The Ascent

Chapter 6

The family that moved into the apartment after her friend left didn't change things that much. There was still a tiny hallway that led into the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. All the doors were wide open, allowing her a clear view of most of the apartment.

Still cautious, Jasmine slowly entered the living room, which led to the dining room and the balcony, and peaked into both. To Jasmine's both relief and disappointment, there was no one there. It was nearly identical to the house she first visited, with half-eaten food on the table. Even the stove was still on, which she automatically turned off.

Defeated, she sat down at the dining table to rethink things. It felt as if she might be approaching the situation wrongly because there had to be someone else left behind the same way she was.

"Maybe I shouldn't be looking in such obvious places," Jasmine muttered. "Maybe I should be checking the shelters. Surely that would have been the first thing people did in case of an emergency, seek shelter."

"Nope, the shelters are empty as well," a voice said with certainty.

Jasmine almost jumped out of her skin because she had gotten so used to being alone, being the only one she could converse with. The mere existence of another human made her almost scream out in fear. Partly because of its unexpectedness, partly because she was sure she checked everywhere and there was no one in the apartment.

So, where did the little boy standing before her come from?

Clearly, Jasmine needed to be more careful as the boy could have easily been one of those creepy bald men. That was the lesson she learned the hard way but the one she needed to keep in mind if she wanted to survive.

"You scared me," Jasmine said, trying to sound composed and not frighten the child who she assumed to be even more terrified than she was. "Where did you come from?"

"I was in the apartment next door, heard you ring the bell (which is, by the way, a stupid thing to do), and here I am to see the only other human left behind," the boy said.

His tone was so calm and collected that Jasmine wondered if he was in some kind of shock. As she wasn't sure what to do with people in such a condition, she gestured for him to sit down and offered him some of the candy that she always carried with her.

"I have to lock the door first. You don't want them to get us too, do you?" the boy said as he went back and bolted the door. "It would at least buy us some time if they try to come barging in, although I don't think they can, not yet at least."

Jasmine had no idea what the boy was talking about. However, it was nice to hear someone else's voice as she had been alone for what felt like an eternity (but was basically a couple of hours at most). Still, it seemed like the boy knew something Jasmine didn't. So, she felt she needed to use a gentle approach to gather the necessary information.

"My name is Jasmine. What is your name?" Jasmine asked, using her gentlest tone reserved for children, hoping to set him at ease.

"I am Isaac, and you don't need to talk like that. I am not a baby!" Isaac shouted frustratedly.

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that. I just thought you had been through a huge trauma. That I should be more careful when talking to you," Jasmine said apologetically.

She still remembered how she disliked when her parents addressed her that way when Jasmine was a child. Furthermore, she felt guilty she was making the same mistakes.

"Well, I didn't really see anything, or at least not in person, so I can't really be traumatized, can I?" Isaac said, gnawing on his lower lip. "One moment I was in my room listening to some music, angry at my parents, the next, my parents were just gone without any explanation."

"I am sorry," Jasmine said.

However, seeing that was just the wrong thing to say to the angry boy, she went on talking.

"You said that you didn't see anything in person. What did you mean by that?" she added quickly.

Since the boy clearly didn't want to be comforted, or at least not by a person he had just met, Jasmine thought the best thing for them would be to focus on their current issues. What they saw or heard could contain clues as to where the rest of humanity had gone to.

Later Jasmine would remember with a pang of guilt that she had one short moment where she wished it wasn't a little boy that she found but a strong man who could help her survive. Yet, that same boy was cleverer than many men would have been in a similar situation.

"We have a door camera, so as soon as I realized that both my parents and my baby sister were gone," Isaac said, his voice breaking a little but powering through it. "I checked the footage."

"What did you find?" Jasmine asked on the edge of her seat, literally.

"It was the strangest thing ever. I don't know why but I saw my parents leaving the apartment, closely followed by my little sister. But they didn't look...normal...It was like one of those movies where people get hypnotized or something," Isaac said, his eyes glistening, but he allowed no tears to escape. "There was just this empty look in their eyes. And their movements were kind of robotic. They were matching each other's movements or something."

"That's odd," Jasmine said, scratching her forehead at a loss of what to say. "Did you see anything else?"

"Not on our camera, no, but there were a few strange videos on YouTube that I saw after," Isaac said.

The kid had managed to do a lot of research from the comfort of his home, and Jasmine felt embarrassed that she couldn't learn anything useful. However, in her defense, she didn't know anything had changed when she exited her apartment. Otherwise, she would have gone out far better prepared.

"What did you see?" Jasmine asked, hoping he saw some government reports on what they were supposed to do or something equally informative.

"There were a lot of videos of animals abandoning this area," Isaac said, scrunching up his nose as he tried to remember everything he saw. "Like large flocks of birds flying off in quite a hurry. Dogs, squealing and running away, even chewing through their leashes and scurrying away in terror."

"Didn't people find that odd?" Jasmine asked, wondering why nothing had been done to investigate such a peculiar situation.

"Yes, but before any organized response was made, everyone just vanished," Isaac said, lowering his head. "It seems like that happened maybe an hour or two before the people disappeared. The animals fled, and then people disappeared. There was no one left to investigate anything. That was when I checked the shelters, and since I didn't find anything, I just came back home."

As he said that, he secretly wiped away a tear that managed to escape him, which Jasmine pretended not to see.

"How old are you?" Jasmine asked gently the boy who was being far braver than she was.

"I am ten years old. Everyone says I am small for my age but that I will sprout up quickly just like my father when he was my age," Isaac said with the first bout of enthusiasm Jasmine saw in him.

"I am sure you will," Jasmine said, admiring his adaptability and courage. "You just seem very clever for your age. Do you have any idea why we were left behind?"

"No, but I think I know who is doing this," Isaac said confidently.

"Really, who?" Jasmine asked, intrigued as she hadn't even been sure it was 'who' they were dealing with and not a 'what'.

"The aliens, of course," Isaac said with certainty.

"No!" Jasmine said, shocked. "Surely that can't be it. I mean, aliens aren't real. What makes you think so?"

"Well, it sounds like their MO, doesn't it?" Isaac said without missing a beat.

Where in the world he learned the expression was beyond Jasmine, but she did consider what he said as that strange image, hallucination, crossed her mind. However, for the time being, they needed to gather all the information they could. For that reason, they decided to go through a more detailed search for the truth and use the all-knowing source of information.

The Internet.