Stage 1 - Denial

Posted on Thu Jan 9th, 2025 @ 9:25am by Niyah Monroe

1,130 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Towers of the Void (Series Premiere)
Location: Niyah's Home
Timeline: Early morning, Thursday, July 25th, 2024

The worst thing about mornings without appointments was waking up alone. Without Olivia.

Niyah vaguely remembered a goodbye kiss, the soft creak of the bedroom door, and then the warmth of her blankets pulling her back to sleep. She crawled out of bed in her baggy t-shirt and pajama bottoms, her bare feet silent as she shuffled downstairs.

In the living room, she reached for the wooden box that held their phones. Olivia’s idea—a way to limit their screen time.
Carrying it into the kitchen, she set the box on the counter and unlocked her phone. Notifications flooded the screen. Major computer outages. Headlines from every outlet. She clicked on one from The Washington Post, but the page led to an error message. Offline?

She grabbed an apple and walked back to the couch, switching on the television. The screen flickered to a news broadcast mid-sentence.

“… situation is developing, and we’re trying to confir—”

Static. Then the screen went black.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, then rang. It switched to sound—something it only ever did for Olivia.

Niyah frowned, holding the apple in her mouth as she pressed the power button on the remote. Nothing. Annoyed, she tossed the remote onto the couch and took the apple from her mouth to avoid drooling on herself, deciding to head for the breakers in the hallway to see if she could sort things out.

She fished the phone from her pocket as she walked slowly. Olivia never called like this. One ring, then silence? Thumb on the fingerprint scanner, she tried to unlock it. Nothing. She wiped her thumb on her shirt and tried again. Still nothing. Clicking the power button, she waited for the screen to light up so she could use her PIN. It didn’t. Her stomach twisted. The phone was charged. It had vibrated moments ago. What was going on?

She checked the breakers in the hallway. All fine. She flipped the master switch off and back on. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” she muttered in a mock British accent. She turned around and flipped the light-switch in the hallway. To no avail.

Silence enveloped the cul-de-sac outside. Eerie, oppressive silence.

Then came the rumble.

Low and mechanical, it grew louder, closer. A loud pop followed, like a car backfiring. Then another. And another. Not backfires. Gunfire.

Her heart pounding, Niyah raced upstairs. She reached the bedroom window just as the first shattering scream echoed through the neighborhood. Her body froze.

A drone hovered over the street. It dropped a hulking machine, a towering humanoid figure with treads for legs and spinning miniguns for arms. The robot rolled forward, its red eyes glowing like twin embers.

“This can’t be happening,” she whispered, stepping back from the window. Her hands shook as the robot lazily turned toward the next house and unleashed a hail of bullets.

Across the street, Frank burst from his home, an M4 rifle in hand. He fired at the machine, his shots bouncing off its metallic frame. The robot turned, one minigun spinning to life.

Frank didn’t make it to cover.

Niyah slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Tears blurred her vision as Frank’s lifeless body crumpled to the pavement. She had never liked the man, especially since the political climate had heated up and he had felt the need to comment on her and Olivia's lifestyle choices. But this. Nobody deserved this.

She had to get away. Through the backyard, into the nearby woods. Perhaps there would be safety there. Once she made it downstairs and swung the backdoor open she was met with a blinding flash that seared the skyline, brighter than the sun. Niyah stumbled back, shielding her face. "This isn't real..." When she dared to look again, a mushroom cloud was rising in the distance, fiery and vast. Her heart frozen mid beat in her chest, her mind raced trying to make sense of it all.

“Baltimore… They bombed Baltimore?”

Dazed, she stumbled back inside. Her home filled with light again, this time harsher, closer. Panicked thoughts entered her mind. It was way closer than Baltimore. It was a different direction too. D.C.? Her mind couldn't even consider the fact that D.C. would be hit, Olivia was in D.C.. This couldn't be real. This was some terrible nightmare and any second now she would surely wake up.

Then came the shockwave.

The windows shattered all at once, the sound like a thousand dishes smashing against the tile. The kitchen roared to life as glass shards exploded inward, skidding across the counter and floor. The force hit her like a wall, throwing her sideways into the refrigerator. She gasped as the air was sucked from her lungs, ears ringing so loud she couldn’t hear herself scream.

For a moment, all she could do was lie there, blinking at the dust swirling in the harsh light streaming through the now-empty window frames. The floor beneath her vibrated, an angry, rolling quake that refused to settle.

And then, the sound hit.

It wasn’t just noise—it was a physical force, a deep, bone-shaking roar that made her teeth ache. She pressed her hands to her ears, but it didn’t help. The noise was everywhere, inside and out, and when it finally began to fade, the silence that followed felt even louder.

Breathing hard, Niyah pulled herself up, wincing at the sharp sting of the cuts and bruises all over. She staggered to the window facing north and what she saw could only be described as the sky being on fire. A column of smoke and flame billowed upward, impossibly vast, its base shrouded in swirling debris. The mushroom cloud rose higher and higher, darkening the horizon with its terrible weight.

"That's.." She slumped onto the floor trying to work it out, sitting down right under the windowsil. "Why would they hit Odenton?" The ringing in her ears made it difficult to focus but then the realisation hit. It wasn't Odenton, "Fort Meade." She froze in place.

They were at war. Russia? Had Putin finally gone off the deep end? China perhaps? Her head started to clear slightly and it slipped into her hyper-analytical mode. The consequences of an all out nuclear exchange hit her like a punch in the chest.

"You don't have time for this." She bolted up the stairs, skidding into the walk-in closet. The code for the safe, which she had made sure doubled as a faraday cage, came to her instantly: her wedding date.

Her hands trembled as she opened it, whispering Olivia’s name. She swallowed the potassium iodide pills in a single motion. “Please be okay.”

 

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