Featured Roleplay: Supernova

[sweeetlilgurlie]

-Day 1-
Capitol University
Judicia, Erbaine
During the Supernova

Lewis' eyes flicked to the window as well to see the bright, strange colors lighting up the sky. "Yes, it's the supernova. A day early." He stared at the reflections of the light into the room for a moment, lost in thought, and then shook himself. "I've got to get my notes; they'll have information we need."

He crunched through the glass on the floor, grabbed several papers and folders scattered here and there across the desk, then came back to the door. With one last look around the room, he walked out into the corridor.

It was as silent as a tomb. Outside, all was chaos, but here...A thought occurred to Lewis and he smiled wanly. "I wonder what the government is going to do with all this."

[Chloë Máiréad]

Supernova
— Day 1 —
Brink City, Erbaine

The coral-colored nail polish was exactly what Madison Mary-Alice Wentworth needed to complete her outfit for the banquet. Her departure date from Brink City was tomorrow at 4:33 PM. For the past two weeks she had visited every store in the city, except for the shady, rundown ones. The charges to her father’s credit card amounted to $3,468. The amount would have been much higher if her father hadn’t told her to be a little frugal with her spending.

She handed the nail polish to Tripp Currington, a young man with dark hair, who served as her personal bodyguard. According to most of the public, however, they were an item. There had been several magazines that pictured them both holding hands and rumors about the President’s daughter had spread across the country, but they were gossip and nothing more.

“You wouldn’t mind paying for that, would you?” Madison asked, winking, before she spun on her heels and looked at a display advertising a new fragrance. She sniffed it, made a face and put it back on the shelf as she waited for Tripp.

Tripp finished paying for the polish, ignoring the smirk on the cashier’s face. He took the small paper bag, along with the many bags he already held, and turned toward Madison, “Let’s go get some lunch.”

They walked to the elevator, but Tripp had to keep stopping to wait for Madison, who was observing every cosmetic she went by. “Ooh, look at this one!” She held up the light pink eyeshadow and Tripp rolled his eyes, pointing toward the elevator.

Madison scowled, flipping her red hair behind her shoulder, adjusting her small, pink purse. They walked to the elevator and Tripp pushed the button. With a ding, the doors slid open and Madison walked in, followed by Tripp. The doors closed, but the elevator didn’t move.

Madison stood, swaying on her high-heels and staring at the steel doors.

Tripp glanced at the buttons and then at Madison. “Do you mind pushing the button?”

“Ew... Do you have any idea how many people have touched those buttons with their grimy fingers?” Madison said, making no move to touch the white, numbered buttons. She glanced at him, flashing him a sweet smile.

Tripp shook his head, and pushed the button. The elevator whirred softly as it descended. “Where do you want to eat?”

“Somewhere that I will be treated like a queen...” Madison said, searching through her purse, probably looking for a compact mirror.

Tripp nodded. “I knew you would-“ His words were cut off as the elevator came to a grinding halt and the lights flickered off. In his shock, he dropped the shopping bags to steady himself on the wall of the elevator.

In the darkness, he heard Madison gasp and he felt the impact of her hitting the wall. They both stayed silent for a few seconds, but then Madison started to panic.

[MountainFireflower]

-Day 1-
Evening
The convent in Arida

Allee inhaled deeply, rubbing at her arms to warm them up. The convent was chilly, and the events of today still had her on edge. "What do you think happened today?" She asked quietly, walking into the room she'd share with Xandria. She put her messenger bag in a corner, doing a mental checklist to make sure she had everything. Camera. Notebook. Phone. Pencil. Unfortunately, she had no extra clothes, but hopefully she could snag some from Xandria since they were about the same size.

"I hope Laney's all right," she whispered, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. "I'm scared. Xandria... I never thought I'd live to see the end of the world. Is that what this is?"

***
-Day 1-
Capitol University
Judicia, Erbaine
The Supernova

((OOC: Liam looks a lot like this picture right about now. ))

Liam wanted to scream. Or run away. Or break down in a fit of panic. Because whatever had just happened, it was bad. Very bad.

"What did I do? I didn't do anything." He turned his hand, a look of shock painted clearly across his face. "What did you do?" He was incredulous as he studied the dark pink nail polish on his nails. "This is not my hand. I would never wear nail polish." He held both his hands up next to Laramie's hands. The sight that met him was wrong. So very wrong. His hand was hers, and her hand was his? It didn't make any sense.

He studied his hand, then looked up at her, a mix of questioning and fear in his blue eyes. "Laramie... what is going on?"

[Anime_tor95]

--Day 1--
Burg

Doctors swarmed around Kyle like bees, and every one of them were asking questions.

"Where does it hurt, what level is the pain, how many fingers am i holding up, what is your name....Who authorized the use of these bandages?! They're completely wrong!"

He wished they would go "attend" to someone else, he was not in much pain, and by looking at the state of Burg, he was not the only one who was in need of medical attention.

Suddenly the examining came to a halt, a doctor with an astonished look on his face looked up and spoke.

"Son, you have no burns on you...."

Kyle was taken by this, "What are you talking about? Of course I do! Look at my arms and face!"

The doctor shook his head, "These are just cuts from the fallen debris."

Kyle sat silent for a moment, then he remembered what happened with his hands, and how he escaped from beneath the metal beams by "controlling" the fire, but his thoughts were interrupted. A fireman came and tapped the doctor on the shoulder.

"Sorry doctor, but we've gotta get moving, another mass of radiation is coming our way, and we've been here to long already."

The doctor walked away, barking orders to the others saying, "Pack it up, we're getting out of here!"

Kyle felt a hand on his shoulder, a nurse was behind him,

"Mr. Brooks, you have been released from our care. Normally we would keep you for a few days, but unfortunately with the incident there are, how do i put this...more significant injuries than your own. So you have to go on your way. I'm so sorry."

Kyle nodded a thank you, but he was unattentive. His mind was still on what happened in the burning shop. He glanced down at his hands, they were glowing red. Out of instinct he started rubbing his palm, perhaps the glowing would stop. But instead, a small fireball appeared in his hand.

He lept back in surprise, then he realized his hand was on fire. He tried to shake it off, but the flames got bigger, he shook more vigorously but they grew larger and larger, till finally...poof, they went out.

Kyle swallowed, and thrust out his hands again to make sure it was over, nothing came. He was slightly disappointed it didn't come, yet glad at the same time. But curiosity took over him.

He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then took out a lighter from his back pocket, he was about to light it, then stopped.

This is crazy, There's no way I can shoot fire, I'm just hallucinating. he thought, shifting the lighter to its original place.

Then he quickly took it out again, clicked it on and thrust his hand in front of it. A huge jet of flame shot from the tip of the lighter. He held it and waved it around for awhile then clicked the lighter off. He blinked in amazement.

This was the start of something very big for Kyle Brooks.

[Lady Arwen]

Day 1-Arida-de Mon Castle Grounds

"Eh?" one of the men turned toward Christopher. "Lady de Mon is opening up her lands to shelter the people from around here whose houses were destroyed. Whoever built these projects sure was dumb. Any solid building could have survived that, but not those run down places. Most of them were already falling down before this thing happened. Look, buddy, do you need a place to stay, or do you happen to have a good way of corralling people, or are ya just here to gawk? I got work to do."

Day 1-Arida-Convent

Xandria sighed and put the lantern she held on the floor by Allee and the stack of blankets down on her dresser. Surprisingly, the mirror only had one large crack running through it, and an initiate had already found the time to sweep up the broken glass. The swimmer said nothing until she had shaken out one of the blankets and sat down next to Allee, wrapping the blanket around both of them.

"I'm sure Laney's fine. She's got to be. I...I don't think this is the end of the world," she said softly, tugging at the blanket to make sure it covered her toes. "I mean, I'd think that it would be, like, total destitution if it was the end of the world. I mean, think of it. What went wrong? All the lights burned out. We're back to using candles. Most of the windows shattered. People lived for centuries without glass. The worst damage that happen was that the overhang down by the pool caved in. Its scary, but nobody died. We just have a lot of little kids that need to be taken care of until we find their parents."

Xandria stopped talking. In her heart, she was afraid it was the end of the world. They were, after all, in a convent. Didn't God show mercy on his people? What if the rest of the town was totally destroyed, and they were just the lucky few? Xandria shuddered, and did her best not to think of it.

"Besides," she began again, taking Allee's hand in hers, and smiled sadly. "if it is the end of the world, that means heaven is that much closer."

[The Rose-Tree Dryad]

— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine
Palisade National Park

The numb shock overriding Terra's mind was broken by the sound of screaming birds. She glanced up, just in time to see them swarm by overhead over the treetrops, birds of all kinds flying directly for the Palisades at top speed.

That's not normal.

A half a minute later, thirty deer came racing out of the underbrush by the river, wide eyed and bleating. They ignored the girl by the riverbank completely as they leapt directly into the churning water. Terra scrambled to her feet, watching them thrash through the current in surprise. She had never seen a deer try to ford this part of the river before, and that was exactly what they were doing. They seemed to be panicked.

They're running from something.

She darted to the nearest tree and began to climb, for protection and for perspective, hauling herself higher until she was perched on the highest branch, her head and shoulders emerging from the top of the tree. What she expected to see was a bear, or a rogue pack of wolves. What she saw instead was smoke rising into the western sky from the little mountain town that had been her substitute home for the past ten years.

She jumped down from the tree, leaping from limb to limb, and hit the ground running.

Something is very wrong.

Terra was fast—not the fastest, but she knew how to pace herself to full advantage, and could get through the trees and underbrush quicker than anyone she knew. She used her hands almost as much as her feet, pulling herself past trees and vines, climbing up on rock formations and jumping off without a second thought. It was wild, rolling country, these foothills of the Palisades, but Terra knew them like the back of her hand—they had been her backyard for the past ten years. With every stride the smell of smoke grew stronger.

Halfway back to the compound, she ran into a campground clearing where there was family's campsite. A man and a woman who looked to be in their early thirties, their young, wide-eyed daughter, and a friendly little Welsh corgi dog who barked a greeting at her.

"Fire—in Parksville—" She gasped out as she raced by at full tilt. "Watch the woods—stay safe—"

She had already disappeared into the woods again before they could respond. All she could think about was Lui and Uncle Matthew and Aunt Isabella, and if they were in danger. They were all she had left.

Maybe they didn't understand her, maybe no one did, but they were still her family.

And there was Fred. He was something of a genius, and Terra probably would never have graduated at all had it not been for the tutoring of the sweet, geeky junior. . . and he was one of the only people outside of her family that she thought might actually be a true friend.

And then there was Loretta, too, the girl who volunteered at the wolf rehabilitation facility, someone Terra had always meant to get to know better, but so shy and always so wrapped up in her work with the animals. . . .

Did she ever tell Uncle Matthew and Aunt Isabella and Lui how much she loved them, how much she appreciated all they had done for her? Had she ever told Fred how grateful she was for his help this year. . . and that he had been the first person at Parksville High to be friendly towards the sad, silent girl with the mysterious past? Why hadn't she tried harder to befriend Loretta, to break down the barriers of the girl's shyness and Terra's own reluctance to reach out?

The thought that all of them might be caught up in a forest fire was terrifying, and all these things pounded through Terra's mind at the speed of her sprinting feet.

She only had a handful of people she was close to. . . the world she had built for herself was so small. It could all be gone at any moment.

I can't lose everyone again, she thought, her eyes prickling from smoke and weakening floodgates of emotion. I just can't.

"Lui!" She cried with all the breath she could muster as she came out on the dirt road, seeing her cousin's orange jeep through the haze a hundred yards in the distance. She had run for seven miles, and yet it seemed like mere moments.

She ran to the beat-up all-terrain vehicle, gasping for breath in the acrid air and impossibly grateful that she had worn her running shoes instead of hiking boots today.

[Chloë Máiréad]

Supernova
— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine

It took a few seconds for Lui's brain to figure out that someone was calling her. She turned in the direction and her eyes widened when she saw Terra, looking exhausted and slightly beat up.

"Terra!" She stood to her feet, pushing herself up with her hands. Sharp pain exploded in her wrist and she remembered the bite. She grimaced as she walked toward her cousin. Her head pounded, but she ignored the pain for awhile. "Are you okay?"

[The Rose-Tree Dryad]

— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine
Palisade National Park

"I'm fine," Terra said hastily with a wave of her hand. "Had a. . . swim in the river, I guess you could say. Are you all right? Where are Uncle Mathew and Aunt Isabella? What's happening? I've been deep in the woods all day, I saw the smoke coming from Parksville and I have no idea what's going on—"

She stopped and swallowed, trying to quell the note of panic that was worming its way into her voice. That was when she caught a glimpse of Lui's arm. Terra was not one for blood, and it took everything she had not to lose it.

"Oh my gosh, what happened?"

[Chloë Máiréad]

Supernova
— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine

"I don't know what's going on either..." Lui said, glancing up. She removed the blue plaid button-down shirt she had over a black tank top and wrapped her wrist up in it, hoping to stop the bleeding. "I'm fine," she said, clenching her jaw against the pain. "Tundra spooked, that's all..." Lui motioned to the wolf.

"I was just on my way to work when I saw the tree...It was on fire..." Lui waved her uninjured hand toward the downed tree. "And then suddenly it wasn't." She laughed, rubbing her forehead. "Sounds crazy, I know..."

"I need to check on my parents and the wolves and I need to do something with my hand. Whatever happened--is happening--can't be good." Lui climbed into the Jeep and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. She tried again and was met with the same result. Growling, she hit the steering wheel and said, "Jeep's dead..."

Getting back out, she whistled to Tundra and waited as the wolf jumped out. "Looks like we'll be walking..." she said to Terra.

[Bookwyrm]

-Day 1-
Burg, Boriel

Sarah Jordan walked down the busy streets of Burg, humming quietly to herself. It was her day off from the music shop and she was in the mood to explore. She knew if Alan found out where she had been today, he would probably give her his patented lecture on why nice young girls shouldn't go where bad young men like him hang out. Sarah had pointed out a few times that she did carry a taser, she was actually not really what anyone would consider a young girl anymore, and she had in fact put a 6'5'', 250 pound stalker in the hospital during her touring days, but Alan lived with the perpetual belief that she needed him to protect her constantly. It was annoying, but also kind of cute.

She wasn't sure exactly when the humming turned into a new song, but transform it did and Sarah found herself leaning on a street sign, busily scribbling lyrics in a tattered notebook she kept for occasions such as this.

"Hmm, I wonder if zombies are played out now? Wouldn't want to write a song abut a dead fad," Sarah mused and looked up as the color of the sky seemed to change. "Weird. Never saw the sky look like that before."

-----

Alan Kyle strolled across a skybridge, casually lifting a wallet out of a purse dangling from a stroller. The presumed owner was too busy taking pictures of the city below to notice Alan's theft. The child sitting in the stroller glanced up at Alan with the world-weary expression of a seventy year old.

"I know, kid. The parents, they suck," Alan commented. He glanced back at the oblivious mother and tossed the kid a candy bar before proceeding on his way, riffling through the wallet.

"Hmm, not much cash. Credit card looks like a boring low-limiter. Not even a shiny finish. Horrible ID picture. Never knew they made glasses in that dreadful color. The phone numbers for five different guys each labeled with "Hawt!! guy from bar!!" Good grief, does she even own a cell phone? Oh, tickets from one of the last Stroppy Homicidal Mermaid concerts? At least she has decent taste in music."

Alan came to a halt and stared out at the sky just as noon struck. He saw the bright light in the sky and then saw the wave of energy coursing through the city. Windows began to explode in the skyscrapers as the energy passed them. Thanking whatever deity might be listening for the lucky decision to wear a leather jacket that day, Alan fell to his knees with his back to the oncoming wave and his arms wrapped around his head.

There was one seemingly eternal second of silence and then the windows in the skybridge exploded, sending deadly shards of glass spinning into the hapless victims. Alan yelped in pain as the glass sliced into his jacket, but the leather was thick enough to shield him from all but a few minor cuts. As he climbed to his feet, he saw that the others were not so fortunate. Some were only mildly wounded, but more than a few were clearly not going to survive, the glass having slashed into arteries and other rather important bits.

Alan wasn't heartless, but any sympathy or help he could offer the victims was derailed as he realized there was something ... different about him. It felt like his skin was on fire. And then he stared in shock as a lock pick materialized in the air below his right hand and clattered to the floor. After a second, a small screwdriver appeared from the empty air.

"What the heck?" Alan muttered and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He had to get out of here before the police and the paramedics came. Whatever that explosion was, it had done something weird to him. He hurried toward the exit, doing his best to avoid looking at the people around him. And then the child in the stroller popped into his mind.

Meanwhile, down in the street someone had developed magnetic powers. Not realizing what was happening, they managed to completely rip away the supports on one end of the bridge just as Alan picked the little girl up out of her stroller. The mother who had been enthusiastically taking photos was clearly dead, shards of glass having sliced into the back of her skull.

"I wonder if she got a picture of that," Alan muttered as he hurried to get off of the bridge. The little girl didn't make a sound, just buried her face in his neck and trembled. And that's when the bridge collapsed.

-----

Sarah shivered and pulled her jacket more snugly around her as the sky lit up with a strange new light. And then the energy coursed across the city. Sarah cringed as a few windows around her shattered, but this section of town was mostly left unharmed.

"Okay, this is way too weird for me. I am going home and making some tea and watching a movie. No more walks," Sarah said to herself and began to quickly hurry back home.

-----

As the bridge tore away from the building it was connected to, Alan began to run toward the other entrance. He was closer to it than the one that was about to become an entrance to the street below, but the bridge was falling too quickly and the floor was becoming a vertical wall.

"Hang on tight, kid!" he said to the little girl and then threw himself out the window. Part of the bridge's safety features were smooth metal railings just outside of the windows. It was one of these that Alan grabbed and slid down toward the ground, kicking his feet into the side of the bridge to slow his descent. With this technique he safely made it to the ground, which was now littered with wreckage from the bridge smashing into the street as well as the corpses of those who had been inside the bridge or been unfortunate enough to be beneath it when it fell.

"This is bad. This is really bad. I need to find Sarah."

[The Rose-Tree Dryad]

Supernova
— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine
Palisade National Park

"Walking? How about running?" Terra said, disturbed by the Jeep's unresponsiveness, and trying not snap at her cousin. Fear was taking its toll, and she was going on pure adrenaline, now. "Okay, we'll jog."

She pulled the front of her shirt up over her nose, coughing. "Don't inhale the smoke if you can help it; I don't even know what kind of fire this is. It doesn't smell like a normal forest fire. C'mon, Tundra," Terra added to the blind wolf, uncomfortable with the way the wolf was whining.

The wolf wouldn't move. She was sitting on the ground, her nose pointed in Lui's directed, and the sound she was making was approaching an eerie howl, almost a kind of keening.

"Lui, make her move—" Terra began, but faltered as she looked at her cousin, and saw that she had dropped to the ground, twitching.

[Chloë Máiréad]

Supernova
— Day 1 —
Parksville, Erbaine
Palisade National Park

Luisana swayed on her feet, her vision swimming. The colors she was seeing were mixed and nothing made sense. She closed her eyes tightly and tried to fight the pounding in her head.

She could hear Terra talking and Tundra's whining, but she was powerless to reply to Terra or comfort the wolf. Unable to stand anymore, she felt herself falling, reaching out to grab the door-frame of the Jeep with her left and injured hand. She knew it was a mistake as soon as her wrist stretched to support her weight and beak her fall, but it was too late.

She clenched her jaw against the pain as the back of her head made contact with the gravel road. Her hands shook violently and her lips quivered.

What is happening? She thought, desperate to stop the pain and the shaking.

She felt Tundra's wet nose touch her bare arm as the wolf nudged her hand. Then Luisana succumbed to the darkness.

[PrinceCor004]

Day 1: Aridia
de Mon Castle Grounds

"The hotel I was staying at is half-baked, so yeah, I need a place to stay for at least a day or so." Christopher replied to the guard. "So is there any paperwork I need to fill out or what?"

------------------------

Day 1: Burg
Lawrence Manor, evening

Dinner at the manor had consisted of grilled chicken, garlic butter rice and pudding. It would have been fine with Malcom to had simply had pasta, though Jennings insisted on fixing something more nutritious since master Lawrence was going to be "jumping off rooftops tonight".

"The meal was delicious as always, Richard." Malcom said as he stood from the table and headed for his study. A few minutes later, Malcom was putting the finishing touches on his costume. Is it a sign of a deep psychological problem that I'm dressing up as though it's Halloween and going out to pummel bad guys? Lawrence thought as he pulled the white and black mask on, then looked in a small mirror sitting on the rocky shelf. "Nah..."

Malcom adjusted his gloves and hat while he decided which Hyper-bike to take. Finally picking the black one he had slightly modified last summer for maximum speed and mobility.

With a final tug at his jacket, Lawrence kicked the idling bike into gear and sped out of the underground hangar and into the red sunset of Burg.

[sweeetlilgurlie]

-Day 1-
Parksville, Erbaine
Green Hills Highschool
After the Supernova

Catherine awoke to complete darkness and silence. She was lying on the stage, but didn't have much of an idea of how she'd gotten there. Slowly, carefully, she got up. Her hand hit something sharp, and she felt the skin break and liquid come out. She stuck the hand into her mouth so that her blood wouldn't drip everywhere and began to cautiously walk along the stage, reaching out with each foot as she went so that she wouldn't fall off the edge. That'd be the perfect end to her day.

Her breathing sounded oppressively loud as she carefully moved on. Finally, she found the stairs and got down them. The exit, where was the exit? She kept walking carefully, moving each foot ahead of her so that she wouldn't run into anything. Her progress was aggravatingly slow. Where was the door? She couldn't find the door!

[stargazer]

— Day 1 —
Palisade National Park
Near Parksville, Erbaine

Previously…

“We’ll have to hunker down here until we get word somehow. Good thing we have plenty of food, matches, and firewood.”
---

“How can you think about food at a time like this?” Angie asked, glancing up at the sky.

Dan’s gaze followed hers. The supernova itself seemed to have faded, but a blurry glowing afterimage remained burned onto the sky, and the woods were still rather eerily lit. “Gotta eat,” he grinned; as if on cue his stomach growled loudly. He put down the kindling for the fire he was about to start and returned to his wife’s side. “I’m as worried as you are,” he confessed. He whispered, so as not to alarm their daughter. “I have no idea what’s happening down there” – he glanced in the direction of Parksville – “and no easy way to get there. Things may never be the same again, but as long as we’re safe, we have to keep our strength up. That means eating. It’s one of those rules of survival Dad kept telling me about when I was a kid.”

“I’m hungry too, Mama,” a little voice added.

“Okay, two to one, you guys win,” Angie chuckled.

A crashing sound came from the woods behind them, and a pair of deer ran into their campsite. Candy barked once, twice, then, in response to Angie’s hissed command, quieted and ran under the picnic table, tail between her legs. Dan was grateful now that she’d insisted on obedience training for their pup; a barking dog was the last thing they needed right now.

The deer seemed to be running straight for Grace, who stood staring, stone still, at the approaching animals. It all happened so fast; Dan and Angie could do little more than watch, terrified, as their daughter screamed and covered her head with her hands. At the last instant, the animals veered, one to each side of the child, and disappeared into the woods. The entire encounter had taken just seconds.

The little girl ran to the comfort of her mother’s arms. “We got lucky there,” Dan said to himself, relieved at the narrow escape.

Once sure his daughter was all right, he stepped over to their car, fished out his key, and opened the door. He was not surprised to see a totally dark display. Next he opened the hood and got out to examine the engine. This is where he, on most days, could perform his mechanical magic and get things working again. But this wasn’t most days. The suspected electromagnetic pulse would have wiped out the electronics the engine needed to start and run, and there was nothing he could do about it out here.

“Maybe staying out here isn’t such a great option,” he admitted, sitting down once again next to Angie. “Those deer were running from something. Next time it could be a bear or a moose or – “

Then a teenage girl with curly brown hair emerged from the woods, also at a run, and Candy barked a couple of times, a friendlier bark this time. The couple hadn’t seen any people in the last day, so they were eager for news of the outside world. But before either could say a word, the stranger gasped out, “Fire—in Parksville. Watch the woods—stay safe.”

And then she was gone.

Strange! What’s going to happen next? This was no longer an ordinary fun trip to the campground, Dan knew. “What do you think we should do, dear? Go to town? We could lose our home in the fire, and our friends may be in danger. But we’re too far away to help; we’d never get there in time. And I’m not sure it’s safer here – especially for Grace – if we’re going to be running into who knows what out here.”

“Survival first,” Angie reminded him. “We’re together, and for now, we’re safe. We’ll think better on a full stomach. So let’s have a quick lunch – sandwiches, maybe; something easy – and then we go through our camping gear and pick out what we need to survive. And then we can talk about what to do.”

[Arwenel]

~Day One~
~Brink City~

At first, Michelle had argued with her brother about leaving - but then their neighbor, Alice Murrow, had come over to see if they were all right.

"We're both fine," Michelle had answered, trying to sound upbeat. "I guess whatever happened out there knocked out the power for a bit. It'll probably be back up in an hour or so."

"An hour or so?" Mrs. Murrow repeated, her voice higher-pitched and faster than normal. "My dear, don't you know what's going on?"

She sounded like it was the most obvious thing in the world, so Michelle felt a little embarrassed when she answered, "No ... do you?"

There was a pause, in which Michelle imagined the older woman was staring at her. All she could hear was Mrs. Murrow's breathing - quick, heavy breaths.

As if she could hardly bear to say it, the other woman said in just above a whisper, "The end of the world."

Josiah came into the room at that point, and firmly but gently - not quite gently enough, in Michelle's mind - sent Mrs. Murrow out. "You've been keeping things from me again," Michelle said flatly, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice. It didn't work.

Her brother sighed. "I - I heard a few reports about something - a supernova - happening sometime soon in a nearby system, but it didn't sound serious at the time. The government didn't think it was anything to worry about, and I didn't want to upset you."

Michelle felt a mixture of anger, exasperation, and fondness well up inside her. "Well, I'm upset now."

"I'm sorry, Mish." He pulled her into a hug, like he always did when he wanted to distract her from his non-answers. Still, a physical display of affection from Josiah was rare enough that she simply wrapped her arms around him and hugged back. "I don't know what's going on here, but I promise, whatever happens I'll keep you safe. Always."

I'm not a little girl anymore, Siah, Michelle thought, but she had said it enough times already in their lives, and if the end of the world couldn't change her brother's mind, she doubted she could.

****

In one way, Josiah was almost grateful for Mrs. Murrow's visit, in that afterward Michelle didn't complain about packing up and heading for Parksville.

Choosing what to take was a nightmare. They had a car in the garage, but he hadn't filled it up on the last trip, and if anyone was still selling gas, it was probably going for an arm and a leg right now; so anything they took they had to be able to carry. They would need food and water - nothing perishable, or that needed to be cooked first, since there was no telling when they would have access to fire or a working stove-top. And of course there were all sorts of other things they would need to bring, like clothing, personal items, rope, knives, perhaps screwdrivers even, or hammers ...

In the end, there were four suitcases - Michelle insisted she was able to carry two, and they had so little as it was he didn't argue with her - two backpacks, and his guitar; one way he was sure they could make money, if nothing else.

Josiah locked the door behind them as they went out into the streets. "Stay close to me," he told Michelle, then started down Castle Road.