The sun is my enemy, especially on painted mornings when it weaves through the curtains, casting rays of sunlight across my pasty skin, and over my ragged eyes. The weak glow is too soft to motivate me out of bed, but persistent enough to stop me from going back to sleep. My dented palms and sore jaw ache. “I wish I could sleep”—a request to no one in particular.
The night seems to create a pressure chamber for my mind, with no escape in sight. I have no choice but to stay awake, sensing the force release through every part of my being. “I’m awake”. I never slept to begin with.
A dozen alarm clocks conspire against me with the light to pull my carcass out of bed. They convert my mom into a conspirator as her gruff morning voice rockets up and punches through my door.
“Julius, get up! Time for school!" Without giving me a chance to speak, there’s the unmistakable squeak of the third step as she climbs the staircase.
Coughing through a dry throat, I roll out of bed like a potato tumbling off a countertop and collect myself. My feet still tingling, I stumble over the assorted piles of books, papers, and clothes, filling what could generously be called a bedroom.
Side stepping my laptop obscured by the mess, I unlock my door and call out, “You’re good, I’m up!”, right in her face as she stands on the otherside. At the top of my mind, the thought ‘It was an accident’ bubbles up like a fastpass, skipping the others. I jerk backward.
She replies, “Don’t forget, join the classroom at 8,” with a yawn as she heads down, ignoring the mistake. The remaining thoughts follow the leader as she pauses halfway down. “Oh, and we’ll be late tonight.”
Over the banister, I gaze and shout down, “Hold on, why?”
She stops. “We’re forecasting a cold front. The media calls it the Storm of the Century. They expect extra pain on the grid. Last week’s earthquake didn’t make things any better.
Just as she finishes, Dad bursts in. “That one left me sweaty!” He grins widely, ignoring the gravity of her words. Mom’s gaze shifts into a thousand-yard stare before she meets his silly smirk. “Different quake, dear,” she says with a sigh, patting his shoulder and offering a slight grin.
I roll my eyes at his hit-and-miss humor. Stop the ringing clocks, then hurry to the bathroom before joining class. After doing my business, I’m forced to confront the mirror head-on, slapping the tap on to wash my hands, as my reflection becomes increasingly grating. My face is a distraction, with my hair in a knotted mess and my eyes lacking luster and surrounded by dark circles. “I don’t want to see you,” I spat, turning off the lights.
The comforting sound of Dad’s coffee pot gargling away downstairs reaches my ears as I leave the bathroom. His raspy voice rises alongside it. “Sorry bud, I know you were looking forward to a midnight celebration. But how about we go out and get a 15-inch sirloin in the morning, for your fifteenth—”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt, dipping back into my room and reaching for my medication on the nightstand. My hands, still unsteady from the morning’s rush, fumble with the bottle cap. Suddenly, it slips from my grasp, and the pills scatter across my desk like Tic Tacs.
With a sigh, I collect them one by one, the cool, hard surface against my trembling fingers. Each pill represents a promise—a hope for focus, clarity, and a semblance of normalcy. Yet, the rapid thumping of my heart suggests otherwise, an underlying anxiety that refuses to be stalled.
As I scoop the last pill into my palm, Dad’s words echo in my mind, “For your fifteenth—” The thought lingers, heavy and unwelcome, twisting into a knot in my chest. My thoughts feel even more sluggish, like they’re wading through thick mud, struggling to stay afloat in what’s quickly becoming quicksand.
I force myself to shake off the lingering unease, swallowing a pill. “At least they remembered this year. It’s amazing what happens when you’re not moving every few—” Yet another alarm, this time one on my computer starts, jumps up and smacks me in the face. I dismiss it and twiddle my thumbs while bracing for class, pacing back and forth in front of my desk.
My thoughts try to form waves, crashing into each other, forming swells, only to collide with equivalent waves that cancel them out as they all settle into stagnant water, leaving my head blank as a white canvas. “I’m fine,” I whisper to myself, sinking into the computer chair that creaks under my weight and crunches crumbs spread across the floor under its wheels. The ticking in my room seems too slow to a standstill until I enter the classroom and quickly mute my mic.
Mr. Selleck and classmate A are deep into a debate, but my eyes drift to the papers haphazardly laid across my desk. The urge to organize them into neat piles itches at me. I reach for a stack, my fingers twitching to create order out of disorder. I align the edges perfectly with a ruler, even though people have teased me for it before. There’s nothing I can do about it.
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Mr. Selleck’s microphone captures the sound of the school bell and bounces it off my bedroom walls through the speakers on my desk, grabbing my attention. “So, what was the initial plan for the German offensive when the Battle of Verdun began?” he asks, his voice annoyingly cheerful for a dreary morning.
Classmate J shoots their hand up and gives an original answer, albeit incorrect. But I’m so focused on how Mr. Selleck’s wearing a black tie instead of his usual red one that I don’t catch most of what they say. The last few times he wore black were a couple of years ago during my cousin’s funeral, after the snowstorm rampaged through the state, and last Christmas when we called him over to carve the ham so he wouldn’t be alone on the anniversary of his death. Could it be a bad omen?
Just outside the window, Mom and Dad are leaving together. “Something tells me she forgot to lock the door again,” I think. Spying her slip on ice, Dad catches her like a scene from a romance novel. “She should get up earlier,” I grumble as the lights dim off and on. She said they’d have it up by Friday, but later admitted, “That will not happen.”
The earthquake last week damaged the coal plant: It started causing intermittent stutters around the house, frequently taking the power and heat with it.
Before going completely dark, the lights in my room dim once again and leave my computer dead in front of me. A quick look outside tells me the entire city is out, too. “Ugh.” a groan that turns into a yawn. Sitting in the middle of an empty room, alone in a dark house with nothing to do and nobody to talk to, doesn’t provide the peace I’d expected. My counselor tricked me.
“Boo!” A whisper in my ear, so close it kicks me out of my chair, sending it clattering to the floor. “Are you crazy?! Caleb!” I sputter out, but a dorky smile spreads across my face. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. “He’s not here,” I convince myself. “He’s not real,” I say, trying to calm my skipping heart.
My eyes adjust to the darkness. His figure seems clear, an imaginary form caught in the dim light. “Come on, Julius, you know that won’t work,” he says with a shit-eating grin while miming a knife to his heart. As he saunters around the room, his silhouette see-through against the clutter, his figure blurs at the ends.
He nods towards the clutter on my desk. “You know no amount of sorting will get those done any faster.” His tone is quick but pointed, prompting an annoyed sigh from me. “I know.” I sheepishly try to ignore his teasing.
An impatient look crosses my face, the screen dead in front of me. “I can’t just sit still.”
He points at me and declares, “Told you so! Remote school won’t erase a decade of bullying.” With a triumphant look, he adds, “You should have told the counselor off when you had the chance.”
His words settle over me like a bed of sharp knives. “I almost distracted myself.” Turning away, his presence fades, becoming fainter.
Alice’s voice charges up from downstairs like a bucking bull. “Hey Julius, Caleb! Come down here and play with me!” Her tone stretches playfully but stops short of sounding bratty.
“Your sister needs you.” I reply, deflecting the conversation.
Caleb puts his all-knowing finger up. “I’m sure she called us both,” then hops off the desk, body blurring as he moves. “Let’s see what she wants.” He stops buzzing next to the door, looking back at me as I pick up the chair. “Julius?”
I reply to Caleb’s statement from earlier, “Being alone at home should have changed things.” I laugh through a forced smile, satisfied stealing the last words.
Alice is hovering at the bottom of the steps, waiting for me. “Mom forgot to lock the front door,” she says, pointing to it.
“What a surprise,” I reply, locking it, only for the hair on the back of my neck to stand up immediately. “Wait, how’d you know about the lock?”
Alice rolls her eyes. “Saw it while you came down, obviously. It’s beside the point; I’m bored,” she whines, staring into Caleb. “You’re with me on this, right?”
He shifts his gaze to the walls, then ceiling, then floor, he points out with a smile on his face, “The power is out. How about we play a game?”
“What’s the scenario, Mr. Obvious?” Alice responds on her tippy toes. Caleb lights up, then whispers into her ear, as she adopts his infamous shit-eating grin.
“These twins are too alike…” I thought. “If Mom could have more kids…” shaking my head, I reply, “That’s not a bad idea,” and push the couch against the wall, eager to distract myself. The alternative is more sleep, which feels dangerous. It’s too addictive.
But the ground trembles, a low rumble that swiftly jumps to a violent shake.
“The hell!?” I shout, gripping the lip of the island between the kitchen and living room for balance as another wave of shaking bounces through the house like a carton of eggs. Dishes rattle in the cabinets and the hanging lights swing wildly overhead, casting erratic shadows that tumble around the room.
Alice excitedly shouts over the wall of noise. “What’s going on?” Her eyes are wide as she scans the shaking room.
“I doubt it’s a kaiju, probably another earthquake!” my voice barely rises above the din of the rattling. The tremors grow fiercer. A picture frame crashes to the kitchen floor, its glass splintering across the tiles.
“Let’s get under the—” Caleb’s shout, “Get out of the way!” cuts my words off. In an instant, the chandelier in the center of the room crashes down, shattering against the island with a resounding clamor of breaking glass and twisting metal.
The only words that can escape my mouth in the split second for me to think are, “What the actual fuck!” I jump aside, roll across the floor from the island to the wall, and ram into the couch I had pushed against it.
The shaking abruptly stops with the power clunking back on.