text: My boyfriend’s shaky, scared breath jutted in short, quick puffs. “Yeah,” he panicked into the walkie-talkie, his eyes darting as they widened and then normalized under this flickering science laboratory. The lights dimmed and then brightened--no, it was too nerve-wracking. No, scary and brain-numbing. The only thing I could think of was to stare right at the chocolate haired, white-faced, slightly freckly guy in white Converse sneakers. Who was staring straight up at the thunder and lightning ruling the sky as they took turns crackling and booming up a storm. Literally. “Uh...” He stammered, attention glued to whatever was so freakish above us. “It...” A direct bolt of lightning struck and fried a bus station shelter and its bench. I gaped as the whole construction went from metal and plastic to complete charred ashes in a split-second. I inhaled. My boyfriend threw the walkie-talkie to the floor and dashed bravely--and maybe stupidly--over to me behind a counter with glass chemistry bottles. He grabbed my hand before I could hiss at him that he shouldn’t be risking his life for me, but he had this aura about him. I should just thank him in times like this one. Although the world had already come to an end, we two high school sweethearts were the only few teens left after a grossly large, mechanical alien spaceship-like thing evaporated downtown Eagle Wing High School without somehow taking all the students. We, desperate, tried to find other people who survived the attack. Mainly students--hopefully not middle or elementary school age. Actually, as we raced further downtown--past an abandoned hotdog stand and pizza parlor, a barber shop, a sizzled hamburger joint and a burning, smoking hair salon--Avery yanked my arm and reacted to my cry with a tight-lipped, white-faced stare back at me. Let’s go! Hurry. His fear-streaked face had I’m really scared written all over it. I even gagged a little on my cough as I struggled to breathe. Apart from the gloom and doom happening right in front of us, the air itself was so thick with terror and wonder as to whether anyone was going to be alive on this planet much longer. We could all be evaporated in milliseconds. We could be that bench station or the hamburger joint. A loud siren blared, and red lights flashed warningly as we two made a mad dash around the corner, making a U-turn for a wall and then switching left for an open door. Avery pulled again, saying “Come on!” amidst lips barely moving from the obvious icy terror keeping them far from open. Entering a darkened, empty parking garage, Avery and I stood together, me about to ask what he was going to do to try to save himself from either shriveling up in total fear or brave his surroundings and look for ways to survive this nightmare of a reality. My lips barely audible, I chanced it. “What are we going to do?” I ran my fingers through my silky, straightened black hair, my bangs getting pushed around my pierced ears. I played with my ponytail and then looked at him for an answer. He was my only protection. “I don’t know....” Icy fear had definitely started to cement his mouth closed. He almost started to freeze up, and I saw little beads of sweat form on his already creased forehead. I looked away, not wanting the terror to invade my brain and cause me to panic as well. I would be strong for him, for myself and for everyone else out there. I had to save us. I had to save everyone around us. Jerking over, I witnessed two silhouetted figures come running towards us. I squinted and saw that they were extremely dark skinned with flecks of tan around their wrists and elbows. A boy with curly brown hair was coming towards us and a girl--thin braids running from just above her forehead down to the beginning of her spine in her neck--was behind him. I watched the boy as he kept running and then felt the urge to save him. “No!” But he sprinted faster than I, my outstretched hands almost grasping his neon orange exercise shirt. Galloping after him, I yelled, “Stop!” He slowed to a jog, and I sprinted harder, catching up to him. “Hey!” But he darted off. “Mallory!” I whipped my head back--Avery was trying to save the girl now. I screeched to a halt, staring at her. She was sprinting in the opposite direction than us, down the sidewalk Avery and I had rushed down while escaping from the abandoned science laboratory. I then gaped in horror as she made a U-turn, heading for and then stopping right in the middle of the intersection. She was turning her head from one direction to another, her legs jerking each way like she was deciding whether to go down the street behind her or run towards the affixed stores. My attention went back to the boy. He was rounding a store corner, and then he was out of sight. I was frozen, and didn’t know what to do. Avery was calling to the girl, staying rooted to his spot but crying for her to listen to him. Then she bolted for the street. “No--girl!” I screamed as she made a mad dash right where a bolt of lightning was about to disintegrate another bus stop station. I lunged, without thinking, towards the lightning and then curled up, hearing Avery’s mad yell slur into blurred speech. A loud ringing in my ears distracted me. I lay in a ball, my jeaned knees and my chin glued to each other. Avery, sounding distant but also near, waved his arms, eyes open and flashing with terror. Shoes, up in the air, came soundlessly down onto the street. I saw, before fainting, a black shirt with a neon orange lightning bolt drawn on it... “Mmmm.” The groan--did it come from me? Then my eyes flashed open and I jerked upright the second I heard beeping. A press against my shoulder, and I looked into familiar eyes. Avery. But... “Where am I?” I moved around, trying to make sense of the long, extremely thin tubes and white patches stuck like tape to my skin. Why was a monitor beeping behind me? What were polka-dotted sheets doing covering my legs and hips? I hated any kind of resistance, so I ripped the blankets off and scooted myself towards the concrete floor. As I jumped off the raised bed, I swung around and glowered at Avery. “Why am I wired to this--” “Don’t!” He grabbed my other hand before I could tear the assumedly injected needle out of my wrist. “You can’t do that!” “Why?” I seethed through gritted teeth. “Where--am--I?” “You’re...” He stepped back, motioning with his palms up. “You’re in the hospital. I need to get you better. Some nurses will--” “I don’t want nurses. I want to stop...” I jerked my eyes all around, turning my body. “I want to get out of here. I don’t want anyone...” I started breathing deeply and then slowly crawled back into the bed and under the sheet. “I’m...tired.” I pulled it up to my hips until my arms went limp and I lay back, barely able to keep my eyes open. I yawned and heard, “There, there!” before all went dark again. “Mallory. Mallory!” I groaned again and blinked several times as blurriness cleared and Avery came into view. He was leaning over my bed, looking at me with a sad smile on his face. I instantly reverted to anger again, but apparently the stupid beeping machine didn’t allow me to do so. I clenched my hands, but they went weak and I had to rest them against the polka-dots. I attempted to curl my toes, but then they just stopped sensing the curl. What was going on? I widened my eyes and shook my head at Avery. “What’s going on?” I panicked, shifting so I could leave the bed--the hospital--If I had to. Because I had to. He sighed like he had told me a hundred times to just sit back and relax. “Mal, we’re here for several more weeks.” “Weeks?!” I began ripping the white tape off. As I tried to wrestle my clasped hand away from Avery’s clutching one and release myself from this dreaded needle pumping who knows what into me, I started feeling tired again. So weak and vulnerable. As I lay back, almost nauseated, I noticed everything was going dark again. The pillow cushioned my head... Then I bolted right up and blanched. “Who is taking care of us?” While Avery pressed that I should remain calm, I ignored him, stretching my neck and maneuvering my body all around so I could see the nurses--and whether they were legit people caring for the actually sick or injured patients. Narrowing my eyes at one curly-haired brunette in a white lab coat, I hissed at her. “Who is she?” Avery sighed and turned his head. “She’s just--” “How do we know?” “ I know because I talked to her. She’s the one who,” Avery turned to me but I narrowed my eyes into slits. “helped you get here.” I grumbled something and pulled my knees up to my chest, staying there. “At least you’re here.” “You can’t just--” “Just what?” I almost spazzed. “Just trust people when an apocalyptic future is already here? Just say ‘Okay’ to someone who could very well...” A nurse was arriving with some gross colored medicine and set it down on my bed in front of the footboard. “Just take the medicine?” Avery cut his eyes to the nurse. “Um...let’s continue this later.” He walked around and then held out the tray to me, which I completely smacked to the floor, all the medicine--or whatever it really was--crashing onto the tiled cement. Glass smashed and pills rolled everywhere. “Mallory!” Avery reprimanded, but I merely glanced at him like I was under severe medical treatment and couldn’t process his outburst. “Mallory, that’s--” “Drugs.” I croaked, turning to the nurse who was now doing something to my bed. “Get away from me.” “Jus--” But I whipped my hand towards her wrist, clutching it and ripping it clean off the bed handle. As Avery screamed at me to freaking stop attacking an innocent woman, I threw back that she was no ordinary nurse--why would she induce a needle that made me want to lay back and sleep when our very lives were at stake? I scrambled off the bed, the woman obviously too shocked to react past gasping, and I demanded Avery come with me. He burst out with an absolute “No!” “Yes!” I demanded, but Avery dug his sneakers in, firmly telling me through barely open lips that I needed to get my act together. I jabbed a finger in his face to let him know I was not going to marry such a stubborn man. I attempted grabbing his wrist again and it worked, him crying out with a squeak of pain and a harsh yell that I had hurt him. You’re going to be hurt a lot worse if you don’t get out of here. Getting out of the door-less room and speeding down the hallway, I found ourselves outside, it still lightning and thundering, but hail pounded the sidewalk, driveway and cars parked a few feet away in the lot. “Let’s go!” I urged, freeing his arm and commanding Avery follow me this instant. “Mallory!” He pulled his long sleeved button shirt up over his head as he ran towards me, ordering me to follow him. Raging, I clenched my hands and almost screamed for him to follow me . He just kept running away, not even looking back. I escaped towards the right. Dodging the hailstones that seemed to get bigger as I moved along, I found a lone umbrella and stole it, opening it up and using it to shield myself from the now really big ones about to squash me flat. I squeezed my eyes shut but kept running and somehow avoided them. Baffled as to why I wasn’t getting pummeled, I heard distant laughter and dared to look back. Some nurses in my now windowless and darkened hospital room looked my way. One of them shifted her eyes between me and the glowing computer screen. The light lit up all their faces, and I shivered, wanting to leave this horrible place called Earth forever. I heard another noise and peered in the direction in which Avery had left me. He was standing there, and I felt his visual direction on me. He was beckoning me on, waving frantically. Something like “Come on!” flew through the air and entered my eardrums. I nodded, grateful and relieved, and ran over there. He let the shirt go, swinging out an arm as I held the umbrella over us and continued running, his feet almost in step with mine. I told him about what I had seen in the hospital room with the computer screen and the creepy nurses, but he just kept repeating “Stop it!” as we headed downtown, just racing through the two-lane highway and making it to an empty barber’s shop. No, it was unsafe. We knocked our way through the backdoor and ran towards who knew where. When we managed to find a trailer park, we just busted into a home and shut the door, me wanting to cry from how hopeless and weak we were in the middle of a life that was out of our hands and, worse, never-ending. We didn’t want it, but we somehow had to survive such a sign of the end of the world. After shutting all windows and barricading all doors, we scrambled into the booth seats, sitting across from one another. We started discussing our map of escape. Where’d we go was out of the question. Spying a backpack lying near a bed, Avery jumped up and grabbed it, slamming it down onto the table. “Here’s what we do.” He rummaged through and grabbed two pencils and a big notebook. He tossed me a pencil, which I caught, and flipped the notebook to a blank page. Stabbing the paper with his pencil, like a military commander he started drawing an outline of our town. “But how do you know...” I sat up straight and looked at his crude pictures of a park, our high school and its baseball field a little ways off. “where we need to go?” “That’s the question we need to find out.” He looked at me as though he knew I wasn’t sure whether we could pull this escape plan off. “Okay?” “Yeah.” I doubted. “Mal, we’re running for our lives!” He stated the obvious. “What’s a map going to do?” I grabbed the book and tossed it on the ground. “How are we going to escape with our lives by wasting--” “Mallory, do you want to survive?” He gesticulated, but I calmly remarked back. “I would like to figure it all out instead of having no idea where we are going. We can’t just guess. We need--” “A map?” Avery stabbed the sheet of paper after collecting it from the floor and dropped it, open, onto the table. “We need to do this.” He continued sketching some things as I pulled my knees up to my chest. I watched him draw and doodle some more and asked, “Why didn’t the hailstones hit us?” “You tell me.” Avery didn’t look up from his map-drawing. “What did you--” “The computer screen. The nurses must’ve been controlling...” Avery slowly looked up at me, and we widened our eyes. “The weather!” We realized in unison. “Is this some kind of game?” He panicked, seeming to abandon the map, because he reached over to peel back the curtain with a shaking finger. As he looked outside, he jerked back but told me to watch as the hailstones grew to almost thrice their size but disappeared like in a video game. Lightning struck somewhere far off, its loud crackle illuminating the almost dark sky. “They’re not hitting us. So we don’t have to worry about them.” I deduced, but Avery looked at me like there was a bigger problem. “But can they control us ?” He worried, pulling his lips in and studying the outside again. I gave a fear-filled laugh. “No. They’re just nurses.” “Just nurses.” Avery bobbed his head up and down, already shaking a little and rubbing the back of his neck. “Just plain nurses. You think that tells us something?”