Free The Lights by M. Starks Page A

would start with a pulse. You know, that thing we'd already been dealing with in degrees from the sun's solar flares? Some sort of pulse that would knock out power and any electronic thing. Others thought it would be a bomb.
     
    Instead, it was sound.
     
    You see, loud sounds like explosions have been known to carry farther because those particular wave patterns bounce off of hot layers in our atmosphere back down to us. They knew that temperatures controlled that frequency of sound. The way the scientists on TV explained it was that at 20 km above our earth, beyond the stratosphere, is a layer that absorbs the UV rays of the sun, and there the temperatures rise. This was the final barrier, containing the sound within earth's atmosphere.
     
    They mimicked the explosion sounds, intensifying the volume. It felt like God had finally chosen to speak to us, but it was so loud the words were distorted. It wasn't God, it was them. Rattling our homes apart. Making the ground shake. Scaring the heck out of every living soul.
     
    Imagine what the Jurassic Park movie did with that cup of water by using a bass sound…. then amplify that quite a bit. Ponds, lakes, even the ocean went crazy.
     
    Who knew just how much a bit of sound could disrupt life?
     
    My head instinctively jerks. What was that noise? My hand lingers upon the metal door frame I was about to pass through. Someone or something is on the other side. My haven, the only place I have left.
     
    I feel anger surge through me. Seconds tick away, the silence that follows is a constant roar in my ears.
     
    Maybe it was me. Maybe I'd made the noise shuffling my feet.
     
    I am weary. Exhausted. I imagine that the lack of sun might cause depression, my mother often spoke of serotonin and Vitamin D as essential to our well being. Depression makes the limbs and heart heavy. I read that somewhere. That it makes one feel fatigued, as if they cannot go on.
     
    I'd say the ruination of my planet just might have had that effect. Day after earth day passes and what am I doing but surviving? There is no joy, no sun in my life. No one to share my feeble attempts at humor, such as when I fell in the abandoned grocery store over my own feet while scavenging for food. Normally that would have made my cheeks burn and I would laugh to show that I'm alright. I laughed, by gut reaction alone, and there was no one there to laugh with me.
     
    It's probably a good thing, that laugh might have scared them. It sounded more like a wild bark.
     
    It had to have been my feet that made the noise, echoing back to me from the door as I trudged down the steps. As quiet as I have been, if something was inside waiting for me, it was just as quiet. 
     
    My hand shakes as I open the door, the low squeal of the hinges announcing my entrance. Honey, I'm home.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
     
    My haven is dark. Foreboding. I don't feel alone. I can't explain it. I know it's more of a psychological test of my mind, thinking that something might be in here waiting for me, and so my mind generates paranoia and feelings of being watched.
     
    It's sort of like your best friend catches a cold and you think you have one. Maybe that is a bad example. Maybe its more like the person you are closest to in your life breaks a bone and you feel a phantom pain for them that you don't have.
     
    In the inky darkness, it feels full, like something is sucking up the light. I shine my flashlight around the room but find each corner devoid of any life form.
     
    I will myself to relax. I bolt the door behind me, forcing a deeper breath in and out of my lungs. Slow your heart, just keep swimming. Mantras I am reduced to in the hole in the ground, afraid of my heart problems. You are alone. I tell myself, willing my heart to relax. Alone. Just keep swimming .
     
    I lay upon the bottom bunk, my eyes staring at the twin bed above me. I miss the stars. Night was my favorite part of the day. Peering up into the murky void of