"Mrs. Carter? Hello? Can you hear me?"
Nothing. The call had dropped, leaving only the empty hiss of a dead line.
No. No no no no no.
The lights in our apartment flickered violently, as if someone were playing with a dimmer switch. The TV screen warped, the image of the panicked news anchor stretching and distorting like something out of a nightmare. The picture broke apart into digital artifacts—colored squares that danced across the screen before the whole thing dissolved into a sea of gray static, accompanied by a harsh buzzing that made my teeth ache.
And then everything snapped to black.
The sudden darkness was so complete it felt physical, pressing against my eyes like a weight. For a moment, the only sound was our breathing—Emily's quick and panicked, mine shallow with barely suppressed fear.
Then—pop! Pop! POP!
Every light bulb in the house shattered at once, the sound like gunshots in the silence. I heard the tinkle of falling glass from the bathroom, the kitchen, the hallway. In the darkness, I couldn't see where the shards had fallen, couldn't see anything at all.
Emily screamed and threw herself against me, trembling. Her fingers dug into my arms with bruising force, and I could feel her heart hammering against my chest like a trapped bird. I wrapped my arms around her instinctively, pulling her close even though my own heart was racing with terror.
What the hell is happening?
"It's fine—it's just the power," I tried to say calmly, though my voice came out strained and unconvincing even to my own ears. But when I glanced out the window, my words caught in my throat, dying before they could become lies.
The entire city was dark.
I'd lived here my whole life. I'd seen it at all hours—early morning when the streetlights were still on and the city was just waking up, midday when the sun bleached everything white and hot, evening when the office buildings lit up like beacons. I'd even seen it during power outages before, when a single neighborhood would go dark while the rest of the city glittered on.
But I had never seen this.
From the sprawling suburbs that stretched to the horizon, to the glittering downtown skyline usually visible from our balcony, everything had been swallowed by pitch black. Not a single light remained—no streetlights, no house lights, no car headlights cutting through the dark. Only the storm clouds above, flashing with violent bursts of lightning that illuminated the world in stark snapshots of white and shadow, gave shape to the skeletal silhouettes of skyscrapers.
The lightning revealed scenes that couldn't be real. Buildings tilted at impossible angles. Trees bent horizontal under the force of winds that shouldn't have been possible. And debris—so much debris—spinning through the air like leaves in a tornado.
And then I heard it.
A roar.
Not like thunder. Not like anything natural. This was something alive, something hungry and furious that wanted to devour the world.
A hurricane, massive and furious beyond comprehension, twisted between buildings like a serpent made of wind and rain. I watched, frozen in horror, as it ripped trees from the ground like they were twigs—massive oaks and pines that had stood for decades, torn free of the earth with their root systems still attached. Cars were lifted and tossed aside like toys, flipping end over end before smashing into storefronts and other vehicles. The sound of metal crunching and glass shattering reached us even six floors up, even through our closed windows.
I thought I saw people—actual people, not just debris—swept into the air like ragdolls, their screams drowned by the storm. Their arms windmilled frantically as they tried to grab onto something, anything, but there was nothing to hold. I wanted to look away, couldn't look away, needed to know if they survived even though I knew they couldn't have.
Oh God. Oh God, those were people. Those were—
The windows rattled so violently I thought they would shatter next, sending glass raining down on us. The frames groaned under the pressure, and I could see them bowing inward slightly, the glass flexing in ways glass shouldn't flex.
I slammed them shut, my hands shaking so badly I could barely work the locks. I remembered Mrs. Carter's broken warning just in time, her voice cutting through my panic like a lifeline: keep the windows shut keep the windows shut KEEP THE WINDOWS SHUT.
"Quick! The balcony!" I shouted over the roar of the storm, racing toward the sliding glass door that led to our small outdoor space. Emily clutched me tighter, her nails digging into my arm hard enough to leave marks, but I couldn't stop to reassure her. Every second counted.
I threw my weight against the door, forcing it closed against the wind that tried to tear it open. The lock clicked into place with a sound of finality that should have been comforting but only made my heart race faster. Through the glass, I could see our patio furniture—a small table and two chairs—sliding across the concrete like they were on ice before lifting into the air and disappearing into the maelstrom.
That could have been us. If we'd been out there, that could have been us.
The temperature inside the apartment plummeted so fast I could actually feel it happening, like diving into ice water. One moment it was cold but bearable; the next, my breath came out in thick clouds of vapor and my fingers started to go numb.
I looked around frantically and spotted them in the corner—the water bottles I'd bought last week and hadn't bothered to put away. Within minutes, frost crept across their surfaces like a living thing, spreading in crystalline patterns that were almost beautiful in their destructiveness. The plastic turned solid white, rigid and brittle. When I picked one up to check, it was frozen completely solid, the water inside expanded enough to crack the bottle.
Negative twenty? Thirty? How cold is it?
The thermostat on the wall was digital, but without power I had no way to check. All I knew was that it was cold enough to freeze water in minutes, cold enough that my teeth were already chattering despite my jacket.
Panic clawed at my chest, threatening to drag me under. My vision tunneled, black spots dancing at the edges. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate, my breaths coming too fast and too shallow.
No. No, focus. Emily needs you. You can panic later. Right now you need to MOVE.