The Day They Came (working title)

Yeah, Heights, Not Really My Thing

Lily’s POV

When I sat up I checked my alarm clock. It was dead, the bright green numbers conspicuously absent.

I scrambled up, spilling duvet over the edge o the bed, and grabbed my phone. 9.30.

Oh god no, dad's gonna be so mad. What was he going to say? He was late for work and it's all my fault. Oh god, what am I going to do?

I sat up and began typing up a very quick text to a friend explaining why I was late.

'Error; no service'

I glanced at my signal bars and saw that this was true. Great, I was late for school, dad was going to be mad and my phone wasn't working.

I took my time getting washed and dressed before I went to wake up dad, and by the time I'd done all that it was nearly 10 and I still hadn't eaten. Probably wouldn't either, but the longer I put it off the worse it would be.

I tentatively walked towards the door, trying to put off the moment by moving slowly and quietly so he didn’t wake up by himself, and I was all too happy, when a rock tapped against my own bedroom window, to go see who'd thrown it. Can’t have people throwing stones at the house.

Emily was stood in the garden another pebble in her hand.

"Get down here, we need to talk." she hissed upon seeing me.

"Go round the corner, I'll meet you in ten minutes, I've got to wake dad up" I whispered just loud enough for her to hear.

She nodded and jogged off leaving me to face my dad.

•••

Ten minutes later I arrived, rubbing a bruise on my arm.

"What's wrong?" I asked curiously. “How come you’re not at school?”

"Haven't you noticed? Everything that's been plugged into the mains is broken. For god’s sake, our electric toothbrush was charging and it's dead."

"I just thought my alarm clock was broken”

"Nope, dad says he reckons it's a power surge, but it reaches way to far, even mobile towers are out.”

"So that's why I had no signal." I said, glad my phone was still working.

"Look, you're missing the point. It's not just that the powers out, it's that everything electrical is broken, even if the power comes back on nothing is going to work. That means no computers, no Internet, no pones, no communications of any sort. And this isn't just localised, cause even the phone masts are down, and they're a way off." she ranted, looking a little panicky

I looked at her, "That doesn't sound too bad. A pain to fix, yeah, but nothing that bad."

She sighed irritably.

"I'll show you, come on" She said walking away.

"Where are we going?" I demanded, chasing after her.

"My house" was the terse reply "You can see right out to Doncaster from the roof."

I grunted, focused on keeping up with her long strides. She was travelling fast enough that I had to make a little skip every third step to stay in line.

It was hard work moving like this, especially getting up the hill to her house, and at the top I took a quick puff from my inhaler while she went inside. When I followed her I came in just in time to see her taking the stairs two at a time and I followed more sedately. I caught her up as she unhooked the trapdoor to the loft anyway.