A New World
November 5th, 2012
I groaned while stuffing my face in my pillow with my digital alarm clock beeping in the background. Lazily, I waved my arm around in an attempt to press the snooze button until I finally pressed it, resetting the alarm for ten minutes.
After taking in the next ten minutes and going through that annoying beeping again, I hopped out of bed and headed off to the bathroom. I slightly brushed my hand against my hair that stood up on end in the mirror's reflection. With that, I commenced the morning routine.
Once I finished taking my morning shower, combing my hair, putting on some fresh clothes, and brushing my teeth, I walked into the kitchen and popped two slices of bread into the toaster and got out some strawberry jam.
Shortly after having my rather bland breakfast, I thought it would be a good idea to head to the market to get more food. While driving, I reached over to the radio knob and pressed it. I twisted the knob until I stopped on a news radio channel. At first they were talking about traffic conditions on Milwaukee's Zoo Interchange and then they switched to a more interesting topic.
"In other news, reports of an attack on a research lab in Vancouver, Canada has led Canadian authorities scrambling to the area. Find out why after the break." the anchor announced.
"That's interesting." I said.
A few minutes later, the news had came back on.
"All right, coming back to that attack in Vancouver. Most of the staff have evacuated the building, but many say that one is still inside and is the reason for the disturbance. Canadian news stations have connected with WISN and revealed that employees who work with the suspect are saying that he will activate "it." Very vague answer, but we will have more updates shortly. Cathy, back to you." the anchor concluded
"What the heck is "it" supposed to mean?" I thought to myself.
After driving a little while longer, I made it to the county market and headed inside. Most of everyone seemed to be going about their day and shopping for groceries, but I noticed that some people appeared to be in a big hurry and rather erratic when choosing their items. Like they were mildly panicking, but I didn't pay much mind to them when I happened to run into a friend while waiting at the checkout line.
"Sup, man." Ryan greeted me.
"Oh, hey. What's up?" I responded.
"Monday, Caleb. Monday is what's up." Ryan said.
"Same with you." I agreed, rubbing my eyes.
"Anything else besides that?" Ryan asked.
"Not much. Hey, have you heard about that attack up in Canada?" I asked.
"Nope. What happened? Did some Canadian run out of their monthly supply of maple syrup?" he joked.
"Ha-ha! I see what you did there." I said, while laughing with him.
"Do you have any idea what was going on up there?" Ryan asked.
"I heard it involved an attack at some research lab in Vancouver, that city north of Washington. Sounded pretty serious because the employee's were being evacuated." I replied.
"No way. Was it a terrorist attack?" Ryan asked.
"I don't think so. Probably just some crazy scientist that worked there." I replied.
"That's pretty weird. Wonder what he did that managed to get international news attention." Ryan said.
"You're right about that. I was thinking the same thing before I ran into you." I said.
Me and him walked to our cars while thinking up possibilities of what the crazy scientist would have possibly done before we parted our separate ways.
"You have a good rest of the day, Caleb." Ryan said.
"You too. I'll see ya when I see ya." I replied.
"Later, dude." he said before hopping into his vehicle.
While I was driving home, I switched on the radio, hoping to find out more information about that situation in Vancouver, but only got white static from the station. About ten minutes later, I made it back home and walked inside my house and hauled my groceries inside.
Unpacking and sorting through everything, I switched on the television to the WISN 12 news network and sure enough, there was a live news feed of the situation going on in Vancouver. However, something was off about the broadcast. Nobody was talking, reporting on what was happening to the public. I could hear people talking in the background but they were too incoherent to make out. I didn't pay much mind to the television at first, but that about to change.
The Emergency Alert System had just come on. Perking my attention, I left the kitchen and glued my eyes to the black screen, reading the white text. After those three chill-inducing tones went off, as well as the one that drones on afterwards, a staticky voice began to speak.
"The following message is transmitted at the request of U.S and Canadian government authorities. At 7:49 AM, Pacific Time, an event of supernatural phenomenon occurred eleven miles north of Vancouver, Canada. An energy beam of unknown type was fired approximately one mile into the atmosphere, causing a significant amount of cloud coverage to form, power outages, and growing at an excessive rate over the city, reaching directly eastward at an extra seventy-five miles. An evacuation order has been given for all residents within a five mile radius for those in the predetermined path of the growth. Weather radars will be displayed after this message to provide the predetermined path. If you are within the five mile radius, be sure to pack food, water, first-aid kit, flashlight with spare batteries, and use only one vehicle to follow evacuation routes placed by local authorities. If you are not within the five mile zone, stay where you are. Keep up to date with your news media outlets for more information on this event."
"What? They shot an energy beam into the sky?" I said to myself.
At that point, I had forgotten what I was doing beforehand. For the rest of the day, I just took it easy and relaxed while keeping up to date with the news. I mean it's not like the clouds are much of a threat to us since I was so far away from them while everyone up there by the clouds were evacuating their homes. So yeah, I thought I was a-okay.
I slowly opened up my eyes. I could faintly hear something coming from outside. It sounded like a wail or a scream at first, but once I opened up my bedroom window, I realized that it was the blaring of the air raid siren that was not far from where I was.
"Is there a tornado?" I said, checking the weather radar to see if there was a storm approaching.
When the radar was finally brought up, I was in a mix between shock and slight panic. The entirety of southern Wisconsin was covered with a blanket of blue that indicated cloud coverage. Nothing but cloud coverage could be seen on the radar. I then quickly created a new tab and looked up the world radar to see how bad Wisconsin was and that's when I started to get scared. The United States was now nothing but cloud coverage. Mexico and three-fourths of Canada were doing fine, but the U.S was completely engulfed.
"Oh, no..." I said.
I then dashed out my bedroom door to get a better idea of what was happening, but I was stopped by a light I caught in the corner of my eye. In the distance, about a mile away, I could see a light-blue glow. I looked back and forth at the glow before I approached the back glass door. It was moving, the glow was moving to the right. I then slid the glass door open and stood on the wooden patio in my backyard.
"What the hell..." I said, unsure of whether to be fascinated of it or fear it.
As I watched the blue glow, I couldn't help but realize how quiet it was after the sirens abruptly stopped. No crickets were chirping and I could hear the leaves rustle quietly on the trees. That's when I heard a low hum in the distance, and it was moving in my direction. The humming was getting much louder, almost to the point where it was right above me, causing my eardrums tickle, which made me cover them with my hands. However, something wasn't right. The glow slowed down and stopped . Call it a hunch, but I felt no good was about to come to me.
I then turned around to head back inside, but that didn't happen. Instead, I felt something painlessly strike me in less than a second and was somewhere far from Earth.
I felt all the hairs on my body stand up on end as I entered this weird dimensional threshold. I tried to yell out loud, but I couldn't hear myself. Strangely enough, everything felt calm as before, too. My surroundings were extremely bizarre. It looked like the little color effect you see when you look at oil mixed in water, but the stillness did not last for long. Just like someone switching on overdrive, the colors began to undulate back and forward rapidly in wavy motions and my body was flung forward like a ragdoll. I closed my eyes tightly and yelled out a few times while speeding through the wavy energy. It felt like forever, but the sound of electricity running past my ear made me open my eyes. I could distinctly make out a blackhole that grew bigger in size as I gradually slowed down. I came to a halt right at the edge of the large hole and gravity came back. I then fell out of the hole and landed right on my feet, causing me to stumble and fall forward.
"Ahh!" I exclaimed on impact.
Slowly, I raised myself back on my feet and looked around. It was late at night. The moonlight was my only way of knowing where I was at the time. I appeared to be in an open field with knee high grass and I could make out the silhouettes of trees and hills in the distance. But what I really thought was odd was this castle that protruded from a mountain miles away. It was so far away, but still distinguishable from the interior lighting.
"Where the hell am I?" I asked myself.
Finally, I decided that I needed to find my way back to or find the nearest point of civilization because I was in the middle of nowhere at the moment. I couldn't get to the strange castle because it was on the side of a frickin mountain. I wandered around and searched more and spotted a gravel path that pointed into a heavily wooded area that read, "Ponyville." I knew I had to go through the woods in order to get to this village. I stared into the dark forest and took a deep breath.
"This idea is going to bite me in the ass." I said to myself.
With caution, I started heading into the woods and it was nearly pitch black when I got in there. While slowly walking, the gravel pushing onto my bare feet, I heard the snap of a twig on my right, in the woods. I flinched and my adrenaline began to take into effect. Quickly, I started walking away from the sound in the dark and looked back only to find a pair of glowing green eyes following me.
"Holy shit!" I cried in fear.
With no hesitation, I sprinted and made a life saving decision to quickly make a left turn and climbed the nearest tree. I jumped as high as I could and pulled myself up in one explosive movement and kept climbing upwards. Looking down, those glowing eyes looked right up at me, scratching at the tree in an attempt to reach me. The eyes and I made contact with each other for what felt like forever before the creature or whatever it was decided to move on and leave me alone.
There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn't going back down until it was morning. So, I decided to feel around for a sturdy branch that could support my weight and I slouched uncomfortably on it, leaning my head against the tree before closing my eyes for the rest of the night.