CHAPTER 3

The newscaster’s voice rang throughout the apartment. It bounced from wall to shelf to wall again. The huge factory windows that took up a quarter part of our loft did little to muffle the morning traffic outside. The backlogged SUVs beeped with the whistling of the tv ripples, almost like a holiday jingle. It was nearly December, and about three years later, so someone must have been playing Christmas music.

“⏤South Easton and Octoberfaire residents are strongly advised to stay in doors and wait out the thunderstorm coming off the bay tonight. We will likely see our first bit of snow after Thanksgiving break⏤”

The bus is cramped. I am shoulder to shoulder between two middle-aged husks. I assumed that they did not even know I was there. They remained still, staring off into traffic, or God knows what. There was always something else to stare at.

The bus rocked back and forth. I braced myself, clinging to the bar. People in their seats were knocking into each other, bobbleheads waving side to side. We were like sardines tossed around in a cramped aluminum can. I clung to the bar harder, trying to fight the twists and turns.

I did not get to see David this morning. He had left before I woke up for school. When I came out from my room, the apartment was empty, besides the chatter of newscasters on the tv. I think he does that on purpose; he often forgets to turn off the tv when he leaves the apartment. I assumed he thinks it makes me feel like he is home still, or like some ambient sound to make me feel less lonely. It did not really help, but I appreciate that he thinks of me every morning.

He left me my breakfast on the table, and lunch in the fridge, so I picked up the plate he left out for me and sat down to watch the news before leaving for the last day of school before the break. He liked to arrange my breakfast and meals in “fun” ways, and most of the time his attempts came out just shy of perfection. The lopsided eggs and curled bacon made the smiley face look more like a disturbed chipmunk than I previously thought possible. It was a gift of David’s, he tried. I scarfed the breakfast down like a thanksgiving turkey, leaving no trace of the chipmunk left.

Whenever I sat down to watch the news, I always expected something about what happened that day to appear on the reels. Nowadays, the expectation to see something has waned, and I understand that I may be disappointed with what little info on the situation I can find. When I first tried looking into what happened, I was rigorous and determined. For hours, throughout the night, I stayed up digging into archived newsreels, public security cams, website articles, chatrooms, anything that could tell me about that day.

I was desperate for anything, any sign of what happened to have caused the explosion. For a while, it was all over the news. A tragedy along the likes of which Agartha rarely sees. My parents' faces, along with twenty eight others, were plastered all over the tv, posters, articles, and conspiracy boards for a year. Their names were spoken by over two dozen newscasters all over the Agarthan Metropolitan area. I had my work cut out for me, to say the least.

While on the bus, I thought about my next move. Where do I go from here? It seemed like no one had a concrete answer for what happened. Not even the police. Casey calls every week to check up on me, and update me with anything that she can find out from the cops. It’s been pretty dry for the past few months.

They still do not know who caused it. They did not believe me when I told them what happened. They could not. I was so desperate to get off my chest. I tried to tell anyone who asked, for a while. Eventually I realized that it was pointless.

Maybe I was crazy.

Casey said she believed me. David said that he did too. I did not think that they really believed me. They believed me in the same way a parent believed their kid who came into their room, in the middle of the night, terrified of the monster in their closet. They believe I was a kid who went through something really traumatic. A kid who tried to justify the tragedy, that’s who they believe.

They did not believe me.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I did not blame them. I would not believe myself if I did not see it in person.

I questioned if I should call Casey early. See if I could find any leads. Although, I did not think that she would want to. For all her help, I think she tried to discourage me. David, I thought, tried to too.

The bus doors opened out onto the street. A flood of passengers stepped off, including me. Octoberfaire was a pretty residential town south of the City of Easton, which is a borough of the Agarthan Metropolitan area. The Agarthan Metropolitan Transport Authority, or the AMTA as normal people called it, runs right through. One side of the train tracks was the bay area, or the shore, and folks from all around visited the area especially during the summer. Where a historical wharf, amusement park, and fun beach resided, tourism thrived. The other side of the tracks were where the rest of the town was.

David’s apartment was on the other side of the tracks. Thankfully, Octoberfaire was a safe town in general; so, I did not feel too scared to walk back to the apartment on my own. Still, it was not the nicest part of town. Inner Easton lies more inland, and was a hub for the city. We lived just between the shore and the Inner city. We were like the skip between a pebble thrown and the sinking stone. A rough patch in an otherwise non-threatening white picket yard.

The shoe factory was just off the AMTA’s tracks, and the shoreside parkway that curled around and followed the south shore, leading all the way from the Agarthan bridge on the west side of Easton to South Easton and the next borough over, Ambrugge. If there was ever a prime spot to be mugged, it’s near the tracks. Since the area was home to a ton of old factories too, it only bred more trouble. David would always offer to drop me off at the bus stop, but I liked the walk.

I listened to Murder of Crows, an alt-rock band local to Ambrugge, on my way home. Their sweeping drums and guitar made me feel like I was punk. So, I thought it matched the atmosphere. It gave me a little bit of courage, like I could pretend to be tougher than I was. That I could actually look like I was from a factory apartment.

When I reached the factory I pulled off my headphones to listen. I heard the train passing by, which meant that I had just missed the afternoon rush.

Stepping inside the factory, the floors and walls on the first floor were renovated. No longer were there pipes and outlying brickwork creeping into the place like moss. There was an elevator leading up to the higher floors. I took it up to the third and opened the door to David’s apartment.

Unlike the rest of the complex, David’s apartment loft still had exposed brick, and a few pipes too. He said it looked “industrial”. It was nothing like my folks' old brownstone in the city. Inside the apartment living space was a jungle of skeletal book shelves, boxes of paper files, and even more boxes of artifacts he’s “commandeered” from the museum he worked at. He was an assistant curator and researcher at the Agarthan Museum of History. There was always some weird mystery he was poking into, either home or at work, where he was most of the time.

I did not blame him, though. He loved his job.

I opened up the fridge and pulled out the dinner he prepped for me, reheated it, and sat back down on the couch just as I did this morning. I grabbed the remote and flipped through the channels till I reached the news. I ate and watched, content with my meal. It was mostly about the storm tonight. I could tell from looking outside that we would probably be hit hard. What a thing to start your Thanksgiving break with.

The newscasters that were on right now were newer. They were not around for the incident. I had already checked.

The newscaster on the right side said, “That’s just the thing. It’s a wonder how this storm came out of nowhere.” The caster put a finger to his earpiece. Someone was on the other end of it. Maybe a producer? “This just in, folks. Reports of power outages throughout the city are coming through. Looks like it’s hitting coastal towns and neighborhoods of the city. Please be advised that⏤”

Boom, the power went out.

“Just my luck,” I said. I got up to look out the window at the street. More apartments were going dark. A line of blackouts receded down towards the tracks until all that was left was a road enveloped in a quickly darkening dusk. Even the street lights themselves flickered out.

“What’s going on?” I asked myself. I left the window and retreated back into the apartment. I searched around for a flashlight, eventually finding one in a kitchen drawer. I turned it on and used it to look for any of our spare candles and found them in the bathroom. I found a lighter alongside them. After the apartment was sufficiently lit I attempted to call David on his cell.

No signal. The power outages must have hit the cell towers nearby.

I walked back into the living room.

The room was washed in a bright golden glow. It flickered in and out. Were the lights coming back on? Could it have been the tv? No, the lights in the living room remained still, lifeless, and the tv was the same. Could it have been one of the neighbors? I walked towards the window, the one that took up like a quarter of the apartment, and in the sky a flash of light washed over the bay. It flickered in the sky like a flare.

No; It was an explosion.