You're Not in This Alone

I grabbed Ebony’s hand just before people started dying. I knew it was going to be hard on her. A few seconds after the clock turned to 3:30, she exhaled sharply and flinched. I glanced at her nervously and saw that she’d closed her eyes.

I didn’t know exactly how she felt, but I could guess. When I’d seen it happening in my dream, it had stunned me. I’d seen all the bodies, and I’d felt a darkness settling in my heart. Now she was feeling the death inside her. I took my eyes off the road to look at her again. Tears were leaving shiny wet tracks on her cheeks.

Pulling to the side of the road, I asked anxiously, “Ebony, are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine. Keep driving,” she replied sharply. Although I knew she wasn’t angry at me, her tone still hurt me. I reminded myself that she was under a lot of pressure.

I leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“Please drive, or we won’t get there in time,” she pressed more gently.

Get where? I wondered while I got back on the road, but I knew better than to ask her. She didn’t know any more than I did, or she would have told me.

Every so often she would wince again, and I would squeeze her hand. She told me when to turn, and eventually she opened her eyes and stopped crying. However, I still saw the horror in her chocolate brown eyes. I wanted to make all her pain go away, and I knew I couldn’t.

After the sun had come up, I had to turn off the radio. All hell had broken loose in the world. Nobody knew what was going on, and everybody was completely terrified. The whole world was in a panic. As we neared New York City, traffic got worse.

By ten, our car was basically going nowhere. At noon I reached back to my bag for a granola bar and water. I offered food to Ebony, but she declined. I suppose she didn’t have much of an appetite. I begged her to drink some water, though, and she gave in.

At seven that evening, she told me, “We’re getting close”

People were everywhere. In cars, on the sidewalk, in the windows of buildings, and even in the streets. Some looked vacant, others looked scared, and yet a few looked calm. I tried not to look at them too closely, but one caught my eye.

It was a little girl of about four with bright blue eyes and blonde hair that clung to her mother, who was running on the sidewalk. I recognized her from my dream. But when I had dreamt about her, her eyes had been glassy and her body had been pale and lifeless. I tried to think of other things, but her dead face kept finding its way into my mind, tugging at my chest.

At eight, Ebony ordered me to stop the car. She grabbed her backpack, so I took mine. We got out of the car, and I followed her.

We went to a particularly tall apartment building. We took the elevator to the twentieth floor, took blankets and pillows from an abandoned apartment that she knew was there, rode the elevator to the top of the building, and walked onto the roof. Questioning her never occurred to me. If she didn’t ask me anything, I knew she felt like we needed to do these things.

“We’re going to watch the sun set from here,” she explained to me in a strained voice.

“Alright,” I replied. We spread the blankets out on the flat roof to make a temporary bed, and then we sat down. I pulled Ebony close to my side and let her bury her face in my shoulder. We sat like that for fifteen minutes, watching the sky change colors.

We knew that sunset was only a few minutes away when the sky was grey and the sun was just a sliver on the horizon. I held Ebony tighter. I heard traffic and people all around us.

For the last second we saw the sun, the sliver that was left turned from gold to black, and the sky became a blank, brilliant white that blinded us and hurt our eyes. Then the sky turned black.

For almost a minute, the city was louder. The sound of cars crashing and thuds of things falling and hitting the ground was overwhelming. But after the last sound of metal clashing against metal ceased, there was a silence so great it was almost loud. Even the wind refused to blow for minutes after.

Ebony fell into me, and we fell back onto the blankets and pillows. She was sobbing. Depression pumped through my veins, but I knew I couldn’t cry in front of her. I knew I had to be the strong one.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I can’t help it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I assured her, pulling her into my lap. “We’ll just stay here until it’s all over, okay?”

She nodded, and I brushed the tears off of her cheeks with my fingers and kissed her lightly on the lips. She sighed and whispered, “That helps, Gerard.”

Without saying another word, I pulled her tighter against me and kissed her with as much love as I could, trying to drive the pain out of her mind.

“Thank you,” she murmured when our lips parted. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I answered, feeling some of the depression lift. I hoped she was feeling some of the same kind of relief. “And you and I are here, and we’re alive.”

“We’re alive,” she repeated, and then we were silent.

I don’t know if she ever fell asleep, but I did. Mostly all I saw in my dreams that night was fire. It licked at my eyelids and burned my heart, but I couldn’t distinguish where or even when the fire was or would be or had been. Then I saw the face of the little girl, her eyes open, but her mind was dead. At last I saw the face of a new girl.

She looked to be about ten, with thick, brown curls. I didn’t see her eyes, because her face was in her hands. I thought she was crying, but before I could see more, I woke up.

I opened my eyes and had to blink a few times before my eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight. It was the next day. I looked around. Ebony was sitting on the edge of the blanket with canned peaches in her hands, watching me.

“I see you’ve regained your appetite,” I said.

She shrugged, popping a peach into her mouth and licking her fingers. I smiled. “You were dreaming,” she stated.

I felt my smile fade quickly. “I was,” I admitted. “First there was fire. I don’t know where it was, but I don’t think it’s very important. Then there was a little girl that died yesterday. Then there was an older girl with dark, curly hair. I think she must’ve been from the past.”

Before I had finished talking, though, Ebony was shaking her head. After handing me a granola bar and the rest of her peaches, she said in her special way of knowing, “She’s from the future.”

“So she’s alive now?” I asked. “She’s one of us?”

“Must be,” she replied. “Hurry up and eat. We have somewhere we need to be.”

I didn’t bother asking where. I knew it would be a waste of breath.