AIR QUALITY: 89%
Alex stared at the intact airlock and the meager light seeping through the window. The doors hadn’t been torn free. There was no gaping hole revealing the outside. It had all been a nightmare. To be sure though, he walked into the chamber and tested the exterior door – their last line of defense against the world. It was secure.
He woke the twins and gave them their choice of breakfast: protein bar or applesauce. They devoured both offerings. As they ate, Alex examined the other rooms, not wholly convinced the thing from the nightmare hadn’t migrated from the imaginary world into their real one. He found nothing however, besides dark spaces and dwindling supplies.
Once in their bio-suits, they had climbed into the pickup and departed. The day had offered little in terms of hope: countless abandoned and rotting vehicles, an empty cache that had been pillaged and an encounter with a strange man with bizarre growths. He had claimed to be the store owner. Ernie was his name. At least he had given them the canned food.
After riding out a storm in an airport control tower, Alex had killed two nomads in self-defense. This event had prompted a dangerous, yet necessary night travel back to the silo.
The pickup approached, passing through the military base perimeter fence and coasting to a stop sixty feet from the silo. Alex exited the truck and instructed the twins to remain in the cab. He raised the rifle and crept forward. Something wasn’t right. The airlock’s door was…missing.
How can this be?
Alex’s adrenaline rose, generating a tingling in his extremities. He felt lightheaded. He spread his feet farther apart for better balance as the sensation swelled to all out dizziness. The sky began to drastically change, as if he was observing time-lapse photography. Purple clouds raced across the heavens, rapidly paling to white, the sky morphed from plum to brilliant blue, and the bold sun etched sharp shadows in the dirt before him.
Two men materialized ahead of him beside the silo. They were armed with rifles, pointed toward Alex. They told him to stay where he was.
“You are trespassing! What do you want!” yelled Alex. With the rifle, he targeted the bigger of the two men on the left, who he had heard the other man call Mitchell. Suddenly however, Alex realized he was no longing holding the rifle.
He looked down at his feet to see if he had dropped it, but it wasn’t there. Maybe he’d left it in the truck’s cabin. He spun around to retrieve it and saw that the pickup and the children were gone.
“Henry! Annabelle!” No response came.
He started to jog back down the entrance road they had driven in on but stopped; there was nothing but a long stretch of pavement before him. No sign of the twins. They had been right here. Where could they possibly have gone in a matter of seconds?
Alex whirled back toward the men. “Where are they!”
“Calm down, Alex!” shouted the man on the right.
Again, Alex glanced behind him, then right and left, searching frantically for his brother and sister. He called for them again. “Henry! Annabelle!”
Behind the two men, other low buildings emerged out of nowhere, shimmering into existence like heat waves rising from hot asphalt. To Alex’s left, more structures appeared - other silos, with more people streaming through their doors. One of them was the phantom girl, Eva.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“Where are the twins!” Alex hollered. “If you’ve done something to them, I’ll kill you!”
“It’s alright, Alex,” said the man on the right. “I’m Grant…remember me? I spoke to you last night…”
Alex’s rage overrode his reasoning and the man’s words washed over and past him like a wave. “That’s my home! Get out of my way!” He moved toward them. The man on the left, Mitchell, started toward him.
The dizziness intensified and Alex stumbled, but righted himself. He patted his side, feeling for his sidearm, but it too had vanished. With a trembling index finger, Alex pointed to the man on the right, then to Mitchell. “Where are they! You take them?”
The people drew closer. Eva sprinted toward Alex but was arrested by another man. She waved her hands in the air. “Alex!” The others cast surprised and disgusted glares toward her, then toward Alex.
Someone inquired, “How did he get out of the cell?”
“We don’t know,” replied Grant. “We just found him out here.”
Motioning to the silo, Alex called, “I’m going in there!”
“Go ahead, Alex,” said Grant, lowering his rifle. “No one will try to stop you.”
Mitchell stormed to meet Alex when Grant shouted his name and gestured for him to lower his rifle. Reluctantly, he complied.
“You know about this?” Alex called to Eva. She said something he couldn’t hear as she was led away.
“The people you’re looking for aren’t here, Alex,” said Grant. “I’m sorry.”
Ignoring the man, Alex rushed past Mitchell, then past Grant, turning in a circle to be sure they didn’t rush him. The notion arose that he would be trapping himself inside the silo if he went it, which might be unwise, but he had cast reason aside. He burst into the silo and down the stairs and saw that everything was different. It was not the place he had called home. The rooms were all in identical locations, but things had been rearranged, the rooms were painted a different color. Regardless, he bound into what had been their bedroom, to find that now it had been used as storage. He returned to the cylindrical hall, calling out the twins’ names.
“Henry! Annabelle!”
He descended into the bowels of the silo, passing other foreign rooms. In each, he searched dark corners and closets, beneath beds, finding none of them occupied. He continued to call for his siblings as he ascended the stairs, two at a time. The dizziness returned like a slap to the face, and he dropped to one knee. He forced himself upright and clumsily bolted up the stairs.
When he stepped out into the light to confront the men, something hard struck his forehead and after a flash of white light, Alex slammed backward into the ground. Mitchell stood over him, holding the stock of the rifle with both of his hands. “Stay down!” he commanded.
Alex blinked, confused, and feebly attempted to rise, but Grant laid his hand on Alex’s chest, gently pressing him back down. Everything swirled in a counterclockwise motion. Vomit rose in Alex’s throat as he mumbled, “Please…don’t…” In the distance, he thought he heard Eva scream.