ⁿᵃᶦˡᵃʰ'ˢ ᵖᵒᵛ

‧₊˚✩ 🪐✩˚₊‧

SOME SAY THAT IF YOU CLIMB the tallest tree in the heart of D.C.'s forest, you might see Earth's murky auburn sky as vibrant blue again. I say that's a fuckload of flowery bullshit, but it remains a standard practice of mine.

My legs were wrapped around a tree branch over the babbling stream below me, and I dangled the satellite phone I 'borrowed' from Dad's office around my ear, my other hand shading the sketches of the tree canopy on my little brother's tablet that he's probably crying for.

"Unit Bravo-12, this is Command. Be advised, the situation is escalating near Lafayette Square. Request immediate reinforcement for perimeter lockdown, over." Dad's voice echoed from the surveillance phone. I furrowed my eyebrows.

In a couple of hours, the president's address to the nation will be live-streamed everywhere for everyone and their favorite stray dog to watch. It's sorta like those dreaded family meetings where topics may escalate from earlier curfews to full-on massacres.

With Washington D.C. being one of the last few pillars of stability in a post-Christmas-Star-meteorite world, the decisions made during these addresses can either make or break the whole world, plus, I think everyone is well aware that the US will soon become a government that had long stopped pretending it could help, much like back home in Brazil.

"Copy that, Command. Are we securing a full perimeter, or focusing on key access points, over?"

My parents made the blessed mistake of having the most extremely demanding jobs one could ever have in these times. Like modern Batmans who probably shouldn't have had three children in such a lifetime, yet here we all are.

"Affirmative, Bravo-12. Prioritize key entry points—north and west gates—but ensure mobile units are available for crowd control if needed. Dispatch Alpha Team to set up barricades at 3rd and Constitution, over."

I even heard that our family got direct requests for relocation here from members of the frickin white house who are casually some of Mom and Dad's old friends. That was probably the first and last time I've ever ridden in a private jet.

It's probably why our house has installations of nearly every security gimmick under the sun, I overheard that some of the technology wasn't even from Earth, at least that's what Ty told me after bypassing some of the security systems so they wouldn't detect when he was smoking pot.

Since literally every facet of their careers is stamped with a dark red 'CLASSIFIED' or 'TOP SECRET', I had to get creative with how I make myself privy to the shit that's going down, like why the 24th Colonist group took an extra year on their trip to the new world, why the weather's been reaching inhuman extremes, or how everyone tends to brush over how odd the nature of the Christmas Star meteorite is.

Immediately after it hit back in 2044, a few of my classmates fell terribly ill due to their little bodies not being able to adapt to the new polluted air.

They were the ones with most exposure to the toxic gas fumes — the first to breathe in that bitter air.

Some of them even passed away. But until my teacher, Ms Ferreira's explanation back in that one assembly of second grade, I never quite understood the concept of death.

"When you die, you fall into a deep sleep that no one can wake you up from. Because your heart stops beating, your lungs do not work so you cannot breathe, and your brain stops working,"

Her words pierced into my mind as she continued to assert, "And no one and nothing can bring you back. Not ever." Euphemisms weren't her strong suit.

The ashes from the Christmas Star invaded our land a week after the meteorite's initial impact, and affected the lungs of my best friend, Nico, then sent her into that deep sleep, that thief called death, and there's absolutely nothing in the world that I can do to bring her back.

A part of her still lives with me — her donated kidney. But now I carry more than that. I carry her weighted wish — that life for us, for me, will soon be safer and better.

But on a different planet, a trillion light years away from our dying one.

I like to think of this whole event as Earth evicting us all for all the shit we did to it when all it was trying to do was give us a home. I guess we're too late.

Nearly fifty years too late.

About a month ago, I participated the training-test course needed for the US government to deem me worthy or unworthy of life in an unpolluted home  — in a nutshell. Though the last wasn't a simulator test like the other gazillion. They called it EVA Tank Training.

Dropping me into a tank full of water well below 0 degrees wasn't enough for them, I had to be anchored down where they would watch me sink 30 ft under while I uncontrollably shivered during my struggle to freedom — Oh! And I was timed.

I began to wonder whether they were really training us kids to get drafted into the army, not that we'd need one on Alpha Centauri — I bet.

All hail Alpha Centauri, and to Mission 25.

From my bedroom window, I used to be able to see about seven stars peak through the fogged up sky at night, nine if I was lucky enough to sneak dad's telescope in without making the wood creak louder than his snoring.

Now, I can't remember what a blue sky looks like.

All I seemed to know was a grey-orange stained sky, a dry dusty throat, watering eyes and my hair catching all the dust and smoke in the air possible.

"Command, We've got some unusual interference on our comms. Static's cutting in, and it's not one of ours. Could be a backdoor into one of our channels or another eavesdropper, over."

Shit shit shit.

My heart raced as I tried to switch the channels on the satellite phone, my digital pen rolling off the screen and into the current below. Not again, shit. I guess I've done this enough times for Dad to yell--

"Nal-- how many times do I have to beg you to get off this goddamn frequency?! And I know it's y--"

"Dad-- I don't mean to guilt trip you right now with your weighty duty to your job and all-- but our summer's almost over and you still owe us a rematch of soldier! I'm sorry that disobeying you is the only way I can tell you, but no one else will...Oh, Ty shaved his head and Cammy lost another tooth, and I dyed my hair," Silence followed beyond the static. "Okay, love you, bye!"

I pressed the antenna down, cutting him off. I should probably get back before word spreads to Mom and she has my shit rocked. I shoved everything in my backpack, my hands gripping onto the branch for dear life. The ground was about four feet to my left, if my momentum was one-kilogram meter per second off, I'd be swept away by the current that was oddly picking up, and my hair's freshly straightened. Shit, where's my gas mask?

"Nal? I knew it-- I knew it-- I knew it! I'm gonna tell Mom!" A tiny voice with a familiar voice crack yelled below me. I shrieked. My foot slipped on a mossy branch and I slammed my gut against the branch below it, the impact punching all the breath out of me. I couldn't feel any surface to hold onto, I didn't even know where the sky was. I was slowly scraped against the last merciless branch, sliding off and plunging head-first into the ice-cold water.

It felt like a thousand tiny needles pricking my skin, my heart pounding in my chest, thumping so hard I could hear it echoing in my ears. Breaking out of the water and inhaling the ashy polluted air was somehow worse than the water, each cough feeling like my insides were tearing apart and being lit on fire.

The tiny curly-haired boy's efforts to help were futile, but he held his little hands out anyway. My weight had doubled and every stiff step involved a gross, juicy squish into my sneakers.

Shivering and sharply inhaling and exhaling and inhaling, I zipped my bag open, pulling out the perfectly dry tablet and handing it to the little boy whose face was tangled in a frown. He looked at it like it was covered in snot, something I'd never imagined I'd ever witness.

His big eyes looked me up and down, like how Mom would. He crossed his arms over his fluffy green dinosaur onesie, tilting his head and exposing his right dimple, exactly how Dad would.

"...This is probally why I'm the favorite," He said, matter-of-factly, exposing the space under his front gums for two missing teeth. "What if the pamimeter fences turned off and you got eaten by the Sackman?" He whispered it as if we weren't the only people out here in the forest, his new lisp making him sound adorable.

Beads of water trickled down my forehead as I raked the water out of my tousled curls. I cracked a smile at him through my shivering state. My only desire was a long piping-hot shower with no disturbances from either of my brothers, but I knew that was only wishful thinking.

I put my hands on his shoulders and directed him out of the decaying forest to return to the bare land of spiky grass that could catch fire at any moment. The wind was harsher, and the dark orange sky gloomier, eerie. The dim sun descended from the sky, an early setting sun in the middle of July.

The perimeter fences are used to keep animals out of residential areas. But nowadays, its primary use is keeping people from stealing essentials due to the global food shortage. How lovely.

Basically, the amount of looting and overall crime and protests skyrocketed because the more fortunate people like us were selected to board the Resolute and be set off to a better future. I don't blame them for it.

I've even heard stories of some protesters successfully take the spots of some of the passengers booked for the next Colony trips. Opportunists, they call them.

I picked up loose stones and handed exactly half to Cam.

I threw a rock directly at the high perimeter fence with beaming red lights, and it immediately burned to a crisp.

"See, Cammy? We're safe here," I told him as we threw rocks at the fence. I've gotten used to how squishy and damp every part of me now felt.

He definitely didn't notice the fact that I didn't have my mask on until I let out the deepest cough I've been holding since the moment he stood by me. I didn't notice until now that he wasn't wearing one either. The air was so thick that I just didn't bother to strain my eyes looking.

"Shouldn't you be wearing your mask?" He cried.

"Shouldn't you?" I spat, looking him up and down. And the silence that followed told me everything I needed to know. Cam is asthmatic and, stupid apparently because he's clearly just asking for the fourth asthma attack of this week.

And then, it went off. A piercing wail cut through the air like a knife. The emergency sirens for extreme weather blared. We both knew it all too well. Eerie. Otherworldly. A low, haunting cry that rose and fell, and rose and fell. It echoed the landscape, an inevitable doom.

"You ever think they set these off so they can force us to watch the president read boring speeches to us?" Cam asked, his curly hair blowing in his face.

I cracked a smile and nodded. He shrugged, running down the hill onto the pavement pathway, where he parked his tiny skateboard next to mine.

"Wanna race home?" He squinted his eyes from the wind. He knew my answer, I can never turn down a race. "I won't tell Mom if you race me."

"OFFICERS!" I saluted the two police officers patrolling the area, skating past them.

"Cosgroves? Do your parents know that you're out here?" One of them asked, the other speaking into his radio comm.

"Duh!" Cam and I both said, skating off before they asked too many questions.

"...How long until we board our Jupiters?" Cam asked.

I stammered. I didn't know which answer would comfort him. Winter was approaching, which, for Cam, meant a marathon of asthma flare-ups. Unlike me, he's not yet showing signs of his breathing problem weakening through childhood. Maybe things will be different once we get out of here.

"Not much longer," I told him, hoping my voice didn't get swallowed up by the howling wind and roaring skateboards. In reality, 'not much longer' could range from weeks to months.  There have been more mandatory meetings that Mom and Dad had to speed to in the middle of the night.

The sun's warmth soon vanished from my skin, and heavy darkness overshadowed the hazy orange smog of our sky. Goosebumps grew all over my body at the cold that seeped through my damp clothes. I held myself tightly to stop the shivering, clearly on the road down to pneumonia.

A menacing flock of black crows squawked above us, flying overhead and out of the city. Their cry was ominous. Beyond the perimeter fence was a mob of deers sprinting out of the dancing trees, and over the hills. Animals are migrating. Totally not unnerving.

"Ty says I should ask Mom to go to the fancy Italian place tomorrow and order pisghetti before we leave Earth," He nodded slowly, matter-of-facts.

"You mean spaghetti?" I corrected him. He wrinkled his nose at me as if I just spoke in tongues.

"Yeah, that's what I just said."

"Right. And he can't ask her himself?"

"He says I'm the only one she listens to," He shrugged. I couldn't agree more.

"She'll only say yes if she has enough energy to go through at least one of us making a scene at the restaurant."

"I think Mom almost cried today after seeing Ty practically bald for the first time since he was a baby." We burst into laughter.

The sky grew gloomier and the wind icier. It hurt to keep my eyes open, not to mention my hair wildly slapping all over my face.

I closed my eyes and half expected them to open to a clear blue sky, a calmer breeze, the smell of summer rain and fresh air and I'd be — not on Alpha Centauri, but here.

I can't let Earth go, I just can't. Sure, I can move houses and countries like I have before, but a whole planet? That's so different.

So...alienating.

If we as humans are gonna continue this cycle of trashing up a planet then ditching it, which is what it looks like, then if it were up to me I'd stay here — stay here and wait for a miracle. But until then, I'm stuck with my terrible allergies, artificial air and dry flaky skin.

The 24th Colonist Group didn't miss a thing leaving Earth a couple of years earlier than us. Even though their trip took a shitload of time, I like to think they decided to visit a couple of galaxies in space. Who could blame them? I would have done the same.

"AND WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU TWO BEEN?" Ty's voice echoed in my bedroom before I could stop him. I shut my bedroom window behind me, my whispy tulle canopy curtains slowly falling back down. In a bathrobe over his work pants, he leaned on the door that connected his room to mine. "Y'know I was out working my ass off as the diversity hire I most probably am-- making ends meet and all and this--"

"--Nal fell into the pond and she's gonna start turning green," Cam spat. It took Ty about three double takes at me, with an increasingly deeper frown, for him to look me up and down as if I was covered in mysterious undrinkable, and probably toxic pond water.

"That's why it's smelling like hot swampy shit?" His nose wrinkled. I rolled my eyes while kicking my sneakers off. I tossed a spare inhaler to Cam. I realized how metallic the back of my throat tasted and from Cam's coughing, I figured he felt the same.

"This is how I feel every time you blow your radioactive room air into mine," I blurted out. He flipped me off with both hands crossing his chest. I returned the gesture, dropping myself to sink into my bed and wet my duvets.

We immediately indulged in the emergency water jugs placed beside my bed. And as Cameron finished inhaling the powder from his asthma pump, I helped myself to some of its magic too.

"Ty, watch this!" Cam waited until Ty was looking to bang his head against my bed. He lost balance and the floor caught him before any of us could, rubbing his head trying not to look like he was on the verge of bawling his eyes out. I made eye contact with Ty, the both of us holding everything in ourselves not to burst out laughing.

"Did ya learn your lesson about fuckin' around?" Ty pursed his lips, his dimple poking his cheek. Cam sulked. Then Ty lifted Cam off the floor from his little leg, to dangle upside down. He exploded into contagious laughter and squealing as he was tossed next to me on my bed, and I did too before I realized Ty was slapping his elbows to prepare for the WWE elbow drop. My body jolted with fear as I screamed--

"No no no-- wait wait-- Ty! Wait!"

It felt like a batch of dry cement dropped on my gut, or better yet, a fully grown elephant crushing my bones, Ty was unreasonably heavy for his build. He flattened Cam and me by rolling over us like dough. I could barely get a breath in. His bold, nauseating perfume scent of a metallic pepper punched my nostrils cold, the sting permeating to make my eyes water.

I flipped my mane of curls and had forgotten that they still sprayed trickles of mysterious pond water on my brothers. They both started screaming in the same voice-cracky pitch as if I had just pissed on them.

"It got in my eyes! Nal, why the fuck is your hair still wet?" Ty wiped his face with Cam's onesie. My brothers shuffled away from me like I had the plague, and I couldn't stop laughing.

"At least I have hair, Avatar Aang!" I mocked him before getting kicked in the face. I winced as my head throbbed. I rolled off my bed, crawling into the hallways while Cam and Ty continued their power-imbalanced WWE match without me.

Everything was different in the house, and not just Tyler's recently buzzed hair — which he shaved off this morning after he lost a bet with one of his friends. He's lucky he has a decent head shape.

But the rooms were emptier than I remembered from this morning. Mom insisted on selling some of our furniture since we wouldn't need it. Plus, practically all evidence of our lives was packed in the back of a truck and into a giant spaceship we were expected to call home soon.

All that remained were our 'essentials' from our toiletries down to my old plushie collection that I refuse to get rid of. Who could blame me? Hello Kitty is a freaking legend, a relic!

What also remained was the grand piano, the gift I got for my 7th birthday. They couldn't get me away from it for the rest of that year. Mom kept it here so I could keep practicing for my upcoming piano recital; I've been assigned to play Torrent Etude by Chopin.

But the recital was only in a week from now, and all I really wanted to do the rest of this evening was lazily paint and dance around to music in my room.

Plus, Ty has expressed enough about how sick he is of how aggressively I play piano in the house, that 'lunatic' was too light of a word to use.

I furrowed my dark brows at the sight of my belongings sticking out from my older brother's boxes he deliberately put at the top of the shelf so none of us could reach.

He protested against me climbing over his study desk to shove my hand into the box labelled 'SENSITIVE OBJECTS DO NOT TOUCH' and regretted it immediately at the indecipherable textures I had to feel, before --

"-- You wanna tell me why my paintbrushes are in your box of stiff socks, Ty?" I gagged as I hopped off his desk, no longer towering over him.

"Hey hey! I was gonna use them as drumsticks" Tyler whined as he and Cam tailed behind me through the echoing corridors.

"Yeah -- Like the other sets of mine you broke?" I chuckled, "Just go ask mom or dad to fund your little music phase! And not at my expense, please" I asserted.

"Okay-- you have no idea how hard it is to eat this with you stinking up the place, Nal. Seriously get in the shower-- like-- circa: now, please?" He begged, his voice muffled.

And as I turned around during his muffled rambling, my eyes widened at the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich he stuffed into his mouth.

Mind you, I don't remember the last time I ate actual organic food and not these packets of cold meat to prepare us for the diet of our long trip ahead. So finding anything that wasn't previously powdered or canned, was a sweet sweet luxury.

On impulse, I grabbed his hand holding the crust of the squashed up bread left and bit whatever my teeth could find, which included his fingers apparently. He yelled in pain while I backed away and started chewing fast.

I realised the hard way that, with Tyler, just because the food is already in your mouth doesn't mean it's not gonna be dug out or choked out of you. Then he'd follow with the phrase 'If I can't eat it, no one can.'

Struggling to swallow the dry sandwich down, I began, "And I know you took my skateboard. Seu idiota!"

"Nooo eu não fiz!" Tyler denied as I stormed back over into his room.

"Oh! So you go out with yours one day and come back with it split in half and now mine is next on your death note book?"

"You aren't exactly a saint in this either -- now get out!" Tyler yelled. I yelped at his attempt to trip me over with his foot, elbowing with all my might to loosen his grip on my arms as I fake coughed in his face to repel him. That should work.

It didn't.

So the only option left for me was to scream at the top of my lungs that even people out of the perimeter fence would hear me.

I bit his hand during his attempt to shut me up as he yelled --

"Aah! Mom -- Sh--she's trying to kill me!" Which was so untrue, but since I was already knee deep in this mess, I might as well kick at everything I felt behind me.

What was I here for again?

"What on Earth, Tyler?!" mom's alarmed rage made us stare at her like a deer in headlights, awaiting their fate.

Her dark eyebrows joined, and her signature bold red lips pursed, "Nailah, What the hell?!" mom stormed in to save me from the death grip of my older brothers hands, muttering to herself. There was nothing to say to her other than --

"Mom, This was just a simple misunderstanding. I promise we were play fighting"  Tyler attempted a save

"You have Nailah's bite marks engraved into your skin" mom mumbled, but it really just bounced off the bare walls like she had yelled it out as she lifted his arm for me to see my creation.

"Don't you two knuckleheads understand that we cannot risk any injuries whatsoever?!" She continued with the lecture on how great of an opportunity abandoning a planet worth saving is, the same one I've been hearing since forever.

"Desenmerda-te!" mom hissed.

Which indirectly translates to "Get your shit together", words we definitely needed to hear from our mother.

It was only then that I noticed she was in her  work attire — white lab coat, giant goggles on her head that pronounced her new stress wrinkles, and her name tag signed 'Dr. Clover Cosgrove'.

She barely brought work in on a Friday evening. An evening where we should have been out eating creamy pasta in some Italian restaurant, or something worth blowing our useful Earth-money.

Mom scanned the room, her eyebrow raising as she bopped her head up and asked, "Where's your brother?"

"He was behind me, like, a second ago," I followed her out of the room and down the hallway which brought an unfamiliar feeling with the lighter spots on the wall where our family portraits should have been.

Like the ghost of what had been.

"Where's our father?" Tyler pushed. But he knew the answer to that question: Authority in the police department is extremely demanding in these times.

"Nal, why are your clothes so damp?" Mom placed her palms on my damp clothes that stuck to my skin. She moved her palm up to feel my neck, then my forehead. "Meu Deus, do I even wanna know? Is that why your father called?"

"Whaaat? Pshh...no," I sucked at playing it cool, and Ty saw right through me. He frowned before shaking his head and laughing to himself.

Mom's pocket began violently vibrating, and shivers traveled down my spine. Her work phone rang. I met my eyes with Ty, and his slit eyebrows were raised as his lips pursed. Calls like these never meant anything good. There's so much encrypted speech involved in these calls that I'm not sure I still want to eavesdrop on them anymore.

We didn't say it, but both Ty and I were grateful for Cam practically going missing in the house because it meant mom had forgotten to give us the punishment for torturing each other.

But that wasn't enough for us to ignore the howling wind that wheezed and rattled the windows, or the tension that surrounded the awaited live scream from the Supreme Court.

"CAMERON DIOGO!" Mom shot venom as she summoned Cam by his second name. He stopped jumping on the couch, and his face took an ashen hue. "Eu vou contar até três! If you don't get off that couch right now!" I never knew what would happen once Mom reached three, and I never wanted to.

I slid down the staircase rail in my pajama set, feeling dry, warm, clean, and with a fresh head of flat ironed hair for the second time today. To the left of the staircase was Cam standing in front of the wall-mounted TV, probably finding something else to piss Mom off with. The TV was on the news channel, on mute, running headlines of 'CATEGORY 5 STORM IMMINENT: SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY'

And then the aroma hit me — warm, rich, tangy, sweet, black beans and cabbage and smoky pork and chilies bubbling over the gas stove. Finally, real food. I skipped my way into the kitchen, kicking the utensil drawer closed after whipping out a dishing spoon to 'taste' the feijoada.

"Nal, watch the pots!" Mom ordered. I mumbled back to her, trying not to sound like I had food stuffed in my mouth. She stormed back upstairs, simultaneously receiving three more phone rings.

I hashahafahashad my way into eating the piping hot pork piece burning my taste buds off. I did a shoulder dance having dinner in secret, but then someone walked out of the schooner-blue pantry. I frowned and froze. Ty, holding a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.

His mouth was full of a dark red liquid that trickled down his neck. My jaw dropped. He froze. Silence followed.

"...It's for the feijoada...duh," He defended. I waved my hand at him, stealing another mouthful of the stew. He grabbed another dishing spoon, pushing me over to take a greedy bite and hashahafahasha at the food.

"Mamãe!" Cam shouted for Mom. "Tyler's asking if we can go to the Italian restaurants tomorrow and eat pisghetti!"

"You little shit-- Why'd you put me on blast like that?!" Ty's voice went high-pitched as he complained, he dragged his face down with his hands and let out a chuckle in disbelief.

"Look!" Cam exclaimed. Both of us shot our heads at him pointing at the TV. "It's the president! His boring speech is on!" He swiped the wall monitor sensor that slid the grand curtains open, revealing the glass wall with an impeccable view of the whole of Washington D.C. beyond the wall of trees of our house overhill. The glorious buildings, the distanced yet distinctive landmarks: the reflective water leading to the tall, white, and thin Washington Monument, the United States Capitol, the Supreme Court, and if you squinted hard enough, you'd see the white house.

We flocked to fog up the glass, guessing where Dad might be on duty in the sparkles of light igniting the city. I didn't know whether to tell them that I spoke to him today, or rather that he yelled at me then I proceeded to guilt trip him. So I kept silent, a part of me hoping he was on his way home already.

This was the one time I cared remotely about this form of politics and presidential shit when they spoke about what really mattered, like how we should allow everyone to at least take part in the Alpha Centauri program, and not with this exclusively privileged bullshit. Who's to say my life was worse saving sooner, and someone else's just wasn't?

The old smiley man on the TV in a blue-gray suit cleared his throat before starting with the famous words, "My fellow Americans..." and that's just about where I stopped listening, waiting for Ty to summarize it for us.

"...Uhh," Ty squinted his eyes at the TV. "Holy shit? There's a...hurricane later today-- they didn't think that was worth mentioning sooner?"

"We heard the sirens go off, didn't you?" Cam frowned, playing the exact same live stream on his tablet, swearing that it was different. Ty shrugged.

The president continued to assert, "In addition to the Alpha Centauri program, we are set to expand spaceport construction in underserved regions, ensuring that space exploration benefits all who..."

I zoned out at the mannerisms of the man, his enthusiasm, his zeal, the light in his eyes. Maybe he wasn't as bad as people set him out to be.

"Now following recent updates the awaiting voyage of the 25th Colonist Group...--"

"That's us! He's talking about us!" Cam squealed and jumped up and down.

"...Departure on the new and improved mothership, renamed the Solidarity will commence on--..."

The TV glitched into a deafening static, quickly returning to the view of the president. I frowned.

"What the fuck?" Ty and I said at the same time. I walked up to the TV to hit the decoder, Ty and Cam yelled at me as if I was smashing the TV into smithereens.

"We -- are, and will remain, a -- a -- a nation that rea-- ches-- reaches for the stars—together--"

"Well that's just un-fuckin'-settling, ain't it?" Ty kissed his teeth. I scoffed, my back against the TV. "Way to go, Nal."

"That can't have been my fault, it was clearly already glitching," I spat back. "Maybe it's the Wi-Fi. There is a huge storm coming, anyway." I said that way too calmly.

Ty dragged his feet to shuffle himself behind the table stand and 'fix' the Wi-Fi, while Cam switched to playing games on the tablet, I lost track of his whereabouts after he walked behind the kitchen island.

"Who turned off the Wi-Fi?!" Mom yelled from upstairs.

"Nal did it! It wasn't me!" Cam yelled back. I scoffed.

The sky grew gloomier and more ominous, the city's lights growing brighter through the thick polluted air. And the wind slammed the glass more harshly. Holy shit, Dad. Where are you?

I bolted upstairs and into my room, ripping my backpack open to pull out Dad's satellite phone. It still had juice left. I cracked my window open, the unforgiving breeze slicing everything in its path. I  pulled the antenna back up and held the phone towards the sky. I didn't even care how I shivered uncontrollably.

"Command, this is Nailah Cosgrove, do you copy?"

Static followed.

"I repeat, this is Nailah Cosgrove to Noah Cosgrove, do you copy?"

More static. Huh.

"How is it that I was in clear view of the sky and the satellite phone still had no signal?" My phone shook from how I sped downstairs and back into the TV room. "It did earlier today,"

"Did you seriously steal that from Dad's office? Deadass?" Ty asked.

"I think that-- ya'know-- after everything that's happening that should be the least of your questions."

The TV screen's static seemed to grow more intense and abrupt and I couldn't watch the screen without my eyes squinting. But through the faint, abrupt clips of the president in between the gray barrier, he lost the warmth in his eyes. He looked stale, frozen. The light in his eyes vanished into a void of nothingness, staring directly at the camera, almost staring right through me.

It sent shivers down every bone in my body, the air around me growing cold and stale as well. I couldn't look away. I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched, no matter how irrational it sounded. I couldn't answer Ty asking whether the screen had gone back to normal. It only left me with this suffocating ominous feeling in my stomach. I held myself. Something's not right.

"Nal!" Cam's voice made me flinch out of my trance. "The internet isn't working with my very simple requests, right now...Nal?"

"...Try upstairs, Cammy," I said, my voice sounding softer, weaker. I shot my gaze back to the landscape with the city overhead. I bounced my foot as I stared at the White House, then the Supreme Court, then the Capitol.

"Ty..." I whispered to the window, my voice bouncing off for him to hum in response.

"What's up?" He breathed, his voice strained from whatever shit he was doing trying to fix the Wi-Fi. My heart began pounding in my chest. For what, exactly? I had no idea, and that's what killed me.

I stammered the words jumbling in my mouth.

I looked up at the murky, grayish sky. Its demeanor carried an alluring doom in every swirling cloud. But if you asked me, the sky couldn't be clearer. And then...something in the sky flickered.

Not the lights of a plane a helicopter, or a Jupiter. No. Bigger.

I blinked twice. My eyes ached from the strain. It disappeared. I need my glasses. But then, it returned, floating in the expanse of the sky. A faint glow, a glitching...circle, with a line right through the middle. Like a zero, but also not quite.

It shimmered, unnaturally, like a bulb igniting its last flickers of light, a blurry line flickering between presence and absence.

"Ty," I didn't even feel the words leave me. "Ty, come see this."

"What?" He asked flatly. My heart skipped. The flicker was eerie, like a glitch in the universe.

"Ty, look!" He finally turned his attention to the wide glass wall. I searched through his jaded eyes for a jolt, a spasm in something. Nothing. It's like he saw nothing.

"Alright, looney tunes I don't have time for this."

I frowned, turning back to the view. Bare sky. Just as quickly as it appeared it vanished, as if nothing was ever there. Was it even there? My heart can't be pounding for no good reason. Every time I blinked, I saw it behind my eyelids.

"That's so fucked up. It was right there," I cried, searching all the corners of the blank sky for any more evidence. "I swear-- it was this...this giant zero glowing in--"

"Yeah? Uh-huh?" Ty nodded enthusiastically, tilting his head. "Really?"

"...Nevermind. You are a real bitch, you know that? You always do this. I asked you one thing and--"

"-- Sorry I don't drop everything I'm doing for your weird fuckin' hallucinations, Nal, Jesus--"

"That's not what I meant! And don't call them that when you know how real they felt to me--"

"-- Nal!"

"What?!" I barked. His face took an ashen hue. His gaze was stuck beyond me, at the view. "Stop making fun of..."

A brighter, violent, blinding light bathed through my hair, and everything around me emitted an unnatural glow. My skin prickled as I tried to find the source, blocking my arm at the burst of a brilliant azure that erupted the entire horizon, the entire city. It transformed the dark gray expanse into an eerie, unnatural glow. I squinted.

Seven years after the Christmas Star the sky is transformed into a wash of unnaturally electric blue.

My breath caught in my throat, and I spotted the source. Far in the distance, over the city, a massive mushroom-shaped plume of a brilliant blue flame began to rise to the heavens. It was nothing like I've ever seen. Nothing like anyone's ever seen. A blue flame set ablaze and pierced through the thick pollution. Mesmerizing. Blood-churning. My knees buckled. I could let no words out.

"Is that it?" I managed to hear Ty say. I shook my head. I wished to God it was. He whispered something I couldn't catch. I stood still, enamored by the glory, the great thing in the sky.

At that, a deep, guttural rumble rolled through the sky, so loud that it vibrated in my chest. It was almost as if the Earth herself groaned in pain. Ty yelled something, and still, I couldn't move. The noise grew into an intense roar, waving through the ground beneath the blue flame.

In a blink, a living force, a wall of destruction from the flame pushed forward everything in its path. It looked like a ripple in the air, bending and distorting everything it ripped through. And still, I couldn't move.

A hand roughly shook me, but no matter how hard I tried to turn away or run, no limb in my body allowed it. The glass wall exploded inward with a deafening crack. I shut my eyes as the force of it sent a million shards to fly at me and through the room like lethal projectiles. But I felt no marring of my skin, only an overwhelming warmth coddling me.

My nostrils were bombarded with the bold, nauseating perfume scent of a metallic pepper that punched my nostrils cold. Tyler. He managed to suffocate me into a hug.

The pressure knocked us back, my ears ringing violently, pounding against my skull. It was like a thunderclap and screech of metal. For a second, I felt weightless, before slamming my back against the floor. The whole house shuddered, every surface violently vibrating.

I found myself lifting my head from the ground, my brother's hand still over me. I swept the shards of glass off the back of his hoodie. My ears rang uncontrollably. Beneath everything, I still felt the overwhelming heat. I shuffled away from the open expanse blowing harsh winds in.

I shook Ty till he shot his head up and said something to me. I heard nothing beyond the ringing, but he lifted my chin up and down, raking glass out of the ends of my hair. All of my breaths were short, hard, and sore. My eyes caught on the blue sky that harnessed the unstoppable force that tore through the city.

My heart raced, my body tight and aching. All in that moment, everything was noise, light, and in ruin.

The TV blasted out of static and into a defeating broadcast announcing--

"NATIONAL ALERT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. THE WHITE HOUSE IS UNDER ATTACK. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER."

translations ( from Portuguese )

Seu idiota - You jerk/moron/idiot
Eu não fiz - I didn't
Desenmerda-te - Get your shit together
Meu Deus - My God
Vamos - Let's go
Eu vou contar até três - I'm going to count to three

authors note

welcome/welcome back! this is the rewritten version of chapter one / prologue !! i'm quite happy with my progress in writing <3

make some noiseee for the start of my rewriting journey yallll

SO it's now evident that Nailah is multilingual. She's fluent in English and Portuguese (will be elaborated later ) and is learning French ( will also come up later in the book ). So this means she has a light accent in some of the words she pronounces <33 We love a multilingual queen !!

just so y'all know, Cam doesn't have his two front teeth, and Tyler's hair is buzzed and he has braces !! Feel free to ask more questions !!

please vote and comment and it motivates me as a writer <3

till next time <33

dedications

solyyybenonyy saanvinarang_01 mitchelle3000 ST4RRYBL4DE candysznn euphoreallia kanestrz

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