Saving Chloe

Chapter Two

"...everybody to stay calm, there is no need to start rioting and freaking out. We do heavily advise everyone to stay at home until we receive more information on what happened. Please stay tuned, and stay safe. Hospitals are overflowing, if there is no real danger of dying or serious deathly illness, please stay away from them and bandage your scratches at home. Thank you for cooperating..." A scratchy static noise takes place for a few seconds before the dreary and monotone voice starts up again. "For anyone listening in, we advise everybody to stay calm..." It's the same message on repeat. They're giving no information away.

My eyes blink open, slowly adjusting to the small lantern lit up beside my bed. Except I'm not in my bed. I'm not even in my room. I'm, thank God, at my home though. Chloe's purple walls, literally covered head to toe with various pictures of every single person she knows, surrounds me, suffocating me as I'm surrounded by strange stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes. She's twelve years old; I don't know why she needs to keep all these damn things. Her bed, since I'm obviously in her "guest bed," is perfectly made up as per usual. She's nowhere to be found though. Which is odd because she hates when I'm in her room.

Oh, and why am I not in my own damn room?

Moving is excruciating and agonizing, so I stay perfectly still exactly where I'm at. I must've made some sort of cry or scream because my mother rushed into the room. Chloe was right behind her, a bottle of water in hand. How the hell did they get here so fast? Were they just standing outside the door? And does someone want to explain to me why I'm in Chloe's bedroom and not in my own? Or how about an even more brilliant question: what the hell happened to the plane? And why is Chloe's windows boarded up?

"Alessa, honey! I'm so glad you're awake!" Mom is now towering over me, with Chloe trying to look around her shoulder to peer down at me. "You have no idea how worried I've been." Then she smiles, this kind of relieved and subdued smile, definitely not her most natural or normal one. Something is wrong, besides the obvious. There is something more, something I'm missing by the looks on Chloe's and Mom's faces. Whatever it was they were going to keep it a secret from me.

If Calen were in here, he'd be blunt with me. But, no. Chloe, the liar, and Mom, the manipulative liar was who I got to deal with. I was going to acquire no vital information from these two.

"How are you feeling, Sweetie?" Mom's voice is smooth, obscure and confident which makes me feel like a mental patient. I try to nod, since my throat is definitely not cooperating correctly with me, but my head becomes a sea of nausea just waiting to be released. So I just attempt to grin instead. Before Mom can reply, a new message plays over the annoying repetitive one which grabs all of our attention.

"For anyone still listening, our world seems to be entering a phase of chaos. I have to ask that every single one of you remains calm and keeps their head. We have no available vacancies in any hospital, so I'm told, because of the Wave." Is that what happened? Huh. They've given it a name at least. And the people on our plane weren't the only ones to feel it. I didn't imagine it. So it did little good to secretly hate every single pilot. "Please do not feel the need to go out and make a nuisance of yourself and add to the list of mayhem. We will be getting everything situated again and quickly. We advise you to stay calm, these Invader tales are all mere rumors. We are all working hard on getting everything back to normal. Please stay tuned..." That same static-y noise beeps through the speakers for a few more seconds before replaying the same message.

They want us to stay calm? Then why go and make a neurotic accusation about whatever the hell these "Invaders" are? What was the point of that? Oh, hey, please stay calm, yeah there have been alien rumors swirling about but nobody believes in aliens anyway so I would just ignore them and did I forget to mention to stay calm?