I woke up to the smell of burning bacon.
Lying in bed for a moment, groggy and disoriented, I waited for the familiar sounds of my parents in the kitchen—the gentle rustle of the morning paper, the soft shuffle of my mom's slippers against the tile floor, her humming along to whatever morning radio show she had on.
Nothing.
It was supposed to be a typical Saturday morning.
Mom would have been at the stove, making a late breakfast for us. My family were normally early risers. But on Saturdays, we liked to sleep in, have a slow start to the day. Dad would have been at the breakfast table, reading the morning paper—a relic in this generation, but he always insisted mornings weren't complete without the rustle of an actual print newspaper. Romeo, our three-year-old Staffie-mix, would be sprawled in his favorite patch of morning sunlight, gnawing on Phoebe, his tattered old ragdoll named after my favourite Friends character.
But, there was nothing.
Just the smell of burning bacon, growing stronger by the second.
I stuck my head out of my bedroom and hollered down the hallway.
"Mom!" I called, my voice still thick with sleep. "The food's burning!"
No response.
At that moment, our smoke detector erupted in its shrill, ear-splitting wail.
I huffed and grudgingly made my way to the top of the stairs, irritated that my precious weekend sleep-in had been interrupted.
"Moooom! You left the bacon on the stove!"
Again, no response. The acrid smell was becoming unbearable now, and that relentless shrill blaring from the smoke detector was grating on my nerves.
Well, there went any chance of me getting back to sleep.
Jogging down the stairs, I rounded the corner into the kitchen, and stopped short. Thick smoke filled the entire room like a fog, making my eyes water. Choking on fumes, I hurried to the stove and grabbed the pan handle.
"Agh!" The metal was scalding hot.
I jerked my hand back, then grabbed a dish towel and tried again, yanking the smoking pan off the burner.
Rushing to the sink, I deposited the pan and the scorched bacon, cranked on the tap, and watched the water hiss and steam against the overheated metal. Then I cracked open a window, shut off the burner, and turned to face the breakfast table.
The seats were empty.
Dad's coffee mug and his morning paper were at their usual spot. His eggs half-finished, his fork askew on his plate, as if he'd simply set it down mid-bite and stepped away for a moment. Mom's tea was there too, barely touched, with that little ring of lipstick on the rim.
But there was no sign of either of them.
Where were my parents?
A chill that had nothing to do with the open window crept up my spine.
"Mom? Dad?" I called out, my voice a little shaky.
No response. The smoke detector was still blaring overhead.
Grabbing a dining chair, I placed it beneath the detector, then climbed up and yanked out the battery.
The blaring stopped immediately, leaving behind a silence so sudden it felt heavy, oppressive. Like a presence in the room.
But the silence wasn't total.
There was something else. A soft, persistent sound, like...
Static.
It was coming from everywhere.
Dad's DREXA phone, which he'd left beside his newspaper, was flickering with digital snow—the kind of interference you used to see on old televisions when the signal went bad. I tapped the screen, swiped it, even tried the power button. Nothing. The static just kept dancing across the display. Hypnotic and... wrong.
In the living room, mom's laptop screen was doing the same thing—pulsing with the same eerie gray-and-white fuzz. Our smart TV had turned itself on somehow, its massive screen filled wall-to-wall with static. Even the DREXA smart home hub in the corner was glowing with that disturbing gray interference. It's usual cheerful blue light replaced by something that made my skin crawl.
My heart started hammering against my ribs as I took the stairs two at a time, heading straight for my parents' bedroom. Their door stood ajar—unusual, since mom always kept it closed—and I pushed it open wider.
"Mom? Dad? Are you in here?"
The words felt hollow, swallowed up by the empty room.
I checked their bathroom, their walk-in closet, even got down on my hands and knees to peer under their bed. A damp towel lay crumpled on the floor where dad must have dropped it after his morning shower. Mom's jewelry was scattered across her vanity table, mid-selection.
Everything suggested they'd be right back. But they weren't here.
Dad must have forgotten his reading glasses, because they were still on his nightstand. Mom's phone was there too, plugged into its charger.
It buzzed with that same horrible static that seemed to pulse in rhythm with my racing heartbeat.
I searched the guest bedroom, dad's study with its towers of engineering journals, the garage, where mom's car sat silently next to dad's.
The house was completely empty. I was all alone.
Back in the kitchen, the static seemed to have grown louder, more insistent. It wasn't just coming from the devices anymore, it was slowly morphing into a presence that followed me from empty room to empty room. I was starting to panic.
"Mom?" The word came out small and wobbly. "Dad? This isn't funny anymore."
But deep down, I was beginning to understand that this wasn't a joke.
Something was very, very wrong.