If there's one thing I've learned over the years watching TV and movies, and even reading books, is to expect that the day everything in my life changes, there will be something there. Some sign or another to notice, if I'm paying enough attention, that warns me ahead of time that 'this is the day'.

Maybe it's a musical cue I might notice. A strange coincidence or inconsistency that jumps out at me like a sense of deja vu.

Maybe it's my friends saying things that are ironic and foreshadow what's about to happen.

That's how I feel like, anyway. Obviously it's not as extreme as music playing in the sky or an audio cue of a cat jumping on a piano keyboard, sure.

But it'll be something. That's just what feels right.

I think it's only right that you get some kind of warning, after all. You want your last day on Earth to count, don't you?

And so I'm pretty confident that today?

Today is a pretty boring day.

It's a week before Summer break.

No - not seven days, a little more than that, but it's long enough that counting them individually feels more daunting than just saying 'a week'. Not short enough to be counting the days instead of saying a week, either. It's close enough to Summer that the walk home is still daylight, but it'll probably be twilight by the time I actually get home.

Definitely, actually.

I'm in no hurry to get home. I've got nothing planned there. Just history homework. And nobody plans 'homework'.

I don't even have anything planned for Summer, actually, and that's a problem, because it's my last Summer.

Not on this Earth. Just in school.

Highschool has been a time of drifting. Drifting through classes. Drifting though life.

Drifting away from friends that middle school me really thought were going to be lifetime besties.

I won't consider myself unpopular: I haven't gotten stuffed in any lockers or been given 'the look' by any of the highschool "in" girls, but I also...

Don't really have any friends. None that will want to do anything particularly interesting over Summer with me, anyway.

I dither.

It's a small thing but it feels big, too. I should be planning something impactful for my last Summer. I was never a Spring Break kinda girl and I've never found school dances to be particularly interesting (or successful) either, so Summer...is it.

I gotta have some kind of a plan, and I'm running out of time.

Before Summer, I mean.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Maybe I can waste some extra time and think about it, make some plans. If I go home I'll be drawn into home politics, chores, history homework, and not actually get around to the Summer Stuff until I'm too tired to make plans and it's too late to try reaching out or booking anything.

There's an arcade in town but that feels tacky.

Maybe I should go by the local cafe and sit in the ambiance and think there instead?

Before I can decide, the mundane, uninteresting town street around me blanks out into white.

It's...

Hard to explain.

One moment I'm walking.

And then...white.

Just.

White.

I can't feel anything.

No ground beneath me.

No warmth from the sun - despite it suddenly becoming blinding white.

No way of tracking time.

No feeling.

Not even of my body.

...Am I...

Dead?

I snap awake with a harsh gasp.

But. It's not in my familiar, comfortable bed and pajamas. This place around me...it's not familiar at all. It's actually. The opposite. So utterly unfamiliar and strange that it wraps back around to being familiar in a weird, eerie sort of way.

The ground is back, but instead of asphalt it's smooth metal. So smooth a part of me can't help but worry that if I move my feet I'll loose traction and fall.

If I do, though, I won't fall far.

There are others around me. People. No one I recognize, but they're everywhere. Just. Standing. Like we're in some concert crowd, except it's dead silent and no one's moving. At all. They're just...

Staring.

Blankly.

And there's no band.

We're in some kind of a room. A metal one. Everything, not just the floor is smooth metal, like there's not a scratch or bump anywhere on the surface of it. It's not mirror-finish, but it's so smooth it almost could function as one anyway. There are no visible lights from where I'm standing- if there are, they're obscured by the people standing around me.

Despite the lack of any visible light source, we're not standing in the dark.

There's a faint bluish light.

No - it's...

It's not faint. It's strong. Like the room was filled with flourescents. But there is a dim bluish cast in the air that I can't really figure out either.

Should...

Should I be panicking?

It's odd. That thought occurs to me, but I don't feel...

Anything.

I can look around, at least. I can't...really feel my body but it responds enough for me to look around, and that's all I'm brave enough to do on these floors.

There's others. Other people looking around like me.

They don't seem to know where we are, either.

I - we - don't have to wait long, though. At least it doesn't feel like we do.

The wall ahead of us suddenly splits seamlessly into sliding doors and opens.

And still there is no sound.

Enough light spills through the doors that I have to squint, before silhouettes begin to form.

What walks through is...

Tall. Gaunt. Gray.

The word leaps to mind before I can even process the reality of what I'm looking at.

Aliens.

They walk toward us.

So smooth. Like they're effortlessly gliding on this floor more than taking normal steps.

I-

It's probably normal, faced with an alien, to be unable to turn my gaze away, right?

What else can I do but stare?

Scream, perhaps.

But...

My throat feels dry, and I can't summon the gumption. I just...

Feel trapped in time, watching them move in slow motion.

The one in the front begins waving and pointing its hand in silence.

It points at me.

Cold hands grab my arms.

I don't...-

When did anyone get close enough to me to grab me?

I try to turn my head to look up at the one manhandling me, but I...can't. It's like. A dream. I just can't.

Others are pulled up from the crowd next to me. I can't turn my head to look at them, but out of the corner of my eye at least one of the people I see is the first man I'd seen who'd been looking around like me.

Am I-

I'm moving.

Am I walking?

I blink and try to look down at my feet, but that just makes me dizzy.

I'm not in that room anymore, at least. I'm in a hallway.

There's...

Nothing in this hallway.

It's empty.

It's just like the room, smooth and featureless, and it just...

Stretches onward in a way that makes me feel dizzy when I look at the horizon, but I can't seem to stumble or fall or even retch.

The wall opens beside me. There is no light past the doors.

Before I can contemplate where the door might lead I'm hurled through it.

Into coldness and darkness.