Beyond My World

Five

Something bumps into the window at the front, and it's enough to take the attention off of me.

There's a wisp of air on the other side of the window. Except it's not wispy. Actually, it's solid and perfectly visible against the black clouds. It doesn't have a distinct shape, whatever it is, but it kind of looks like...

"An angel?" Someone breathes.

It bumps into the window again, but the glass doesn't make a dull thunk sound. Instead, it's a ringing, like someone whistling a single note that wavers in the wind. Once more, it slams into the window.

This time, glass shatters—the whole ten by ten foot window bursts into shards. Echoes follow: the sound of millions of windows shattering. 

Then there's silence. No one moves, and time completely stops. It really does. The clock above the door I snuck in through stops ticking. My ears had adjusted to it, so I barely even realized it was there until it went silent. Kind of ironic. 

The humming of police cars and the whir of helicopters stop abruptly. My brain had ignored those, too. Blocked them out because they weren't important. Well, they sure are important now. Who's supposed to save us at a time like this if the police and doctors and nurses have all gone silent?

For a whole second, the world is pushed out of existence. There's no noise, whatsoever. Not a murmur, not a breath.

A whirlwind of white hurtles through the window, breaking the silence. The whistling noise disperses. It's everywhere and no where, in my ears and behind my eyeballs, vibrating under the soles of my feet.

It's not long before everyone goes ballistic. 

One-hundred-pound adults push me aside as they fight to get out. The ground is a mess of running feet, trampling and tripping over one another. I lose sight of Dad, and my heart stops along with the time. Before I know it, I'm screaming through all the panicky shouts, through all the crazy whistling. I'm screaming for Dad. 

A giant hand grabs my arm, pulls me out the door and through the halls, even drags me down the stairs at one point. 

It's not Dad's hand.

The hand finally let's go when we're in some kind of basement. Except it's huge and circular and kind of looks like a garage minus the cars. The whistling—the awful ringing that's enough to make a grown adult go crazy and echoes internally in your ear— is quieter down here. It's not gone, just muffled. 

I don't wait to see who my hero is. I scramble away and weave through crowds of people while thinking, So this place is supposed to keep us safe? and, What about the billions of other people in the world? because I'm almost certain that whatever this is, it's not only affecting my world. It's affecting the bigger world. The world world.

"DON'T PANIC," a voice shouts, and it sounds like it's coming through a megaphone. Dad's voice. "Cover your heads, plug your ears..." His voice is drowned by the commotion all around me.

 More running, more tripping, more shoving, and finally, finally, I see Dad. His eyes are darting around, and when they land on me, they close. Just like that, they shut like a closed door.

So, he doesn't see me when I tackle him and throw my arms around his neck.

Yes, I know. I'm supposed to be angry. Angry at him for lying to me. Angry at him for not loving me. But I'm not. Not anymore.

He strokes my hair, his eyes still closed, and says, "Andromeda," ever so quietly. My chin is buried in his shoulder, and I see something drop on the back of his shirt, leaving one of those wet stains. Definitely not a stray tear.

At this moment, I know he is vulnerable. I think the whole world is. I could have asked him anything, and he would have told me everything. I could have asked him about this whole situation. I could have called him out on lying to me, being so secretive. But I don't.

I'm about to say, "Everything is so, completely weird." But I don't.

Instead, I say, "I'm scared, Dad."

And he hugs me harder, and it's like he's making up for the past five years.

"After this, can we go get ice cream?" It's weird, how ice cream is the first thing that comes to mind at a time like this when there's an unearthly whistle echoing in my ears.

He pulls away from me, and I'm terrified he's going to growl at me, say something like, "Grow up, you're not a kid anymore." But he doesn't. He examines my face, wipes something off my cheek.

"Yes. Yes, after this." There's something in his eyes that tells me that there might never be another All You Can Lick Day, but there's something else that tells me to hang on tight, to never let go.

The dim, yellow lights go off. There isn't even a warning, not a single flicker of the lightbulb, not a single clap of thunder. They just go off.

I feel my heartbeat quicken, and so does Dad because he says, "They're not going to hurt us. It's just... their vacation."

I don't ask who 'they' are. I don't ask where they are coming from.

Because there's always been something off about the world. Not only my world. The whole universe.

When I say that, the word 'off' sort of sounds like a tic or an eternal disease that just won't go away, but that's not what I mean.

I mean that some things, some indescribably weird things, are just too bewildering to try and understand.