The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away? (New Dawn Book 1)

by Jacqueline Brown

  “Thank you. That’s very nice of you,” Blaise said, her voice somber.

  She was the calm one of our group. She neither minimized nor exaggerated experiences. She took them as they were presented to her, with as little judgment as possible. She often said things weren’t good or bad, they just were. I wondered now what she thought of all that was happening around us.

  Sara looked from East to Jonah, her eyes pleading. “What about our families?” she asked.

  “Where are you all from?” East’s tone was softer and less cynical.

  “We go to school at Columbia,” Blaise said, “but our families are all over. My parents are in Pennsylvania and Josh’s parents and sisters are in Nebraska.”

  “My mom and sister live near DC,” Sara said, looking down as she spoke.

  I knew I was supposed to say something, but I couldn’t. The lump in my throat grew as I realized that if Jonah and East were right, if this was an attack, then our nation’s capital would’ve been a primary target in this attack, and my father with it. How would it defend itself now, without machines or electronics of any kind? Even if the city had survived invaders, the chaos brought on by the food and water shortages would cut it to its knees. The place I was raised. The place my father still lived would be destroyed and my father with it.

  Blaise spoke for me. “Bria’s dad is in DC too.”

  Sara lifted her head and looked at me. “We can’t just leave them,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “What can we do?” I asked, barely loud enough for my own ears to hear.

  “We have to try,” she replied in a pleading tone. “We can’t leave them in DC. It was probably the target.”

  I knew Sara was right. But I also knew there was nothing we could do.

  East stepped toward us. “For now you should come with us. You can figure out what to do when we know more,” she said.

  Sara stiffened. “No, we can’t abandon our families,” she said. “I can’t abandon my family.” Tears were running down her face.

  “Sara, we don’t have food or water. Or any way to stay warm,” Blaise said, putting her hand on Sara’s shoulder.

  “We wouldn’t make it,” I said, looking at her, my voice stronger.

  “We have to try,” Sara said again.

  “We would die. There’s no way we wouldn’t,” I said, my voice firm.

  Josh stepped toward us. “I think we should go with East and Jonah. From there we can think it through more, and prepare,” he said, his voice emotional yet steady.

  Sara said nothing. I took her hand. She pulled it away.

  Josh held tightly to Blaise’s hand. They were to become each other’s family in a year, but now, with their parents so far away, it seemed they had just become the only family they had. Sara and I were alone.

  * * *

  On my back I carried my school bag, emptied of books, now full of clothes from my large suitcase. I balanced my purse on the small roller bag I dragged down the interstate. Both had been emptied of much of their prior contents, and now contained the necessities, as Blaise and Josh had insisted on. I had pulled on the only pair of jeans I had, over the thin leggings. I traded my heeled boots for running shoes, and found a forgotten running jacket stuffed in the back of my trunk. Everyone else had a coat. It had been freezing when we left New York, but I refused to take mine partly because I was in an obstinate mood and partly because I was already thinking of the warm Florida Thanksgiving we were going to bask in.

  It was supposed to be a relaxing trip. We were taking Sara away to help her forget about her latest short-lived relationship, but I knew it was also to get me away from Trent. None of my friends liked him, and I couldn’t blame them.

  As for Trent, he believed he was a catch. And on the outside he was. He was rich, handsome, well-connected, well-educated, driven, and intelligent. But on the inside he was mean, self-absorbed, judgmental, and borderline abusive. Some stay in unhealthy relationships because they don’t see the unhealth. I stayed because I did and knew I deserved it.

  Trent had asked me to go skiing with him for Thanksgiving. Sara made a plea that she needed to get away and wanted to go to Florida. Blaise and Josh agreed a trip to Florida would be just the thing to help Sara. Trent tried to get me to choose him over my friends. It turned into a fight, and in the end he decided to go with some friends to Las Vegas because he knew it would hurt me. He knew I detested the friends he was going with. I knew exactly what they were going to do when they were in “sin city” and I hated them for it. I felt anger rise and burn my cheeks. I deserve very little because I bring very little. I know this, and Trent reminded me often. Even so, I believe in monogamy and that much I did bring and did deserve.

  I took a deep breath. How much of that mattered now? Trent had probably landed an hour before the light flashed. Had there been a light on the West Coast as well? If so, Las Vegas would’ve been hit. How would Trent survive in the desert, in the winter, where food and water basically have to be bussed in? How would anyone?

  I reached for my phone in my back pocket; I wanted to call him to see if he was okay. As my hand touched it, I remembered what I had forgotten. It didn’t work, nothing worked. As stupid as it was, I couldn’t bring myself to leave my phone behind. None of us could. Though none of us said it, I knew we each hoped that somehow they would work again. That somehow we were overestimating the seriousness of the situation and our phones could be fixed. The pit in my stomach told me that, if anything, we were underestimating the seriousness of the situation.

  I turned to look at my car. It had been swallowed by the darkness.

  Three

  I could see the faint hint of the rising sun as we trudged past the exit sign that read HOODVILLE. A strange feeling came over me as I read the word, but a moment later it passed. My gaze shifted to Jonah, walking a few paces ahead of me. The muscles of his left arm bulged from the weight of the duffel bag he carried. I don’t know if I could have carried it for more than a few feet; he made it look effortless.

  He and East set the pace. Sara, Blaise, and I walked side by side and Josh brought up the rear. It was clear that East and Jonah were in the best shape, but they were also motivated to get home. The rest of us had nothing that we were walking toward, and with each step south we got farther from our families. We had no other option. Not today, anyway.

  Thinking of my friends, I worried we might not be accepted as readily as we would’ve been yesterday. My skin was pale and my hair was light, like Jonah’s and East’s and probably most of the people who lived in this part of the state, but my friends were various shades of tan and brown. Blaise had been adopted from China when she was a baby. Her skin was as light as mine, but her eyes were blacker than her jet-black hair. Sara called herself a melting pot. Her grandparents all hailed from different parts of the world—Germany, Ireland, Africa, Brazil. The result was my exquisitely beautiful friend. Her skin was light brown, her curly hair black, and her eyes like emeralds too dark for light to pierce. Out of the four of us, Josh was the darkest. His mother was from Guatemala and his dad from Nebraska. He looked as though he could be from the Middle East. It made me nervous for him.

  If we assumed, like Jonah did, that we had been attacked, then the obvious question was who attacked us? The relationship between the United States and China had become increasingly hostile. All trade had been stopped between the nations two months ago. Prices of everything had soared. Blaise had already started to deal with hate-filled people on the street. Then, of course, there was the constant tension in the Middle East.

  None of my friends were oblivious to how their appearance shaped their interactions with people … especially in recent years as global conflicts increased. For the most part they never had any trouble, but whatever this was, just changed the world. Jonah and East didn’t seem to care, but what about their family? What about the people who lived in this rural part of North Carolina?

  Jonah and East led the way off the interstate. The exit was
so small and the area so rural that there wasn’t anything more than a stop sign on either side of the interstate.

  We walked off the interstate, facing the sliver of sun that was beginning to mark the start of a new day—one that was categorically different than yesterday, when I had woken up in the apartment I shared with Blaise and Sara. My alarm clock played whatever song was on my playlist at the moment. I took a hot shower and ate scrambled eggs. Today there would be no songs on playlists, no hot showers or hot meals. No electricity of any kind, if Jonah was right. I feared he was.

  I thought of my father. How would he survive without power or transportation? How would he get food? How would any of them? How would we?

  With food on my mind, I couldn’t move past it. I was suddenly aware of a growing hunger and an almost overpowering thirst.

  “Can we stop?” I asked, not caring what the response was. I stopped dragging the suitcase to fish through my purse for the half a bottle of water and protein bar. The suitcase fell flat. I cared for half a second and then realized I was too tired to care about anything. I sat on top of it. My feet throbbed as I removed the weight of my body from them. I was in decent shape, but walking for five hours up and down the rolling hills of North Carolina, dragging a suitcase, not having slept for twenty-four hours, it was all taking its toll. I wanted to cry, but refused. Not because I was being tough; I knew once I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “I recommend you sip your water and eat as little food as you need to,” Jonah announced to the group, though he was looking at me.

  He and East stopped a few feet ahead of the rest of us, each of them reaching for their metal water bottle and then sitting on the ground.

  “He’s right. We don’t know how long it will take us to find more of either,” Josh added as he slipped Blaise’s backpack from his back.

  She sat and he followed. They were so in sync. They rarely needed to speak to one another; they seemed to read each other’s mind. He took a small sip of his water bottle before passing it to her. She took an equally small sip and put it back in her backpack. Sara sat by my feet. I gave her half of my protein bar. We nibbled and sipped our waters.

  Blaise looked at us. “I keep thinking this has to be a bad dream.”

  I could hear the exhaustion in her voice. Her straight black hair, which was usually so neat, was in a messy ponytail. Josh put his arm around her and she sank into him. He wrapped his other arm around her and laid his head on hers as she cried silent tears. Sara reached out and rubbed her shin. Blaise held on tightly to Sara’s hand.

  I sat, trying not to feel. I didn’t want to acknowledge the pain Blaise was feeling because that would mean I had to acknowledge my own pain, my own fear of this new world, and I didn’t have the strength to do that.

  “How far until we get to your house?” I asked, my voice cracking as I looked at East and Jonah.

  “About twenty miles, so maybe six hours or so,” Jonah answered.

  He watched me in a way that made me uneasy. He didn’t look at me in a creepy-guy way. I think I would have preferred that look. At least I understood it and knew to keep my guard up. The look he gave me made no sense. It was as if he was trying to figure something out. Figure me out, I suppose, but why would he care?

  I was tired of sitting.

  I stood and repositioned my backpack. He watched as I did so and then quickly turned away. As if he suddenly realized he was staring.

  Everyone stood up silently. No one was ready to move, though everyone understood we had to keep going.

  We walked facing the sun. I dug through my purse and found my oversized sunglasses. Slipping them on made me feel a little more normal. Not everything was different. They also provided me with some privacy. My eyes could not be seen and neither could my tears.

  The road we were on was small, two lanes. Trees bordered both sides. Yesterday I would have said it was pretty, with the last of the leaves floating to the ground in the early-morning sun, and crunching softly beneath our feet as we walked. But today, “pretty” felt like a luxury. Survival was all that mattered now.

  As we trudged on we came across a small black car with a yellow bumper sticker that read: I BELIEVE. I had no idea what that meant and I didn’t care.

  When Jonah and East saw it, they came to life.

  “Eli made it, he made it home!” East shouted as she ran up and hugged the car.

  “I thought he wasn’t driving up until today. Thank God he came early,” Jonah said, putting his arm around East.

  “Thank you, God,” she said as she lifted her gaze to the sky.

  They hugged, not seeming to want to let go of one another.

  “This is our older brother’s car.” East was practically laughing as she told us. “He said he couldn’t get away until today, but this is his car, so he must have made it.”

  “He’ll be home by now,” Jonah said, looking at the dead watch on his wrist.

  Blaise said, “That is wonderful. We’ll all try and walk faster so you two can get home to your family.”

  She was always so kind. I knew she missed her parents, yet she was happy for East and Jonah.

  Jonah and East picked up their forgotten luggage. “Thanks,” they said in unison, and smiled at each other some more. Their joy was contagious.

  As the leaves crunched underfoot and the rising sun started to warm the cold air, I realized that I was lucky. Even if I wasn’t walking toward my home where my parents and sibling waited for me, I was still lucky. I had my family with me. I missed my father, though he left me long ago. I knew he loved me, but even as a child I realized he was afraid of love. He loved my mom, and he lost her. The loss was too much for him.

  I can’t remember him before her death, and I can barely remember my mom at all. What I can remember is the love I felt when I was with them. It was an overwhelming, all-encompassing love that I have never felt since. My parents had loved so deeply, and they had loved me so deeply. I wished desperately she had lived, that I had grown up with that love, but at least I had it even if for a short time. Others, like Sara, never knew it.

  Her parents fought, physically fought throughout her childhood, before her mom finally escaped with her and her sister when Sara was ten. Her father eventually located them, but no longer physically beat her mom; instead, he fought her in court for custody of them. He had money; her mom did not—he made sure of that. He won. Sara and her sister only saw their mom every other weekend and a few weeks during school breaks. With their mom gone, his violence turned to his daughters. Sara said he never beat them like he had their mom, but he “punished” them when he thought they deserved it. She said that was often. She took “her share” of the abuse and her sister’s too; she did what she could to protect her.

  When her sister was thirteen and she was sixteen, the girls begged the judge to let them live with their mother. Despite their father’s attorneys doing everything they could to discredit their mother, the judge agreed to let them go home. Once her dad could no longer hurt her mother by keeping them from her, he left. He moved out of state and stopped paying child support, causing Sara’s mom to pick up a second job cleaning offices at night. Sara also worked to help support herself and her little sister. She worked hard in school and got a scholarship to Columbia. She hadn’t seen her dad since she was seventeen. If she had her wish, she would never see him again.

  At Columbia she started going to the counseling center. She knew she needed help. She soon understood that she sought out guys because she needed love, but even though she understood it, she still did it. She had more one-night stands than she wanted to remember. She felt horrible about herself and had on more than one occasion come back to our apartment, sobbing in the early-morning hours. But then she’d meet someone new and do it all again. It was her addiction. I knew by the way she looked at Jonah that he was her newest drug. I felt sorry for both of them.

  I understood her behavior. I had done the same thing when I was younger. I was desperate fo
r love and attention. Guys, the wrong guys, could sense my desperation and flocked to me. I made a lot of really stupid choices, but then I made one mistake that was unforgivable. After that, I stopped looking for love or attention. I realized I deserved neither.

  Trent came along during my junior year of college. He was charming and incredibly persistent. Most guys moved on pretty quickly when I turned them down, but not Trent. Time after time he showed up with flowers, poems, homemade desserts. He was Prince Charming and he made me feel like a princess. That all changed after we started dating. And after we slept together, any remnant of Prince Charming was scrubbed away. I wanted to leave, but I kept thinking—and he kept telling me—it was my fault that he changed, and if I would be a better girlfriend he would get back to who he was before. I loved that person and I wanted him back, so I tried and tried. After a year of trying, I realized that this was who he was. The Prince Charming was only a facade, a ploy he used to lure me in. From then on I stopped trying, but I didn’t leave.

  Sara, probably because she grew up with domestic violence, saw through him first, and has hated him ever since. The three of them tried to protect me, tried to keep me from being alone with him. They were pretty effective. He only ever hit me once. Josh confronted Trent about the bruises and threatened to call the police if he ever did it again. Trent knew I wouldn’t call the police. He also knew I wouldn’t lie to the police; he didn’t have that much power over me—not yet, anyway. So he begged for my forgiveness and swore he had changed. He said if I would be “good,” then he would too.

  For our one-year anniversary he took me to Cape Cod. It was the first time we had spent any real time alone since he hit me a few months before. I promised my friends it would be fine. Trent was on his best behavior as we drove and that first night, but when we woke up the next morning he was his old self. He didn’t hit me, but he criticized everything I did—even the way I brushed my hair. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to control me, not love me.