Book One.
The world has become a different place since the attack on New York. People have been forced to accept a reality filled with superhumans, machine men, and alien races. Earth has become a playground for the universe with humans getting los...
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Juliette stood close to the edge of the cliff face – not too close, though. She had a "completely" rational fear of heights and she couldn't stop imagining the ground crumbling under her feet, sending her to a dark and watery grave. Drowning, she had heard, was an awful way to die. Of course, Juliette wasn't sure if there was a good way to die.
Still, she took a small step back as she grabbed her cellphone from her pocket. This was as good a place as any to release their mother's ashes. With a trembling hand, she reached into her other pocket – for her mother. It was hard to accept what had happened and how the world had changed in a single moment. Juliette knew it wasn't only her family that had suffered – the attack had damaged the city and left a scar on every heart. Years later, it had happened again and another scar was left and a city nearly decimated. There was no end to the horror and danger. It was hard to look at the world and see anything good or beautiful about it anymore. All the hope she'd had was nothing but ash – just like the pieces of her mother.
Thunder rumbled and the air around her vibrated, causing the hairs on her arms to stand on end. The smell of the briny sea grew thicker, enveloping her. Juliette was, for a moment – a single breath, transported to another world, another life. A world where everything was alive and unbroken. Her mother was still around and Shelby was not sick.
Her lips stretched upward into a fragile grin.
And she breathed deep. So deep that her lungs burned as if she hadn't used them in days, weeks – maybe even centuries. Maybe the world was still beautiful, she thought to herself as she stared out across the vacant sea. The white caps of the waves surging toward the cliff face with a quiet violence.
Juliette clutched her phone tighter for a moment as she exhaled, leaving the beautiful world behind and clawing her way back to reality. It fell over her like a thick miasma, dripping deep into her pores and burrowing all the way to her marrow. She pulled up her sister in her contacts, hesitating for a moment before she hit the button to facetime with her.
It took a moment before it connected then she saw Shelby's face – exhausted and haunted gaze staring out at her.
This was too much.
It was far from fair.
There were times, in the darkness – in the quiet, that Juliette imagined that it was her who had died. It would have been better she recited to herself like a mantra. Their Mother would have known what to do when Shelby needed to be comforted or when she needed someone to pull her back from the darkness. Their mother had been as compassionate as she was strong. Juliette couldn't remember a time when she wasn't laughing or smiling. Even when they'd gotten Shelby's diagnosis, weeks before the attack – the light had not gone out.
"Hey, what's with the gloomy look?" Shelby questioned with a weak smile. "You're not the one stuck on house arrest. Now, show me."
Juliette rolled her eyes before she turned the phone in her hand, slowly letting it scan the horizon as if her sister were here to look at it with her own two eyes. There was such a heavy silence, a calm that had not been there before like the whole world had held its breath in awe. The wind stilled and the storm held back it's fury.
