Carl stood alone in the center of the makeshift stage, the remnants of basketball court lines beneath his feet. The once vibrant gym now a refuge, filled with anxious eyes that drilled into him with skepticism and fear. He could sense their collective scrutiny as if they were trying to peel back the layers of his ragged appearance to discern truth from fiction. Carl's heart thumped loudly against his ribs, a relentless drumming that seemed to echo in the claustrophobic space.
His hands, slick with nervous perspiration, curled into tight fists at his sides. He raised one, wiped it against his worn jeans, and then reluctantly let his arm fall back to his side. This was it—the moment where he would either become a beacon of hope or a harbinger of madness. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the dry lump of anxiety lodged in his throat.
The crowd before him shifted, restless and murmuring. They were an array of the life that had been; teachers, plumbers, retirees, all huddled together in the dim light of emergency lanterns. Their faces were etched with the weariness of days spent surviving.
He stepped forward, clearing his throat, finding the gritty resolve that had carried him this far. Carl locked eyes with a woman in the front row, her child nestled against her shoulder, both sets of eyes wide and expectant.
"You have to understand," he began, his voice stronger than he felt, projecting across the sea of upturned faces. It wavered, though, as if the weight of his message might shatter his composure. "What I am about to tell you seems unbelievable."
He paused, licked his chapped lips, and forced himself to slow down. The urgency was a tempest within him, but clarity was crucial.
"It seems so far out of the realm of probability that in most cases, people who listened to what I am about to say would lock me up in a white jacket and throw me into an institution." His words, rushed from the onset, tangled together in their haste, a verbal knot of dire warning and imploring desperation.
A murmur ran through the crowd like a wind through leaves. He knew they were teetering on the edge of dismissing him, relegating his account to the ramblings of a man unhinged by trauma.
"But I need you to believe me," he implored, his voice cracking under the strain. The intensity of his gaze sought theirs, pleading without pride. "Not for myself, but for your own sake. The decision you make after this will be the most important of your life, because your life depends on it."
Silence descended, heavy and thick, as Carl's last words hung suspended in the air between them. Some faces softened, others remained guarded, but all were undeniably captive to the gravity of his plea.
Carl's breath hitched in his throat, the sea of expectant faces before him morphing into a blur as he fought for composure. He could almost smell the salt in the air from that fateful day, the memory so vivid it was as if he were back on the quaint streets of his hometown.
"We come from a small coastal town in Maine," Carl began, his voice steadier now, each word deliberate. "Where everyone knew everybody else." His hands unclenched, gesturing helplessly as though he could paint the image for them to see. "An earthquake rippled through the town, we didn't think much of it, we just went on with our day after it ended. And a few hours later it happened in a blink of an eye, one moment our town was there, and the next it wasn't."
A stifled gasp rose from the crowd, and he saw their skepticism waver in the face of his raw emotion. "I lost my sister," he continued, the anguish fresh as he recounted the horror, "she was browsing through a shop window, while I was a few stores up talking to a friend I ran into when the ground just disappeared." A shudder wracked his frame at the recollection of her scream, her face contorted in terror as she plummeted into an abyss.
"Perhaps you've seen some news on it, but witnessing it firsthand is... another thing entirely." He swallowed hard, the grief a tangible thing that threatened to overwhelm him yet again.
"The pits, holes, whatever you want to call them, that isn't what makes this unbelievable." His eyes, haunted, locked onto the townspeople as he forced them to envision the nightmare. "It's what happens next."
The room fell deathly silent, the only sounds were the creaks of the old gymnasium settling and the distant echo of a child's cough.
"After it swallowed our land, the edge of the pit started to glow." Carl mimicked the motion with his hands, a slow ripple as if his hands pulsed with malice. "It grew brighter, as it pulsed until it exploded in a burst of purple light, throwing us all off our feet."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the rapt audience, ensuring he had captured their full attention. "Car alarms rang around us, people scrambling for safety, but no one—no one saw the hand reach out of the pit." The faint sound of his own heartbeat pounded in his ears as he described the small green appendage that emerged from the void like a harbinger of doom.
"Moments later, they were upon us," he said, the timbre of his voice dropping to a whisper of dread. "They looked like goblins from a fantasy novel, quick, deadly, and vicious." He could feel the bile rise in his throat as he recalled the makeshift knives, the gnashing teeth, the screams.
"Blood soaked my shoes from stepping into puddles of it," Carl confessed, looking down at his once-white sneakers, now stained beyond recognition. "That's why I'm here. That's why we need to leave, we have less than six hours until your town is swallowed, and monsters roam your street."
"Let's say y'all are telling the truth," an old man's voice cut through the tension, skeptical but intrigued. "That this ain't no tall tale, where would we even go?"
Carl met the man's gaze, seeing in his weathered features the collective uncertainty of the town, each person silently begging for a shred of hope amidst the despair. He steadied himself, ready to offer them the only lifeline he had.
Carl leveled his gaze across the sea of anxious faces before him, each one etched with the weight of their new reality. He cleared his throat, the words he was about to deliver carried the burden of hope—fragile and desperate.
"We've run into others on our way here," he began, his voice steady despite the quiver of fear that threatened to undermine it. "Word is that the government is setting up a camp in Wichita." Carl paused, making sure the message sank into the minds of every man, woman, and child present. "They have tanks, medical care, soldiers, food, water..." He spread his hands wide as if to embrace the promise of this sanctuary. "Everything we need to survive, to restart humanity and fight back, we just have to get there."
The murmur that followed was a mixture of relief and skepticism, a clash of emotions that Carl knew all too well. He let them whisper among themselves, giving space for the seed of hope to sprout or be crushed by doubt.
"Yeah and how do you know you ain't been lied to," came a sharp retort, cutting through the murmurs like a knife. Sally, her arms folded tightly across her chest, stood unimpressed by his plea. Her eyes, hardened by years of disappointment, bore into Carl, demanding the truth—or what semblance of it could be discerned in these impossible times.
Carl met Sally's challenge head-on, recognizing the fear behind her defiance. "I don't," he admitted, his vulnerability laid bare before them all. "But we've seen enough to know that standing still means certain death." His fingers curled into fists at his sides, willing them to understand the gravity of their situation. "Moving is our only chance. And I'm willing to bet our lives on it."
Carl's gaze swept across the restless crowd before him, locking on to the myriad of expressions etched upon their faces—fear, disbelief, a glimmer of hope. The weight of their collective uncertainty bore down upon him as he anchored his resolve.
His eyes locked with Sally's once more, offering her nothing but raw honesty. "But we have nothing else, nowhere else, but there."
As he spoke, Carl turned slightly, glancing over his shoulder at Shawn and Melissa. A silent understanding passed between them—a shared determination reflected in their firm stances and the set of their jaws. Their journey had been a testament to survival, their bond forged through adversity and loss.
"I for one am going to make it," Carl declared, turning back to face the crowd, imbuing his words with a conviction that resonated in the hollow gymnasium. It was a pledge, an oath not just to himself but to all who stood before him.
His eyes flitted back to his companions, to Shawn's resolute nod and Melissa's unwavering gaze, as he concluded with a promise that enveloped them all, "We are going to make it."