems to stop. My whole body starts to shake and I completely forget about my father on the other end of the line. I can feel my heart slowly trying to beat its way out of my rib cage, but I stay calm just for the sake of my parents. "Yeah we're both okay. I'm going to go bring him to the basement. I love you."

My finger presses on the hang up button and I run outside, across the porch, and into our side yard. I know I shouldn't have hung up on my father, although he said he was okay and that's important, but right now is more important.

Woods appear before me, and I search all around - behind me at my house, a small cottage that needs a good gutter cleaning, then at the surrounding houses on our street, and also at the woods. The woods trace the outside of my backyard and span over twenty miles straight ahead. On the other side of those woods – the empty land that surrounds NESC1, the nearest Safe City.

And finally, I look down at Iasius' shoe that lies in the mud right at the entrance of the forest. The small sneaker is stuck halfway into the wet dirt, and the laces that were once off-white are now a sludgy brown.

Iasius ran into the forest.

I start to panic, remembering every single time I've run in there, not knowing how easy it was to lose your path. Too many times I got lost and freaked out because I knew no one would come get me. But every time someone did, and Iasius needs that saving now.

Echo, you can save him. Believe in yourself. Believe that you can save him.

My feet take off before my mind is ready and soon the large forest engulfs me. The whole world around me is pitch black, and the only source of light is the glowing light in the sky.

"Seek shelter."

My father was warning me.

Those aren't shooting stars.

"Iasius!" I scream. My throat burns and feels as though someone is trying to strangle me. Numbness spreads throughout my entire body and my legs give out from beneath me. Everything around me blurs and a high pitched ringing fills my entire head. "Iasius..please."

I rollover to try to get back up, but somehow I forget about everything that is happening.  My eyes concentrate on the sky through the canopy of the trees, following the path of one of the lights. The beautiful glowing white light I saw before with Iasius is gone now, and is replaced with the color of fire. The light is getting closer and closer and my calmness is getting farther and farther away.

Outside fire inside.

It's going to kill all of us.

I moan, knowing that I won't be able to say anything more than that. My ears are ringing and my head is aching. I can't believe my body is giving up from this – my brother is in this forest somewhere, and I'm unable to save him because I'm just lying here. He doesn't know what's going, and maybe it is better that way. But this quiet, nagging voice in the back of my head keeps reminding me that we're both going to die tonight.

My father told us to seek shelter, yet here we both are; far apart in the middle of this twenty mile long forest in the middle of the night. He's who-knows-where, running to or from who-knows-what, and I'm lying in the dirt staring at these fireballs getting closer to the planet's surface.

There's nothing you could have done anyways. Shelter wouldn't have helped; it would just make the impact worse on you and Iasius. The whole structure of the house would have crushed us.

I'm knocked out of my daydreaming space yet again, but this time it isn't the startling movements of my brother.

It's the convulsions of the Earth.