Sun Spot - 2nd Try

Ok. Here it is. This is the next edit and a little continuation of the story...

Chapter 1

“What was that?” I shouted as I woke up with a start. Samantha, Sam for short, was sitting up in bed next to me, fumbling on her bed side table, looking for the light switch. When she finally found it, the tell tale click did nothing. No light. Nothing.

“The light’s broken”, she said, getting out of bed and trying the wall switch. Again, nothing.

“The power must be out”, I told her. “I’ve got a torch”. I fumbled in my bed side table’s drawer and found my torch. We both heard the click, but nothing happened.

Just then, Jenny screamed from her bedroom. She was only six years old, and still didn’t like the dark. She tended to panic when the power went out and she didn’t have her night light to see that the monsters weren’t there with her in her room.

Sam was out of our room in a flash. She was, and still is, an amazing mother, and nothing, not even the Lego block in the passage way between our rooms was going to stop her getting to Jen to help calm her.

“What’s the time?” I thought to myself as I pushed the little button on my watch to try and illuminate the face of my cheap but reliable watch. Again... nothing. Thinking that I hadn’t pushed the button hard enough, I tried again with the same result.

I was still a little groggy from being woken up prematurely. After I yawned, stretched and rubbed my eyes, I looked over at where my mobile phone was. I couldn’t see it in the dark. “Where is it?” I thought to myself. I felt for it, and sure enough, there it was, exactly where I had left it when we had come to bed. It didn’t turn on when I found and pushed the on/off switch.

The feeling that something wasn’t quite right had slowly been getting stronger as the minutes had moved on. I was trying to shrug it off, but the panic was trying to take hold of me.

My hands were shaking a little as I got up to go and join Sam and Jen. I swore as I stepped on what I assumed was the same piece of Lego that Sam had stepped on, and limped into Jen’s room, wishing, like parents all over the world, that all Lego would pick itself up when children stopped playing with it.

I could see a little light through the thin curtains in Jen’s bedroom. “Oh good.” I thought to myself when I realised that the sun would soon begin to creep above the horizon, casting what would at first be a red glow over the world that we knew. Sam turned to look at me as I hobbled into the room.

“Something strange is very wrong” I told her. “There is no electricity.”

“I can see that!” she said, a little annoyed with me for swearing in front of Jen and, stating what she thought was the obvious.

“No – There is no electricity in anything. Everything electronic is dead!” I paused for a split second, then added, “Everything!”.

“What do you mean? Everything?”, she asked. I could tell that she didn’t believe me.

“My watch. My torch. Even my cell phone isn’t working.” I answered.

“Did you remember to charge it?” Her tone this time was condescending. I could tell that she was getting worried, so I walked over and added myself to the three way hug.

“It was fully charged when we went to bed”, I told her as calmly as I could.

“Put new batteries in it daddy”, Jen innocently added. Being six years old made her an expert in everything, and she knew that was the solution to our problem. Boy did I wish it was that simple.

The first time I became aware of the rumbling, was while the three of us were holding on to each other, getting what little comfort we could in the strange circumstances. The room was getting a little lighter, but at the same time, the rumbling sound was getting a little louder.

We could feel the vibrations through our feet on the floor, and Jen’s little picture of pooh bear hanging on her cupboard began a gentle rattle. Things were getting stranger by the minute.

“Daddy, I’m scared” Jen said in her small quiet voice. She looked so small and dainty, huddled up in our arms.

“I know my love. I know.” I told her, while I stroked her head and hoped that everything was going to be ok.

The sun seemed to me to be getting higher in the sky a lot faster than usual. I was convinced that it was my imagination, but I wanted to make sure.

“I’ll be right back.” I said to my small, loving family, as I stood up, walked out of the room and got the key to the front gate of our home.

The front door lock had been broken for months, and all I had to do was hold the lever down to open it. I unlocked the gate, stepped out and looked around the corner of the house, in the direction of the rising sun.

What I saw made me empty my bladder in my pyjama pants.

The sun had just broken above the horizon, but instead of it being a little pin prick of a sliver, the sliver filled about half of the horizon. If that little tiny piece of the top of the sun filled so much of the horizon, then how big or close was the sun to the earth right now?

My mind was reeling. I couldn’t think straight. “Were we all going to die?”

I looked back over my shoulder and saw Sam standing there with a worried look on her face. Jen was holding onto her left leg, as if her life depended on it, tears of fear streaming down her cute cheeks and dripping on to her pyjama top.

“Look”, Sam said, pointing at the huge English oak tree in our front garden. The leaves were wilting and turning a grey/brown colour as we watched.

Birds were dropping from the sky and the air seemed almost like it could catch fire any second as the sun rose.

Chapter 2

The air did something unusual, even for today. It looked and felt almost like it wobbled, but not really. Jen screamed, and then everything was dark.

I could feel Sam’s hand still on my shoulder, so I quietly and as calmly as I could, said “Sam?”. I could hear the tremble in my voice.

“Here” Came her response.

“Mommy… What’s happening?” came from down below and next to Sam. It was Jen, and we could hear the fear in her voice. She was in tears, and her quiet sobs, gave us another clue as to just how scared she was. Sam and I both knew how scared Jen was in the dark. I could only imagine what was going through her young mind. Terror was all I could think about, and it sickened me to think that she was as scared as she was.

“I don’t know my love” Sam answered her as she let go of my shoulder, bent down and picked Jen up. I turned around and embraced them both. I needed the contact and the reassurance that the contact with the two ladies in my life gave me.

We were alive, but for how long?

I could still feel what felt like a solid surface below my feet, and assumed that we were in the same spot as before the darkness enveloped us, but I just couldn’t be sure. As I extended my arm out to feel for the wall and entrance to our house, I felt nothing. The house was no longer where I thought it was.

The feel of my wife and child holding on to me as I held on to them, was nice, but I was more worried and scared for our safety that at any time ever before in my life. I like to know what is going on, and at that point, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t have any idea what had happened to us, and what was worse, I didn’t know what was going to happen either.

I could hear a small whimper coming from Jen as I tried to figure out what was happening to us, but nothing came to mind. Sam broke the silence, by asking what I was beginning to wonder. It was an amazing ability that we had. We could think almost exactly the same thing, sometimes, with one of us verbalizing it to the other’s surprise.

“Are we dead?” she asked.

“I was just thinking the same thing, but I don’t think so.” I replied.

I took a deep breath. No longer scorching , the air felt cool, going into my lungs. It was refreshing, but not cold. I couldn’t have wanted it any warmer or colder.

“I’m breathing and the air is nice. It feels perfect.” I said to no one in particular.

“I know what you mean” came Sam’s reply.  “It’s almost like the air con in set to a perfect temperature.“

If you think that there should be more to this story, you are right... There is more coming when I can get to writing more