A Familiar Air
Chapter One
Word count: 2254
I felt it before I was even fully awake. That shift in the air.
It felt heavier, soaked with violence and revenge.
I didn't move. I didn't blink.
I lay on my bed, in the rather uncomfortable position I had awoken in. And waited. It had happened before, more times than I could count, yet here I was. Still. Silent.
I knew exactly what I was waiting for. Yet for some reason, it didn't come.
I began to count the minutes that went by.
Protocol.
After 12 the air had gotten so thick it became hard for me to breathe. I took in slow deep breathes, maximizing my oxygen intake. Moving would make it worse, make me dizzy, make me pass out.
Protocol
At 22 minutes, I still didn't hear it. And I started to get nervous. The masks should have dropped by now, what went wrong?
This wasn't protocol.
But I didn't move. Not at 25 minutes. Not at 30.
But at 40 I opened my eyes. Something was wrong. We had been trained to respond to the air. Protocol had been etched into every corner of our body. You did not. Ever. Break. Protocol.
None of us wanted to find out what happened if we did.
One. Do not move, stay put until the alarm goes off.
Yet I opened my eyes.
Yet I lift my head.
Yet...
Yet I look out my window.
But nothing. The streets were clear, the clouds full and lazy. Deserted. Not even the Stormers could be seen. Light rain began to patter through the bars of my pane-less window
Two. Avoiding all windows and open doors, make your way to your mask.
Yet there was no mask.
It had been 40 minutes since I woke up from the air. My parent's house was one of the first to be affected by the stormer's heavy air since we were right next to the walls encompassing our land boarders, the steel reinforced walls looming behind our back garden. Yet I had never seen a Stormer. Even with my proximity and the frequency of which they attacked...
I sink against the wall under the window, unsure of what to do. If I stayed put, the Stormers would enter the house, just like always and look for those who didn't follow protocol. Yet I am following protocol. Or I was before 40 minutes passed. But where were the Stormers?
I blew out an inaudible annoyed breath of air, frustrated at the position I was in. But I rolled back onto my hands and knees and skipped to protocol step three. Once mask is securely fitted, go directly to your safe. There were spare masks there that I could use. I took a few deep breathes before moving across my bedroom floor, off to the door. I looked over my shoulder quickly before reaching up and turning the doorknob. To my great relief, it moved, and my head stuck into the hallway.
Empty.
Four. Do not stop for others. Do not use any electronic devices. Avoid all windows. Go directly to your safes.
Yet...
Something was itching at me. An inner voice whispering in the silence to check on my parents. To see if they were waiting, still on their beds as I had been.
So, instead of heading for the stairs, I headed further down the hall. I hesitated at their door, pressing my ear firmly against the steel. Nothing. I reached up, turning the doorknob. But it didn't move. Didn't even budge.
Shit.
They must have gone to the safe. I crawl back down the hall, listening, my head begging to feel lighter. I take a deep breath. As I reach the stairs, I lean down, treading down the stairs as quietly as I can, looking around the kitchen as I do so. It's dark, no sunlight filtering through the open windows. Instead, dark clouds rolled in the sky, rain falling in heavy droplets, the chilled wind blowing it into the house, soaking chairs and rusting metal. I turn the corner, breathing heavily as I open the cellar door. And run down the steps two at a time. I reach the safe and type in my personal code which will be sent to the main controller, notifying the safe committee that I have made it the safe.
But my code doesn't go through. It flashes red.
I type it in again, almost positive I had done it correctly.
Red.
No, no, no. Please no.
I do it a third time.
Red.
I type in my father's code, but it blinks twice. Already used. A rush of relief floods through me. I type in my mother's code, digging the 12-digit number from deep inside my brain. It blinks. Used.
I turn around, trying to control my breathing, but the panic setting in my bones was making it difficult for me to keep it calm. I sucked in four breathes before I realised something. It was quiet. Too quiet. No sound of Stormers or people or footsteps. Or breathing. I put my hand on the safe door, steadying myself.
"Hello?" I say to myself, testing my voice. The vibration of my voice echoes in my throat, but nothing reaches my ears. I gasp in air- no sound. I put my hand next to my ear and snap.
Nothing.
Had I gone deaf since last night? Had the alarm been going off this entire time, unnoticed by me?
I push myself off the safe back down the hall. My vision wavers, black dots clouding my line of sight for a few seconds before scattering. I crawl back up the steps, trying to keep myself as quiet as I can without being able to hear anything. I open the cellar door and slide out, my eyes wildly looking around. There was no protocol for this. This never happened. Parents would tell their children that if they misbehaved, they got locked out of their safe to be stolen by the Stormers. But it was just that, a story.
I turn the corner to the stairs and my body sways, crashing into the small table my parents kept their medals of honour on. I swear under my breath, knowing it must've made a huge noise. I get up, stumbling to the kitchen. But the rain has puddled on the linoleum and I slip backwards, head slamming against the hard floor.
I was making too much noise, I reach up and grab the kitchen stool, hauling myself up onto my feet. I pause there, with my weight on the counter, drawing in heavy breathes. My vision has dotted again, but no matter how long I breathe, they remain.
But they stop when my unsteady gaze sees the front door.
It's wide open. On stormer attacks, doors to outside locked automatically. It was a fail safe. In case someone didn't make it to the safes. In case someone couldn't hear the alarm.
I sank to the ground, crawling across the kitchen to the dinning room. But before I even reached the table, the lights went out. Drenching the house in darkness. I froze.
Just the storm, just the storm. Lightning flashed just outside the dinning room window, vibrations running through the floor and into my hands. Just the storm.
I begin crawling again, my hair sticking to my face, in my eyes. I reach the table, tucking myself underneath the small structure and pulling a chair close to me. We didn't have table clothes. It was a waste of resources. I wrack my brain to the mandatory safety classes we took every month in school. But there had never been talk of this. Never had someone not been able to get to their safe. If a family member had used your code by mistake, you tried everyone in your family's until it opened. And it would. That's why we had to recite our codes before entering class. You forgot your code or any in your family and you died.
Something in my vision shifted and I sunk lower to the floor, trying to keep my rasping as quiet as possible. But it was hard, the moisture in the air made it difficult to get any oxygen in. My entire body moved with each breathe, dots edging further into my vision.
Then I saw it. The Stormer, heading down from the steps. From the angle I had, I could make out strong legs, dressed in a thin pair of baggy pants. We had studied the clothing of the Stormers. Of every single lander out there. The Quakers, the Flooders, the Droughters.... We knew them all inside and out, being the weakest of the all, we had no choice but to have a safety system intact to protect ourselves against them. If we met them, we had no chance. Even if we knew how to use what we had in a violent way, we wouldn't have a chance. But we were peace makers. All Environmenters were.
But Stormers...
Despite the clouding in my head and the dots intruding my vision, I held my breath. Not trusting myself to stay quiet.
Please Silva, protect me against the stormer, protect me against a child of your brother Fulgur, don't let him see me.
He pauses at the bottom of the stairs as I silently prayed, his feet facing the dinning room.
Five. If you meet another person. Stay put. Do not move.
Yet I looked to the open front door. If he went downstairs I could sneak past him and outside. I'd try another house, I could try to break the bars off a window and climb inside. I'd try my code in their safe.
Please guide him downstairs.
The man's feet shifted, a few steps toward the kitchen. Towards me. My eyes dotted further, but I didn't dare breathe. If I passed out under the table at least I would be hidden.
His feet turn once again, obviously spotting the cellar door I left ajar and yanks it open wide, trotting down the steps. His strong back and dusted grey hair disappears and I don't waste any time. I lunge out from the table and stumble to stand, swaying into the table before pushing myself off. I hit the halfway by the second-floor steps and my whole-body falls, stumbling to the ground. And if that wasn't loud enough to alert the stormer, me smashing into the front closet door definitely is. My head bangs against the cold floor once again, pain spreading behind my eyes as I crawl the rest of the way to the door. I grab the door frame and all but fall onto the porch. I can't stop the moan that spreads through my lips as a clay pot breaks under my weight, pieces plunging into my side. I reach a hand to my ribs and feel the protruding piece. But I don't take it out. That would just make the Stormer's job a whole lot easier.
Instead I crawl down the porch steps and gather as much energy as I could. I take another deep breath, preparing myself, but cry out as sharp needles stab into my chest.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I had to have punctured a lung. I needed a med kit. But those were in safes. And I couldn't get in.
Rain was coming down in buckets, soaking me instantly, my bare feet sliding on the grass. I take multiple short breathes, trying my best to ignore the feeling spreading in my chest. I hold my side with one hand, keeping the piece of clay from shifting.
And I look around through a hazy gaze, pushing at the hair on my face with my free hand. No one.
Then I look back at my house, and, as if on cue, that Stormer comes out of the door. And, despite being so close to my death, I can't help but think of how wrong my teachers had described them. We were taught they were slim like lightning, scared faces and violent eyes. But this Stormer standing on my porch was big. Huge. Large muscles billowing off his bones, visible even through those baggy rain pants, His chest remained bare, ancient symbols tattooed onto his skin. His hair was grey like the clouds folding over one another above us. And his eyes, even through my haze I could tell they were cold, almost gold in colour. And those eyes were scanning the yard before him, determined as they moved over to where I crawled pathetically across the lawn. I didn't look long enough to see him move, because I was already up and moving around the corner of the house to the backyard, adrenaline moving through me in tidal waves.
My neighbour was only fifty meters away, I could make it. I could. But even the adrenaline flooding my body couldn't stop the desperation my body had for oxygen. My vision swam furiously with black spots, my surroundings swaying from side to side, my body feeling as if it were nothing but air, floating amongst the dampness. And suddenly I didn't know if I was moving or not. My vision was black. Gone. I couldn't hear and I couldn't see. I didn't know when I hit the ground, but I felt the grass growing around me under my touch, a useless final attempt to protect myself. But that was it. Suddenly I was nothing. Nothing but a speck of dust floating through the darkness.