Dead Horizon

Ember

     A foggy morning in Acushnet mass, 2022, mid July. With everyone asleep, the loud, yet silent clock ticks and tocks and ticks and repeats the same motion, over and over and over again. Young Ember walks step by step down the creaky staircase and almost wakes up her sister Sophie, whom she cherishes. Ember switches the living room light on and opens the curtains as she finds herself not being able to sleep past two in the morning. This has lasted for a week now, almost as long as the war between Russia and the U.S. has gone on so far. She grabs the remote to turn on a channel for noise so she can try to go back to sleep but something disturbing catches her eye. The first thing that she saw was the news reporter.

"And with that being said, most of the citizens of MA have either evacuated or found refuge, while our low populated towns such as..." Ember has seen this on her television for a while now, so this does not strike a concern in her teenage mind, that is until she heard a familiar word come out of that lady's mouth. "Medway, Wayland and Acushnet have not been evacuated due to poor travel resources and power outages."

     What she was saying did not make sense, we had power and resources. Ember thought as she stood up and walked slowly into the kitchen, trying not to fall. Her green eyes looked brighter than ever while the red and purple of the eye bags underneath played a big role in her appearance. The fridge did not work, or atleast the light did not. Ember got worried and went back to her bed, forgetting why she even went downstairs in the first place.

     Sophie, the "charming brat" as her family would call her, tiptoed down the stairs only to see the living room light on and the disturbing pictures on the television that Ember did not shut off. Sophie was frightened from what she just witnessed on the tv, bombs in Canada, people dying, blood and refugees hiding in bushes. The fact that the tv was a big screen did not help. Little Sophie stomped upstairs and ran to Ember's room and let out a soft cry. Ember knew why she was crying and planned to bring Sophie into mom's room after she fell asleep, but they both fell asleep, back to sleep in the quiet town with barely anyone around. But there were people around. As the morning sun hid behind gray clouds, mourning of lives began. Ember heard a woman's voice screaming for help in the distance.

     The startling noise woke Kate, Ember and Sophie's mother. But she did not see where the noise was coming from when her turquoise blue eyes looked through the window screen. It was cloudy and not because there was a rain storm coming, not because the clouds were making a quick stop to water and refresh the almost-dead flowers. But the clouds were not clouds, it was the smoke, disguising itself in the dead horizon. Smoke from the bombs, coming from the north-west, it was time to act fast.