Our Tumbledown World

Chapter 3 first signs

The emergency alert repeated all morning long. I lost track of how many times I heard it that morning. I muted the TV at first, but eventually, I had to turn it off.

I tried to go back to sleep dozens of times, I even went upstairs to try to sleep in my own bed. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't. 

The message's ominous and weird warnings repeated in my mind over and over again. I had heard about the riots for almost a week now, but I hadn't actually expected them to come here, it seemed like an impossible thing. Our small town had never had something like that happen before, at least to my knowledge. And it worried me.

But what worried me even more was it telling me not to let anyone I knew inside—even family.

Not that I had any family left to let inside. No, now isn't the time to go there.

Still, I had friends. Kinda. Annalore was my only friend, which earned her the title of best friend.

And that's all she'd ever be. My thoughts sure weren't going to cheer me up tonight.

Plus there was Clover, she was more than an acquaintance, but not really a friend either, an associate maybe? I should let them inside if they ever came to me for help, shouldn't I? I could understand the logic in not letting strangers in, but friends and family, even if they were your own children?

As I lay in bed, unable to sleep, I became aware of a slowly growing taping sound against my window.

Tap

Tap

Tap

Tap

Tap

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap

Soon the individual tapping turned into a loud barrage of raindrops crashing down against my window.

Funny, I didn't think it was supposed to rain tonight.

That's the weather in Alberta for you.

Finally, around five in the morning, I finally managed to fall asleep. Only to be awakened almost immediately by a different sound.

Bang!

Even after it woke me up, I had been asleep long enough to be groggy when I woke up. I didn't fully register what the sound was. In my half-awake mind, I assumed that it was thunder. Even though it sounded more like it came from across the street than a thousand feet above.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

That woke me up more than a thousand pots of coffee laced with crack. I nearly tripped over myself with my legs tangled in the thick grey quilt. That definitely sounded like it came from across the street.

It sounded like gunshots.

No, that's not possible. Don't be stupid. I told myself. I only had four neighbours across the street. Mike Smith, Tim Arnold and the Musters. And I couldn't picture any of them firing a gun. They didn't seem like the kind of people to even own one. To be fair though, Tim was still new to the neighbourhood, so I was maybe wrong about my judgement on him.

Last I had heard from the neighbourhood gossip, the Musters were on vacation, so it probably wasn't from their place.

From my bedroom window, I could see across the street. It was dark as ink, except for the glow from the street lights. The Muster's car was gone, but Tim's truck and Mike's car were still there. The lights were on in both of their houses and disturbingly, the door to Tim's house was open.

Maybe a rioter had broken into his place.

I ignored the thought. Why would one lone rioter be breaking into someone's home, when there didn't seem to be any riot going on outside? If anything, it would be just a regular burglar, not a crazy rioter. Maybe-

The ringing sound from my phone on my nightstand seemed as loud as the noises outside and nearly gave me a heart attack. I ran my hands down my face as I made my way to grab it, I knew I had to calm down. The caller ID showed Annalore's name. That alone always made my heart jump. I took a moment to pull myself together before answering the ringing phone.

"Annalore,"

"Did you hear the gunshots, it sounded like they came from Tim's house!" She yelled into the phone. I had to pull it away from my ear her voice was so loud. 

"I heard..... something, are you sure they were gunshots though, they could have been- something else," I tried to explain, probably not convincing either of us. But I didn't want her to worry, I was sure I was already doing enough of that for the both of us.

"What else could they be?" she asked.

I didn't have a good answer for her.

"Maybe one of them bought a new gun, and wanted to try it out?" Even as the words came out of my mouth I knew how stupid they were. It wouldn't have surprised me if she hung up her phone and never spoke to me again. When she didn't reply for almost a minute that's what I thought had happened at first. It wasn't until I pulled my phone away from my ear that I realized my phone had died on me. sighing, I made my way down to the kitchen to plug it back in.

After I plugged it in, I started to make my way back upstairs, only to freeze near the steps.

Due to the streetlights, I could see the outline of someone standing on my porch through the curtains.

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Author's note.

Hey everyone, thank you so much for reading the first three chapters! Sorry, it took me so long to get the third chapter out, life was busy the last few days. But I can promise that the fourth chapter, Forever Changed, will be out in three weeks from now! Also, I know the last chapters were shorter than the first, but hopefully from now on the chapters will be at least almost as long as the first give or take a few hundred. Maybe one day I'll add more to these last few.

please leave a comment whether you like the story or not, it really helps me to know what you do and don't like with both the story and the writing. Thanks again, and see you in three weeks!

-K. A. Hillman.