Chapter Two

"What exactly happened to you guys?" I asked, unsure what happened during that hour of unconsciousness, as well as not wanting to mention the voices or Gaia unless they experienced it too. Brett and Brandie looked at each other in silence for a long moment. The air was heavy, and anxiety filled my heart.

Brandie did not look at me, just kept her eyes forward on the road, as if searching for answers. "I was out on my morning run, when a car on the street wrecked into a pole across the street. Except there was no one in the car. Door locked, all windows intact, no way for them to have gotten out of the car. I started screaming but no one responded. 911 did not work. It sounded like there were more wrecks in the distance. I ran back home to find only Brett there, he was still asleep. Our parents were gone, their cars still parked out front. No flash, no warning, just everyone disappeared."

Brett laughed nervously, half trying to prevent himself from crying. "Brandie woke me up, and sure enough she was not lying. Our parents were not home. Neither was any of our neighbors. We saw a plane fall from the sky. With all the fires, the city did not feel safe. My gut told us to get on our bikes and head out of town. I feel like we are close."

"To what?" I asked. He just shrugged.

Brandie returned her gaze back at me, her piercing eyes glaring at my neck and chest. "Why you covered in blood?" her voice was tainted with disdain, as if she was staring at a murderer. To be fair, it was a lot of blood.

Unsure of what to say, I just looked at the ground, kicking at a rock. It's not like I wanted to talk about my suicide attempt to strangers, or did I have a logical explanation for surviving a bullet to the head with no wounds. "I got into a minor accident when everyone disappeared." Technically kind of true. "It looks way worse than it is."

Brandie continued to glare unconvinced when Brett suddenly stopped in front of a ranch house. There were no other buildings in sight, nor any signs of humans. "We are here." He said confidently, walking straight up to the porch and knocking on the door. No one answered. Brett then sat down on the porch, eyebrows knitted deep in thought. Brandie exploded, ranting about how stupid he was, how bull his gut feelings were, directing all her emotions about the situation into her brother. After a few minutes of her venting, she began to storm off, muttering under her breath.

Barking, the dogs started running towards the road. From the distance, you could see a bright red car driving towards the house. As the bright red car pulled into the driveway, Brandie stopped talking and Brett started grinning ear to ear. Out stepped a man in his mid to late 30s, with dark red hair and deep green eyes. He had a bit of scruff around his jaw and heavy wrinkles around his eyes from smiling. A group of three men and a female followed soon after, all ranging in builds and ages. A scrawny middle schooler with long black hair, a giant college student wearing his basketball uniform, and a buff dark-skinned Latino in his late 20s. The female was a petite Asian, with luscious raven locks, and innocent black eyes.

"Another group of survivors?" The red headed man asked, his voice filled with carefreeness and joy, as if the world was not ending. "Come on in." Still in shock that Brett was right, Brandie only nodded and followed. Brett could not shake his smile off, possibly from not believing himself. Inside was very clean and full of small detailed architectural pieces. Paintings were abundant, all clearly not prints, and hand painted. The wall by the staircase had family photos of the redhead and what looked like his wife and teenaged son.

"There's water bottles in the fridge, but the fridge does not work." He stared at my bloody appearance before continuing, "Freshen up then we can discuss things. Shower is upstairs, first door to the left." I smiled at the idea of getting the blood off me and ran up the stairs.

Stripping my clothes off, I looked over myself again in the mirror. There really were not any wounds. Even the bald spot was completely gone, the hair already long enough to blend in with the rest of my hair. I searched the bathroom for anything sharp and found a razor and began to cut at my wrist. The sweet release of pain and blood hit me, but the wound immediately closed. I cut deeper, deeper, but the cuts would heal instantaneously. If it were not for the blood, there would be no physical signs of the wounds. I went for a deep vertical cut, stretching from my entire forearm. Not even a scar was left. I stepped into the cold shower and began having a meltdown. Screaming in my arm, trying to keep it quiet, everything seemed like it was too much. It was too much. I could not mentally handle what was going on. I wanted it all to end, the pain of existence, the anxiety, the voices. Everything.

My mind went back to that place, that night. My body began to shake violently as it remembered what had happened that night. His vile touch, the weight of his body, the inability to fight back. Him shoving my face into his lap, forcing me to do stuff. Even though I was in the shower and the blood was washed off by now, I felt dirty. Even though the bruises had healed, my fingers ghosted over exactly where they had been, as if they were still there. It felt like I was falling deeper into my mind, unable to pull myself back into the present.

"Pills." I managed to whisper to myself. "pills." It helped snap me back to realty a bit, most of my mind still stuck. After a bit of willing, I dragged my body out of the shower and began digging for my antianxiety pills and swallowed them dry. The shower still running, I sat on the cold floor, vaguely aware of my surroundings as I waited for the pills to stop the ptsd attack. When I finally was calm enough to function, I turned off the shower, dried off, and put on some clean clothes. It was obvious that I had been crying, my dull brown eyes puffy and red. On the bright side, with nearly everyone gone, he was probably gone too. That thought helped put a smile to my face.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, everyone was gathered in the living room, including a new group of four girls. All of them wore their dark blonde hair straight and up in a high ponytail and wore the same cheerleader uniform. Everyone looked at me with odd pity. Great, they could hear me. I sighed and found a spot on the floor and cleared my throat to break the deafening silence.

Taking the que, the redhead plastered a big smile across his face, "Hello, I'm Evan McCallister, the owner of this home. I am an architect." That explains why the house had so much character. "Woke up to my wife and kid gone, and not needing glasses anymore."

"I'm Ricardo Vasquez, entrepreneur. Was at the gym when everyone disappeared. I can now run really fast." I guess everyone suddenly developed special abilities, as if things could not get any weirder.

The giant came next, "Blaine Smith, college basketball player. My jumps were great before, but now they are ridiculous." He flashed his white teeth, proud of his ability.

The cheerleaders started squealing, "I'm Alyssa Davis."

"I'm Katie Williams."

"I'm Paige Johnson."

"I'm Megan Thompson."

They giggled and continued in unison, "We are cheerleaders at Richardson High and we can read each other minds." Something tells me not a lot goes on in those minds to begin with.

"I'm Brandie and this is my brother Brett. My brother has great intuition now, and I have heightened hearing. We both play baseball in high school."

Brett continued, "I was asleep when it happened, and she was out running."

The awkward boy stumbled, "I'm Chase Handle, and I woke up to my family missing. I think I have super strength since I broke my bedroom door and front door on accident." He looked close to crying, curled up into a ball, staring at the carpet. Chase was too young to be going through this, and it showed.

The petite girl finished. "I'm Arika Tsunamado, I'm a music major the community college. I also have heightened eyesight." She smiled, lighting up the room. But no one mentioned hearing the voices, or Gaia. Even Brett with his intuition had no idea about what was going on. It was probably best not to mention these things, for I did not want to seem most crazy. They already heard my breakdown.

"I'm Azaleigh Moore, a grad student at the university in historic literature. I guess animals like me." I gestured towards the window where all the cats and dogs had gathered. No one else seemed to have animals following them. "I can tell what they are feeling."

"Well, that wraps up introductions, I think we should discuss a game plan." Evan clasped his hands together. "We already came from the town over and no one was there. Electricity and internet are out, so there is no way to find out if this is a global thing." My eyes began to get heavy, the medications fully kicking in. I tried to listen to what they were saying, but sleep began to overcome me.

"Is there a place I can sleep?" I interrupted, not wanting to pass out in the middle of the living room.

Evan looked annoyed, for this discussion was vital to our survival. "There's a bedroom downstairs and three more upstairs. This place is not set up for 12 people, so people are going to have to share beds." I thanked him and headed for the nearest bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I did not even get a chance to look around, just dropped my duffle bag on the floor, flopped under the covers and passed out.