Sunshine Yellow

Chapter 6

Silence.        

For a moment of complete insanity, I wonder how two hundred people can manage to be completely quiet like this. Then I realize I should be panicking, and apparently, so does everyone else, because just then, the silence is broken. And pandemonium erupts.

Shrieks of fright and shouting of names of fellow residence members fill the air as everyone breaks out in a mad, simultaneous dash for the pipe-entrance. I’m almost knocked over in the stampede, after which I desperately scramble to my feet as fast as I can in fear being trampled. These fears are the same ones I had when I walked into the Gathering, just intensified: louder noises, more forceful pushing and shoving, and as everyone is running to get out of the assembly hall, it seems like there are even more people than before.

“P-Please, remain calm!” Sector-Leader Marcus shouts into the mic. But no one’s listening. The audience that was hanging onto his every word just a few seconds ago couldn’t care less about what he has to say. Not anymore, not after it's obvious that Area 89 isn't as safe as he tells them it is. 

Somehow through the screams blaring in my ears, I make out a single word. And not just any word, but my name. Over and over it’s shouted, and although I can’t see him, I know for sure that Asher is the one calling me.  

Right. I can’t see him. He isn’t here. Why isn’t he here?

I circle in place, frantically scanning my surroundings for that mop of familiar brown hair. It’s no use; there are no distinctions between people now, just blurs of alabaster skin and grey as they rush by. Trying to get out. I should be escaping like they are, should be running for my life from this disease in the air, but I can’t bring myself to run out the pipe-entrance with the rest. Not without Asher.

I fight my way against the flow of the crowd, following his voice. My hand floats up above me in the dim hope that Asher might see it, a signal. I scream his name as he screams mine—“Cassandra, Cassandra, Cassandra”—and suddenly there’s a break in the crowd. A sliver of him is visible through the crack, a bit of Asher shining through the grey. Breathing out a crazed, little laugh, I shove my way over to his side and slip my hand into his.

 He squeezes it tight. And then we run.

Asher manages to navigate through the mass, cutting us a path through the grey as if it were paper-thin. Fists force themselves into my side and feet stumble over mine as I’m jolted repeatedly, shoved out of each passer-by’s way.  Small sparks of pain shoot through me with each physical connection, but I ignore them. There are more important things to worry about.

Our wild, clumsy run is forced to a halt as Asher and I collide with a wall. A surprisingly soft wall—a wall of people. The pipe-entrance is only so big, and not all two hundred of us can fit in at once. Most everyone has been tightly-packed within a twenty-foot radius of it. I’m squished against the woman in front of me as more and more people gather behind me—building up, building up, like a clogged drain only letting a trickle of water run through. Stuck for the time being, I hold my breath for as long as I can bear before inhaling a bit and repeating the process. I figure the less air I breathe, the smaller chance I have of being infected. Or maybe that’s not how disease works. Maybe it seeps in through your pores or some other unavoidable thing like that. It could also be transmitted by touch, I realize, and I fidget with the need to run far, far away.

Taking another sharp breath, I stare at the woman in front of me, the one I’m pinned against. A boy about my age is clutching her arm—her older child, or perhaps even just a terrified stranger in need of comfort—and she leans down to whisper something in his ear. Words of reassurance, no doubt. Despite the fact that I’m in just as worrisome a situation, I feel a twinge of sympathy for them.