Imagine Peace

It was a Saturday. Usually Saturdays were sunny, bright, and extremely hot. Usually, the birds were singing and the breeze made its’ appearance known to everyone experiencing it. Today was a different story. I stared out the window watching the dark grey clouds over take the empty sky yet again. Little by little the sun was disappearing and the brightness of the day became a shade darker with each passing minute. The only sound that I could hear was the faint plunking of the rain falling against my roof.
This winter was the darkest I’ve ever seen, the sky was continuously grey and my house seemed to be a more obscure shade of red than it usually was. Possibly because of the weather, or maybe something else. It hadn’t been a particularly happy season this year. Many people had given up going to supermarkets for food, walking their dogs, and even going outside at all. To many of the hopeless souls of the people here felt it had become much too dangerous and had stayed inside their homes.
“It will be one year on Tuesday,” began a man with hair gray to the roots. He sat in an old chair that seemed to resemble to old mans’ life all to well. The chair was a darker shade of red that lead into an almost rustic color. It had tiny strands of colored thread that had seemed to find their way out of place and stood up in strange patterns across the legs and back of the chair.
“It’s a shame we can’t leave the house anymore, those darn life terrorizers have us cooped up all the time full of fear”, He continued, the old man referred to the others as Life Terrorizers for reasons everyone couldn’t help but agree with.
It all began a year ago, the lives of people here in San Diego were normal, nothing suspicious or “out of the ordinary” trouble took place. Still, as I walked through the streets everyday, whether it was to the store, high school, or the movies with friends, I could see the sad expressions that enveloped the faces of people passing by. Sad, confused and disoriented people living their lives in a glass box. No one seemed to step out of their comfort zone anymore, everyone seemed to slur together becoming one person instead of multiple, unique individuals that had once influenced our nation in wonderful ways.
“John, you can go outside anytime you want, no one is stopping you but yourself. I’m sure it’s fine out there right now, it’s late and it’s not like anyone else will be out there. I said, I was tired of being cooped up in here also, it seemed like my life was being wasted when I was living in a house afraid of an enemy I had almost imagined myself. I had never seen the others before, only heard. And the disappearances of course, all those people mysteriously gone with a trace. What had happened? Maybe no one was there to begin with, but then where could all those people have gone too?
John and I were alone now, just the two of us living in this old house that used to inhabit a small happy family of five. Mr. and Mrs. Jones had three children who were full of life and joy, never once did John or I see a sad face on any of them. They were always working in every way possible. Loving and caring for others seemed to be their specialty, the old woman down the street whose name was Clara, had acquired an illness that motivated Mrs. Jones to achieve her love of being a nurse. Mrs. Jones didn’t want to be a nurse at a near by hospital though, she wanted to travel to other countries in search of soldiers who had been injured and broken in war. Clara was always taken care of in the best nature possible.
The entire family had disappeared on July 6, 2001. No one had heard any of them speak about leaving. For a while, everyone expected them to return, everyone thought they had gone on a vacation or something practical. Maybe Mrs. Jones achieved her goal and went to another country in search of fulfilling her need to aid others in their pain and suffering.
Unfortunately, they never returned. It has been around three years now, slowly; other families and individuals disappeared along with them. Still, no one knows where they have disappeared too.
Now everyone stays indoors. We all begin to realize that something has been overtaking out city and people have since then, resigned their lives indoors. Living in sadness and broken dreams left scattered across our streets that used to carry the awaken lives and dreams that had once drive our city to happiness and content.
“That’s enough Sarah, don’t even talk like that. You know what we are and aren’t capable of doing. Going outside and endangering ourselves like that is now a joke.” John was one of the first people to verbally attack the others, but aost the first to protest leaving our safely unharmed homes that we have been living in for three years now.
It seemed life always stayed at the same state now-a-days, never getting any better, only worse. Of course, there would be those cruel heartless days that sent flickers of hope thought our minds that enabled us to motivate ourselves into a state or courage. Leaving those who ignored the flickers of hope, to be the safe, and yet smarter ones of our now deteriorated congregation of lost souls living amongst one another in self-pity.
The ones who gained the courage to leave in search of the missing people, who had once filled our lives with love and joy, were the ones who never returned. Leaving us again with the same hopelessness we had had to endure before.
“Okay John, but you wait one of these days, old Sam down the street, or little Jacob is going to figure out that all of this is a bunch of nonsense and they will be the ones to save this forsaken town. I’m telling you, we need to fight back or something, why to we just sit here and allow the others to overtake us?” I said, who knows, maybe one day I’ll be the one who accompanies the few others who are willing to try this again and right back against our unseen enemies.
Actually, that had always been what I had planned to do. Somewhere back in my mind the thought had always sat there, unmoving, never stirring. Just a dormant thought that seemed to grow stronger as another loved one disappeared into the lost. There was an answer everyone had to be missing, something that was obvious and evident. Through it was something that had seemed to slip into the cracks and crevices of our minds an sat there, knowing we would never understand it.
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I could tell thing shad been changing, I hadn’t heard of anyone disappearing in a while. A few months ago had been the last. Jane Sandors and Eric Barnes along with a few others had led a search to find the ones they had been hiding with before. A young Indian girl who was around 24 years old had been housing Jane and Eric for a about a month. They referred to her as their sister, seeing as she would never reveal her past or her name. She was always a mystery to everyone, full of kindness but a set disturbance that unnerved many of the folk here in San Diego. She had round Jane and eric scrambling across the empty streets at night after she had stolen a few essential items from a near by grocery store. Immediately, she took them in providing them with shelter and food. The only things people here even had left, everything else was stripped from us: dignity, love, kindness, and our civilization. We were no longer humans living in a humane world; we had become animals, living in a world where we strove to survive by out instincts and previously learned abilities. Instead of our city pushing forward, our city and civilization had back-slidden to the days of the cave men. Living purely on instincts to survive.
A soft knocking noise rang across my ears as I noticed Michael standing at the back door waiting for John or I to open it. I quickly unhitched all seven tightly hitched locks making our home no longer a safe haven but a now vulnerable hide out. Michael slid through the small crack between the door and the doorframe as I immediately shut it when Michael was safely inside. Locking all seven locks once again I turned to him motioning him to follow me to my back room before exposing himself to John. Michael gave me a slightly confused lock but non-the-less followed me without hesitation.
Making my footsteps light, I slowly shut the door behind us making sure no noise was accidentally created.
“Michael, you’re leaving soon aren’t you?” I whispered. I moved my body close to his removing any space between us. This movement wasn’t meant to be anything more than a strategic placement so we would not have to speak so loudly, unfortunately, it felt a little more than that.
“Yes, I plan on leaving with James at midnight to night,” Michael took a deep breath and stepped back an inch. It was almost like he was capable of reading my mind, already protruding the instant no of the idea of me tagging along.
“I’m coming, I’m going to find out what all is going on here, then I’m coming back and fixing all this.” I put my foot down clearly making my point. There was no way I was staying here, at midnight tonight I would be exploring on my first and only search of a life time.
“No,” Michael reached for the door before I was able to block him. My body reacted just in time to place itself directly in front of him making it impossible for him to move any further.
“Michael, listen to me. One way or another I will be gone tonight at midnight, with or without you. Would you rather me go alone? That’s fine, I can handle myself.” I slid my body a bit to the side letting him pass with a smirk on my face. I had won and I knew it. Michael would never let me go alone, and he knew how motivated I was.
“Sarah! Fine, meet at my house tonight. Don’t tell anyone, no one is supposed to know we are leaving.”
“Oh, well John pretty much has an idea. You’ll have to figure it out with him.”
Michael walked in front of me as I followed him to where John sat, rifle in hand as always. Even though we had never seen the others, we kept weapons at hand ready at any moment.
“Michael Michael Michael, I know what you are planning. You can’t leave, you’ll lead them all back here and soon enough we will all die.” John was angry, more angry than I had seen in a while, but he tried his best at containing it all.
“I’m not leaving old man, don’t worry about it. Nothing is going on. Just get back to watching out that window and leave me be.” Michael and John had never gotten along. Michael’s family and Johns’ wife had left on a search together, obviously disappearing. They blamed each other for absolutely no reason. I guess it was just an excuse to channel their anger into one specific spot.
“Don’t talk like that to me boy, I’ll have you down in a second.” John gripped the butt of his rifle in a way of proving his point. Michaels’ face never even flinched, it was like he was no longer afraid of death, maybe because he realized tonight he might die anyway.
Michael turned and walked out the door, crouching as he ran along behind other house until he reached his own.
Now, all I had to do was wait, wait until John fell asleep, until midnight, until the search I was now taking part in.
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I slowly shut the door behind me as I turned and watched for anyone who may be possibly watching me. It was pitch black, the moon seemed to never show up anymore. No more signs of life anywhere, especially at night when a new awareness hit that said we are still alone. Along with this negative hit of awareness, came a stronger hit of motivation to find the answers. Which was what I was now doing. I made my way to Michaels’ back yard stumbling around over stumps and branches that hindered my way.
“Michael, Michael.” I whispered trying to adjust to the darkness surrounding me.
“Shhh Sarah, this way.” Suddenly, a rough large hand enclosed around mine, I had felt it before and remembered its’ touch.
“Okay Michael,” I whispered back.
James was walking quietly next to us with some sort of weapon in his hands, it was too dark for me to make out what it was. The three of us made our way to where no one dared to go anymore, to the forest. The forest was where everyone seemed to search, and disappear.
A twig broke under James foot signaling are entrance into the outer most part of the forest.
“James, be ready, just in case, you know.” Michael was talking in broken sentences, possibly for my protection? That’s what I guessed.
“I know Michael, don’t let go of Sarah, we can’t lose her.”
“Believe me, I won’t” Michael squeezed my hand just a bit. I was confused, it had been a while since Michael and I had completely broken up. I’ll admit, It wasn’t just a normal, teenage break up. We had been together for 8 months, Michael and I were completely content with each other, when one day, out of the blue Michael came to my house and told me we had to break up. He said he couldn’t explain why, but we could no longer be together. Of course, I was heart broken, and since then Michael and I had never had a normal friendship. We rarely looked at each other let along talked, it was always awkward thus we seemed to stray away from each other.
The feeling he had on me tonight wasn’t something I enjoyed, it only forced me to remember back when we were happy, everyone was here, no one had disappeared and life seemed to flow on its own. Pushing these thoughts to the back of my mind I focused on the task at hand. We were waiting on the answers.
“We should stop here, stay the night and see what happens.” Michael said, I felt him sit down on the ground beside me pulling me down along side of him. James did the same as he rested against a tree behind him.
No one said a word, everyone was still and quiet and for once, a gripping fear enclosed around me as I thought about how this may be my last night alive.
“Sarah,” Michael broke through my thoughts and brought me back to reality.
“Yes Michael?” James began snoring telling us he was now asleep. Michael seemed to have something on his mind, he was still holding onto my hand but I chose to believe it was only for my safety.
“ Everything will be okay tonight, you know that right? I don’t want you to be afraid. I won’t let anything happen to you.” That was it, my walls that I had wrapped so tightly around myself, making sure nothing could get in, had finally collapsed around me and made me vulnerable.
“I’m not afraid for myself.” I whispered. I moved myself closer to Michael, bringing in the warmth of us sitting together.
“Don’t worry about me, I’m fine, but we need to talk about, before.” I knew exactly what he meant. Was he finally going to tell me the real reasons we had to break up? The reasons that I had so desperately needed. My world had been shattered for things I did not know.
“Yeah? What about it?” I played along, acting like I had no clue what he was talking about. Though the truth was that I couldn’t wait another second to find out.
“When we broke up, I told you that I couldn’t tell you why. Why we had to break up, well, I can tell you now. But I don’t want you to hate me Sarah, I had to keep it from you, it was only for your safety, and now I’m finally able to use that secret to save everyone and return our lives to normal.”
What was he talking about? Slowly the shattered pieces in mind about the break up, the disappearances, the searches were all slipping together in a pattern that made out a face in my mind I recognized all too well.
“Michael…”
“Sarah, please.”
I stood up shoving myself away from Michael, everything I knew and loved came crashing down on me. Everything was a trap, a trap to get me here, to hurt me.
As I stood up I heard a footsteps, the breaking of leaves underneath feet. James jumped to his feet as I felt strong arms wrap themselves around my body. I screamed and kicked trying to get away from the reality of what was taking place around me.
Suddenly, I fell, far down, the ground had fallen underneath me, the trap. The final goodbye I would never be able to give John or the other survivors that were the smart ones, waiting inside their homes, never leaving. I was stupid, stupid, stupid for ever leaving my security blanket.
As I hit the ground no one was around me, Michael and James had both left my sides. Thank goodness I said to myself, I never wanted to see them again.
Soon, I heard noises, screams, pain and suffering. I understood now what was going on, the others were taken prisoner, somewhere down here and were never released. This all seemed surreal, I didn’t know where I was, it was hard to figure out.
Then it all hit, I was never getting out, it was impossible, Michael and James knew what was going on, that’s why he told Michael they couldn’t lose me.
My mind started slipping away, I was actually losing myself and I could feel it. My body became weak and my head was swimming. It was my last stand as I realized nothing would change. One by one more and more innocent naive lives would be taken along with mine.
Everything became even darker than I imagined as I slipped away out of a life I thought I knew and understood.