by P K Stadnyk
awaken
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Copyrights © 2019 P.K. Stadnyk
All rights reserved
To my husband who never stopped believing in me. Thank you! Without you this book would have never seen a daylight!
Contents
CHAPTER 1- WAKE UP
CHAPTER 2 - THE BEGINNING OR THE END?
CHAPTER 3 - UNDERGROUND
CHAPTER 4 - SURVIVORS
CHAPTER 5 - A PLAN
CHAPTER 6 - MY FEET!
CHAPTER 7 - WEIRDNESS
CHAPTER 8 - WHAT DO WE DO?
CHAPTER 9 - HOME, SWEET HOME
CHAPTER 10 - A STRANGER AND SOME HOPE
CHAPTER 11 - MORE WEIRDNESS
CHAPTER 12 - FINALLY, NICE WEATHER! REALLY?
CHAPTER 13 - A NIGHTMARE
CHAPTER 14 - SWIMMING IN MY LIVING ROOM
CHAPTER 15 - HUNGRY FLOWER
CHAPTER 16 - MY BIRTHDAY AND A PLANE
CHAPTER 17 - A TRIP
CHAPTER 18 - AN EARTHQUAKE
CHAPTER 19 - THE MOST HORRIBLE PLACE TO STAY
CHAPTER 20 - BETTER PLACE AND ANOTHER TRIP
CHAPTER 21 - A NEW HOME
CHAPTER 23 - A DISASTER
CHAPTER 24 - THE TRUTH
CHAPTER 25 - STRANGER IN MY ROOM
CHAPTER 26 - FREAK IN MY ROOM
CHAPTER 27 - MAKING VISITS
CHAPTER 28 - I WANT TO GO OUT!
CHAPTER 29 - FIXING THINGS UP
CHAPTER 30 - CHAOS
CHAPTER 31 - PLASTIC, SCHOOL AND THE END
CHAPTER 32 - BACK TO REALITY
CHAPTER 33 - A SHADOW
CHAPTER 35 - GOING BACK
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1- WAKE UP
Oh, my head… I opened my eyes, trying to look around. My eyesight was blurry and nothing around was recognizable. All I knew was that I was lying on a freezing cold floor. My attempts to stand up succeeded only at fourth time. My head kept exploding with pain, causing so much dizziness it was impossible to stand on my own legs. I decided to sit instead.
Where am I? What happened to me? And, most importantly, who am I? I tried to remember, but my head was like an empty box with no memories whatsoever, and the harder I tried to think the stronger my headache was getting.
When my eyes felt better and were able to actually see, I could recognize a chair with a TV table in one corner, a desk with computer, a toilet, cabinet, and a big tinted window that covered an entire wall. The floor was uncarpeted and the floor, walls, and ceiling were cold, gray concrete.
Did I fall, bang my head, and lose my memory? Maybe. How did I get here and what was I doing? Was this my room?
While I was thinking, my legs kept moving to warm up and when they got a little stronger, I slowly stood and went to the computer. I took the dust cover off the screen and found a flashing dialog box with a big red explanation mark saying: “Warning! No power! All data deleted successfully.” Maybe I should try the TV. No signal… great!
Well, I’m not going to find out much from here, I thought and slowly walked to the window on my shaky legs, which felt like they would lose control any minute. I couldn’t see anything beyond it at first, but when I covered my eyes and peered through the darkness, I noticed a light bulb in a room several yards away and red flashing lights on the walls everywhere. By the locations of the lights, I figured that outside my room were lots of corridors. Perhaps with other rooms like mine. Apart from that, it was pitch dark. I had a feeling somebody was watching me.
“Hey! Hey! Is anybody in here? Hello!” Was that my voice? Had to be. No one else was here.
I screamed, banging on the window, hoping somebody would hear me. Nothing, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was being watched.
The light in the room was hardly on. A little bulb was going off and coming back on. It wasn’t long before it would stop working. I couldn’t find a light switch for inside or outside the room. It looked like there was no electricity beyond the window. Maybe someone else was in that far room with the light.
My intuition telling me to get out of there started shouting. But how? How to get out? I saw no handle or lock on the door. Pushing and kicking it didn’t help as the door also was made of cold concrete.
I decided to break the window. My hands were shaking and felt as weak as the rest of my body, but I grabbed the chair with all my strength to hit the window. Instead, I landed on the floor. The chair was screwed to the floor and my unstable body fell when I tried to lift it. Why was it screwed? Was I in a jail? No, prisoners don’t have computers in their cells. Everything was mounted either to the floor or to the wall. The monitor and keyboard were stuck to the desk and didn’t move. I couldn’t do much with a keyboard, in any case.
The only way to understand was to remember. I sat down and noticed something on the floor under the desk. An old picture of some people. One, a boy, looked strangely familiar. I scratched my face. Did I have a beard? How old was I? Who are these people?
The bulb went off, leaving me in complete darkness, but I remembered the picture and the people in it…
CHAPTER 2 - THE BEGINNING OR THE END?
“Honey, get up! Come on; you don’t want to miss the whole day of fun, do you?” asked my mom while blinding me with sunshine. As with every morning, she opened the window to let the fresh air in. Outside, I saw a beautiful view. My room was upstairs with my own bathroom. From the window, I could see my mom’s garden. It was beautiful, very colourful, and smelled like the best perfumes. Our house was in a center of a little park, you might say. My parents designed it that way to be surrounded by nature in every corner. Around the house, they planted trees with birdhouses that were always occupied with different birds tweeting the best songs in the mornings. At the back of the house, Dad had his workshop where he sometimes spent hours fixing or building something. He has a worktable for me with my own tools so I could help him. We also had a fish pond with colorful fish in it to match the garden. Next to it was a picnic table and barbeque. We often ate there. And, of course, a kennel stood in the shade of the trees. It was empty most of the times. Bella, our golden Labrador stayed in the house with us. We took her from the rescue center when she was a puppy. She was making us feel sorry and guilty with her very sad eyes for leaving her locked up in the kennel. So, she stayed at the house one night, then another and another. Later, she occupied most of my bed at night. So, I guess she learned, at some point while being a puppy, to use her sad-face trick whenever it was needed. It always worked. For example, one night, she pushed me out of the bed and when I told her to get down, she gave me that sad look again. My heart broke and there she stayed… I guess most dog lovers experience the same thing.
We lived in the small town of Somerfield, northern England, with population hardly reaching 200. It was so small, it didn’t deserve the honor of being placed on a map. The few streets in our neighborhood were very close to each other and we and our neighbors became connected and familiar. I counted about eighty neighbors, so it was like a hamlet within the town. I went to a little school with only twenty other children. In my class with me were eight kids. Also, we had a big church with a cemetery in the back that gave me the shivers every time I looked at it, lots of small shops, and coffee shops if you had a lazy morning or fancied the freshest news about neighbors. In there, everybody knew everybody and everything and even more about me and my family than I did. On our street, all the houses looked similar. The people were nice, with most of them families like our, so I had some friends. It was a perfect place for growing families.
Today was one of those perfect-weather days in the middle of the summer probably; it was hard to say, as the
weather was very strange these days, leaving the meteorologist and everybody else very confused. One day could start out sunny and warm, but in seconds, it got cloudy and cold and started to snow. Nobody thought about it twice, at least those my age. The streets were full of kids exhausted by the heat of summer; then, moms were running after them to put their scarfs or hats on so they could continue playing in the snow. It didn’t take long for the kids to build at least one snowman for each house. Some had an entire snow family; others had snowmen dressed, even in swimsuits. The adults didn’t have such a carefree time, apart from some dads, of course; they looked more concerned about the weather. I had seen some old women running to church, but I’m not sure if the weather was the reason for their hurry. The next day, we all woke up to find that there was nothing left of yesterday’s weirdness; it was hot and sunny again and the snowmen had all melted. Nobody spoke about it. Some old people were meeting at a street corner and talking quietly, but when somebody tried to get closer to hear at least a word, they just stopped and walked away separately as if they didn’t know each other. On another day, it was sunny and raining at the same time, making the rain nice and warm and filling the sky with rainbows. People took a lot of photos that day and the local television came to film it, but the strangest thing is that there were no pots full of gold on any end of any rainbow. Was it all lie? Because I checked twice every one of them.
After I woke up and ate breakfast, we went to church. We were all always going to church on Sundays. Then we walked down the road where we lived. I was in the middle holding my parents’ hands while they picked me up and put me down. I loved that feeling, it was like flying. I always dreamt of being a pilot or astronaut, going there where nobody was or will be and discovering new places, planets, stars, or even whole galaxies. I loved looking at the sky; it was so beautiful, so secret, and you could never tell how it was going to look like tomorrow or even in few minutes. Mom and Dad bought me a telescope for my 9th birthday so I could watch the stars. It was my obsession for hours and I never got bored.
“Where are the falling star’s going?” I always wondered out loud. Mom always said it was good luck to see a falling star and to make a wish. She was a doctor at a hospital; very pretty I think. People from the neighborhood were always coming to her for advice or help. On the other hand, Dad said that nobody knows where they’re going and that, one day, maybe I would find out. He was a doctor too, at the same hospital as Mom, but a more important one, as he was a cardiologist. They told me I would soon be a big brother, giving me the usual story of a stork bringing the baby. I Never really believed that though. I don’t think any kid has.
This weekend, we went to a parade. I wasn’t sure what we were celebrating, as people there always found a reason. If we had four parades in a month, nobody would be surprised. First sunflower, first snow, everything was reason for a parade. The marchers were people from our little town, some of them hardly recognizable in their costumes, dressed as clowns (I never really liked them; they were kind of spooky), princesses, kings, all sorts of animals, and whatever you could think of. The day was full of fun, games, food, and happy people who didn’t rush anywhere that day or shout at each other. They only laughed and drank something bubbly. I tried it once when I thought it was apple juice and got very dizzy later. I decided never to try it again.
We played almost every game. Dad shot all the bottles from the shelves and won the biggest teddy bear I ever saw. Then we raced on go-carts, fed ducks, had some hot dogs, and were just about to find the ponies for me to ride when it happened…
In less than a minute, everything changed dramatically. I heard no more laughs, happy sounds, nothing… It felt as if somebody had pressed pause while watching a movie. Everybody was looking one way. When I decided to check what was so interesting in there, I regretted doing so.
The sky… always so beautiful and blue, now looked terrifying. We saw just blackness coming toward us, swallowing all happiness and light on its way. Could such a massive cloud exist? It didn’t seem to have an end anywhere.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so scary if we were at home. I enjoyed being at home, warm and comfortable, while a storm raged outside.
The birds were rushing away from it. It was coming fast, very fast, and it couldn’t be bringing any good with it. Before anybody could do anything, it was already above us. It felt like being in a bed in your room and having a feeling that something was in the closet or under the bed. You didn’t know what it was or what it was going to do, but you definitely didn’t want it to get out.
The animals, friendly dogs, horses, cows, and all others that were there, just became crazy. Their eyes were wide open, they made horrible, scary noises, and you could tell they would do everything to just get far away from there. Young kids started to cry and just wouldn’t stop. It was as if they and the animals felt something coming. I can’t remember what I felt, I was more curious about covering my ears from all that noise. But apart from that, the crowd was dead quiet. Everybody just waited.
“Dad, are those stars?” I asked.
“I don’t think so, Son.”
“So, what are they?”
Against the blackness of the sky appeared little lights just like stars, but… they were getting bigger very fast. People started to run every which way. Dad decided there was no time to answer my question. He picked me up in his arm, grabbed my mom’s hand and started to run. Something hit the ground, shaking it heavily. We felt another hit and another coming from all sides. I only heard terrible screams of people, looking for their children or relatives, or shouting for help. These massive “stars” were on fire and they didn’t stop falling for a second. They caused an ear-splitting explosion with each hit. When I wondered where we were running to, Dad slipped on something and we fell…
CHAPTER 3 - UNDERGROUND
The next thing I remembered, I woke up on the sofa, but it wasn’t our home. What was it then? Where were we? It probably was our “basement,” a very mysterious place for me. I only heard my parents talking about it, and I knew they spent a lot of time in there sometimes but they would never let go in there with them.
“Here sweetheart, you should get some breakfast.” Mom gave me a plate of my favorite smiley pancakes. She always made them smile with the chocolate or marmalade, saying that a happy breakfast is a good beginning of the day. I wouldn’t be smiling, knowing somebody would eat me.
“I want to go to my room,” I demanded. It didn’t look very nice down there. I couldn’t see any of my toys; and the walls were pretty depressing without any wallpaper or paint, just plain gray concrete. The only thing in that room was a teddy bear but I could never play with it. I found teddy bears boring, except for Ed. I had him since I was born, but he wasn’t there.
“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to stay down here for some time. Dad just went to get some things for us. I’m sure he’ll get some of your toys. He should be back soon. Now, what would you like to play?”
I decided to stay for a while and inspect every little space in this basement. There must have been a reason for me not to go in there before. Mom kept me so busy with all these games and puzzles that I completely forgot about the reason for being there. I didn’t know what happened, but it was far beyond my imagination. I decided to ask Dad about it. He knew everything or at least made good stories about things he didn’t know or understand.
I went to look around. The first thing I noticed was that there were no windows and I couldn’t hear a thing from the outside. It was quite warm in there, and spacious with a nice-size room where I woke up and played games with Mom. It was conjoined with a kitchen. From there, extended a hall with five doors.
What’s behind them? I wondered. I opened the first door. It looked like my parents’ room, but it was a lot smaller than the real one in the house. It had only a bed and a cabinet with clothes already in it. I hoped we didn’t move in there for too long.
I opened another door to a bathroom. Behind the next door was probably
my room, which was very small, and I didn’t like it at all. Only two doors left.
Which one first? There probably wouldn’t be anything interesting anyway, I thought. The next door was locked. Behind the door closest to the kitchen, I discovered a huge pantry. It was full of shelves containing large and small cans, various bottles, packets, etc. At the end of the room was a large metal cabinet with FIVE locks on.
OF COURSE, I thought annoyed. Everything what could be interesting was always locked; I hated locks.
When I was just about to leave the pantry, I saw it… the blue-orange packet! My favorite! I loved the jellies and marshmallow in chocolate. Mmmm…I’ll have one, and another, one more… How will Dad get in? Where was Bella? Were they behind the locked door? Was that the way out? What was all that food in here for? One more…Where to get the key? And another…mmm…
“Hey! Max, wake up! Did you eat all of them?”
When I opened my eyes, I felt really bad and very close to throwing up. On the floor where I had fallen asleep were about four empty packets. I didn’t remember being tired or even eating all of those sweets. Only that I felt anxious, couldn’t open the door, and the jellies were so good that I couldn’t stop eating. I threw up. Mom took me to kitchen and gave me something awful to drink. Surprisingly, I felt better in a couple of minutes.
“Don’t think about jellies!” I told myself. Every thought of them made me feel worse. I looked around and saw no signs of Dad or Bella. I didn’t even know if it were day or night because this place was missing windows.
“Where are Dad and Bella?”
“Don’t worry; Dad will be here soon. He had to take care of things. I’m sure they’re safe. He’ll probably be here tomorrow when you wake up,” she said but something in her face told me she was worried and she kept her hands on her belly almost all the time now, “I think in a couple of days, you’ll be a brother. If only your dad can make it on time.”
