The Heart of Chaos

[Monday]

"The truth is that nothing moved, nothing changed,
nothing whatever appeared to happen and yet I
experienced a feeling of elemental terror so great that
I lost all sense of who, or what, or where I was. I was
in the heart of chaos, and no power of mind or body
was of use against it."

~Part One, Page Fifty, Outlander

I still remember the day when I knew my world had changed forever. It wasn’t when I first heard about the world altering experiment soon to be done through the combined powers of several nations. There was talk about the limitless potential of our nations and others top research facilities putting their heads together to create this one super machine. But I was young and happy and didn’t pay much attention to any other fact at the time.
It certainly was not the day the whole world shut down that was most disturbing to me. I think I was in to much of a state of shock that no, I couldn’t go call my best friend, and no, I couldn’t go chat with people on the internet. But like it or not, October 18th was the last time any of us ever heard a phone ring or saw a computer monitor turn on.
Even with all of this hanging over my head the memory most scorched in my mind as being just god awful was the day that they left. Gone. Never to be seen again, at least not by me.
Had I known, had I even the smallest of inklings that this would happen, I could have demanded they not go anywhere, or in the very least, I would have gone with them. But life’s never going to be that easy, especially now, and as I stood by our front door, waving goodbye to the last of my mother’s easy smiles or my big brother’s classic wink that I would ever witness again, I really wasn’t that worried. But I should have been.

[Monday]

October 17th, now that I think about it, was one of those eerily perfect days. I took a test in History and aced it and our teacher was absent in math so all I did was hang out the whole period. To top it all of, after school I went to the Friday football game with Chad Stevens, the hottest guy on the basketball team. He had been flirting with me for weeks but every time he asked me out, I had turned him down. But that night, I figured I would through the guy a bone, for once. Plus I knew this really hateful girl who had a thing for him and I wanted to rub it in her face...
Yeah, I was one of those girls. On the cheer leading team (not varsity, thanks to Amanda Hutchinson, the hateful girl with the crush on Chad who was captain of the squad and for some reason hated my guts), dated most of the football team, and was on friendly terms with most of the school. What most people didn't know about me, though, was that I was actually a good student. I was taking all AP classes and was even in the top five percent of my class. Not that I advertised the fact but it convinced my parents to let my curfew be at 11 rather then the 10 that Matty (my older brother) had at my age.

[Monday]

Despite my later curfew, I was home by 10:30 that night. I remember coming home that night specifically, because my dad wasn't waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs where he usually was. Instead, I found my mom, who informed me that he had to leave abruptly for business but would be back in a couple of days. This would have seemed strange to me, even if it wasn't the day before the world ended. My dad's business was admittedly pretty secretive, but usually kept him close to home.
When I asked my mother this, however, all I got was, "I wish you wouldn't worry, honey, he'll be home soon."
"I know," I replied, almost defensively, "I just think it's strange."
She shrugged her shoulders and walked up the stairs to go to bed. My mother was never worried about anything.
I woke up fairly early the next morning. The Morning, as it was. I remembered hearing on the news that a cold front was coming in soon, and by the time it passed another would be just around the corner. I wanted to do some last minute tanning before the winter season officially started.
After I got out of the shower, I walked downstairs to the most delightful smell in the world. "Honey," my mom greeted me with a smile, "why don't you sit down and eat some breakfast?"
I normally wasn't much of a breakfast person, but my normal aversion was starting to bend. French toast was my single favorite breakfast food, and it was a rarity to get my working mother's cooking so early in the morning. The very smell of it had my mouth watering, and against such attacks, I had no defense. I obediently took a seat and dug in before the plate even hit the table. I couldn't have chosen anything better for my last meal cooked on a real stove.
After cleaning up, I changed into my swimsuit, grabbed a towel, and headed for the back yard. It was delightfully sunny and warm outside, even at ten in the morning, and I took a dip in the pool before lying out on the side.
I must have dozed off listening to my Ipod or something because it was approximately five minutes past noon when I heard my brothers annoying voice waking me up.
"Alex, get your lazy butt up."
He sounded annoyed, which just started to get me annoyed. I sighed before opening my eyes, mentally releasing my perfectly relaxed state of mind.
"Your one to talk you know," I said huffily, "What time did you wake up this morning? Eleven o'clock?"
"That's not important right now," At this I most definitely rolled my eyes. What ever Matt thought was important should, therefore, be on everyone else's priority list as well. "What is important is that the TV won't turn on."
It wasn't until this point that I realized that their was no music playing in my ear. I looked down at my blank Ipod screen, and sighed again. I couldn't believe that I had already worn the battery down.
"Did you try pressing the power button?" I said, in response to my brother's question.
He did that little thing were his ears flashed red, and just glared at me.
"Hey, that's a valid question, especially when dealing with you." After another flash of red and even nastier glare, I said, "How about the power cord? Is it plugged in?"
"Look," he said to me, "Would ya' stop being a smart ass and just come and take a look real quick?" I could tell my brother's temper was reaching boiling point and decided not to tempt the fates.
"Fine," I said, rising from my lounge chair, "but I'm going to laugh if it takes me less then a minute to fix whatever you did to the television."

[Monday]

But there was no occasion to laugh. In fact, I couldn't find the problem in ten minutes much less five. All the while, Matty just sat behind me huffing and puffing. He never really was the patient type. Then again, neither was I.
Actually, my brother and I really weren't all that different at all, besides the fact that he was a couple of years older then me. We were both tall with dark hair and tan skin. We were both apart of what some might call the popular crowd, at least he had been when he was in high school. Matty, unlike me, became easily distracted when it came to the opposite sex, and payed more attention to his steady girlfriend, Veronica Mills, throughout his Mason High career and less to his studies. Consequently, he was now attending courses at a community college majoring in accounting (he wasn't particularly good at math, but couldn't think of anything else to do) while I was well on the road to attending an Ivy League school.
And, in the end, how did Miss Veronica thank him for all of his dedication? She dumped him the day after graduation and moved to Santa Monica to become a movie star. That was why I had allowed myself to have a boyfriend, but never anything to serious. I didn't want to take my eyes off of the goal. I just wish I would have known all of those years that my dreams would be abruptly taken from me.
Anyways, it had been almost two years since 'the breakup', and he was doing pretty good, besides the fact that he still lived with his parents.
And that he couldn't turn on a TV. But neither could I, so what did that say about me?

[Monday]

I was so focused on just trying to turn on the stupid TV that I hadn't even noticed that the lights weren't on.
"Mathew," I said, glaring at my brother. I only ever called him by his full name when I was really angry. "Why aren't the lights on?"
He looked around him, as if only just realizing that we were in the dark. He walked over to the light switch, and after flicking it up and down a few times, he looked even more confused. "Hmmm," he said, "that's weird."
"Uhh, ya' think?"
I got up from the ground, from were I was trying to "fix" our television. "So what now, genius boy?"
"Alex," I heard my mom say as she entered the room, "What's wrong with the lights?"
I sighed before answering. "The power must be out or something," I said to my mom. Sometimes it felt like I was the only one in my family who knew what in the hell they were doing. Besides my dad of course, who, unfortunatly was mysteriously out of town. "I'll call the electric company."

[Monday]

I pulled out my cell phone, which was off for some unexplained reason. My brow furrowed in confusion before I tried to revive it with no luck. Chills went up my spine as I remembered my Ipod mysteriously not working as well. I now knew that the batteries hadn't really run out... I had just charged it last night.
"Something is very wrong here."
Both my mother and my brother looked at me strangely. "Is something wrong with your phone, too?" my mom asked, not seeming to grasp the depth of how strange this really was.
"Yeah," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, "but that shouldn't have anything to do with the power outage."
Matt, starting to get frustrated said, "I don't understand". The truth was, neither did I. And it scared me, more then it really should. But there was no doubt in my mind that this was bad news.
"Come on," I said, walking toward the front door and gesturing for them to follow me, "We should go see if the neighbors are having any of the same problems."

[Monday]

As it turned out, all of our neighbors were having the same problems. It seemed to have taken them the same amount of time as it took us to figure out that there was something wrong with the electronics in their house. They were huddled in a mass of twenty to twenty-five people all talking over each other, their voices slowing turning hysterical.
"-how this could have happened?" complained Betty Miller, a woman who lived on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac from us, "I mean, don't they have some kind of back up system or something?"
"That's right," cried Mrs. Stephens, the woman who lived next to her, "I have a party that starts at four, and I have to-"
"Who cares about your stupid party," growled the crotchety old man who lived down the street, who's name I couldn't quite recall at the moment. "I'm missing my TV show that comes on in-"
"A TV show? I was supposed to be getting a phone call!" Someone else interjected.
This little argument, if you could call it that, continued for a few more minutes before someone finally shouted for it to stop.
"Instead of complaining we need to come up with a solution," explained, Rob McGuire who lived right next door to us. He was married and had a one year old son named William (Willy for short), but I thought I remembered hearing that his wife and baby were visiting her parents while Rob was staying to finish up some work before joining them. My dad had said his wife and him were probably the only neighbors that actually passed as tolerable.
"From what I've heard," he continued, "it's not just the electricity that's out. I was mowing my lawn when it all of a sudden died, and I don't think any of our cell phones are working. I bet this means none of the cars or other vehicles will run either."
There was a murmuring in the crowd as people contemplated not being able to get to the store, their loved ones, or even a place were the electricity was working. They didn't want to believe it. They all knew the truth in the back of their minds, but it still seemed an impossibility. Several of them walked to their individual vehicles, going to try it out themselves.
Matty was about to go as well, but I grabbed his arm as he started to walk away. "I believe him," I mouthed. This seemed to keep him from going, but he still stood there, obviously anxious, trying to deny his curiosity and desperate hope that Rob was somehow mistaken.
We sat silent for a few moments, waiting to hear the roar of the engines as the people around us tried to crank their cars to life. But there was no such comforting noise.
We all turned back to Rob, desperate for answers. He seemed to realize what we wanted. "I really have no idea why this is happening, but I suggest we all sit tight and just wait for some news. I'm sure the power will turn back eventually, but we shouldn't let ourselves get panicked. There's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this."
My mind couldn't help but jump to my favorite old mystery cartoon, where there was always a perfectly reasonable explanation for the monsters. Just a man behind the mask. I hoped the reason for all of this could be just as simple and relatively harmless. But somehow I doubted that.
Again, I was struck by the depth of my fear at this mysterious lack of power. Really, it should be nothing. But it didn't feel that way.

[Monday]

There seemed to be a collective sigh that came from the group at the end of Rob's break down of the situation. No one really knew what they were supposed to do, but we all turned around and trudged back inside. I glanced at my mom and realized that she had gone a few shades paler. Matty just continued to look angry, his brow furrowed in a way that almost made me want to laugh. He was the most lovable person I knew.
As I came back inside, the feeling of panick slowly started to diminish. This probably only amounted to nothing, and they would have the power up and runing in no time. We were going to be fine, I told myself, just fine.
As soon as we all made it to the kitchen, my natural tendacy to organize and plan started to take over.
"So," I said, turning toward my mom and brother, "we should probably make a game plan, just in case this thing lasts more then a few hours."
My mother nodded her assent.
"We need to find some candles for when it get's dark outside. And all the food in the fridge is going to be ruined, so we should probably eat it first.

[Monday]

We spread out, looking for anything that might be useful. I found a pack of old candles my mom had bought years ago, right before the Y2K scare. I was pretty young back then, but I distinctly remember my dad humoring my mom when he let her get them. He had scoffed at the idea of all the panic. I wondered what he was thinking about all of this. Maybe there weren't even the same problems were he was as there were here.
I tried to imagine what was going on, why this was happening. How far did the power outage reach? Was the whole city affected? the state, the country? I couldn't even conceive the whole world experiencing this kind of phenomenon.
I shut the door on my curiosity and tried to focus on the problems at hand. First of all, I was wondering how this was going to affect me school wise. I wanted to know if this all would just blow over by Monday, because I knew that I really couldn't push my schedule back any farther. I still had college applications to fill out, research to do, and trying to figure out how much financial aid I was going to have to apply for. I was keeping my eye on the ball, the master plan in sight. And a little setback such as this was not going to get in my way...

[Monday]

We made it through the night, but the morning sun brought with it new fears. I woke up thirsty, and automatically reached for the sink faucet with a glass in hand. I turned the knob, but nothing came out: we didn't have any water. A ran to the pantry and noticed that we only had half a case of water bottles before the real panic started to set in.
What if the power didn't come back on for a while? Weeks, maybe? What would we do? We lived in the middle of suburbia, it wasn't as if we could walk to a stream or something to get a drink. We'd have to walk five miles to get to the closest gas station, and if they were out of water (which was very likely if the whole city was experiencing the same problems) the three of us would have to walk another ten miles to get to the grocery store.
I was willing to bet that they would get everything working before too long, but I wasn't willing to take that risk if it meant our lives were at stake. And they surely would be, left without water.
I walked into the room where Matty and mom were having a light-hearted conversation, but I couldn't exactly concentrate on what it was about. I could feel that my eyebrows were creased and that my mouth was set in a hard line, and I wanted to calm so that I wouldn't worry them. I didn't want all three of us to have to be anxious as hell, but I couldn't get my features to relax a single millimeter.
"We're going to have to leave," I broke right into their conversation, unable to contain my startling realization a moment longer.
They looked at me confused. "What? Why?" my mother asked.
"The water isn't working," I walked to the sink to illustrate my point, "and sitting here and hoping that someone will rescue us is foolish. We can't live without water and the fact of the matter is that we don't know if our situation is going to change anytime soon."
They sat there in shocked silence for a few moments but I could see the truth of my words slowly sinking in.
"You're right, of course," said Matty, and he gave me a weak smile. "So, what's the plan?"
"I'm not really sure," I confessed. "I mean, we could go track down some supplies from the store and bring them back here, but then we could end up running low again before anyone finds us. It might just do us better to leave the house and move closer to the city."
"But were would we stay?" chimed in my mother, her lips pail with worry, "We can't just live on the streets."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Whatever we decide, we need to do it quickly. There are a thousand other people in the same situation as us, all looking for a way to get to water."
"We'll compromise," Matty looked pleased with himself; he must have come up with a good idea, or at least one he thought was good. "We'll go to the store, see if we can find out any news, and we can decided then if it would be worth it to just go back home or if we should keep moving."
I smiled, "Sounds good. But there's one other thing. I think one of us should stay here in case everything starts working again, or in case some kind of news arrives." I looked at my mother when I said this. I had other motives for wanting her to be the one to stay here then the ones I spoke aloud. She didn't need to walk the streets now, what with all the looting that was probably going on. I didn't want to put her in that kind of danger. But before I could say any of this, Matty had already volunteered me.
"Lex, you should probably be the one to stay," He looked completely serous as he said this, too.
"What?" I asked, honestly confused.
"Your brothers right, sweetie," cooed my mother, "I think it would be too dangerous, and I don't trust people to keep calm in a crisis like this."
"I'll be fine, mom, it's you I'm worried about."
"Mathew will be there to protect your poor defenseless mother, and besides I'm a very fit forty-seven year old."
She did run a mile every day, but that was beside the point.
"This is ridiculous," I protested, "It was my idea, I should be the one that gets to go!" It was a poor defense, but I was running out of ideas, and time was slipping on by. Whoever was leaving should have left five minutes ago.
My mom put her stern face on that I hadn't seen in years, and I knew before the first word of her Riot Act that I was defeated. "You may be almost an adult, young lady, but while you still live under my roof, you will abide by what I tell you."
I glanced at Matty, a look of betrayal clearly stamped on my face.
"Don't be that way, Lex. We'll be back before you know it." He placed his hand on my shoulder to comfort me, but I just shrugged it off. "We'll walk down to the Exxon down the road and, if we're unlucky there, will go to the Wal-mart. Expect us back in two days, at the latest."
Ten minutes later, they were out the door with a flashlight, a knapsack filled with ten bottles of water, and smiles on their faces.

[Monday]

It took three days before I started to get low on water and to really panic. I was nearly as concerned with the water situation I was in as with the fact that they still weren't back . The idea of being all alone in the world was unbearable and every time I thought about them, wondered what was going on, and why it was taking them so long to get back home, my heart would start to race and I found it difficult to breath. I tried to push the thought from my mind and concentrate on my own immediate danger, but it was no easy task.
Dawn on the fourth day after they left broke, and I knew it was no longer a feasible option to stay where I was. I got a knapsack that consisted of my remaining water, some food, a jacket and a change of clothes but that was basically it. At the time, I really thought that I'd see my home again.
I headed down the road I knew my mom and brother would have taken, and I raced toward every corner, hoping to see them around it. But all I got was disapointment after disapointment.

[Monday]

(( I have a feeling that this part is going to be kind of hard for me. i don't know exactly how to get to the point i want to be, and have it make any sense. whenever i think of an idea to explain what's going on, it sounds stupid in my head. i'm going to have to think on it for a while i guess... i'll get back to you. lol))

[Monday]

I had been walking all day, and was exhausted, both physically and mentally. From what I could feel, I had a few blisters on my feet and my head was pounding from dehydration. I had finished off the last of my water at about noon, and it was starting to get dark out now. It may have been late October, but it was still farely warm outside.
Though this would be enough for any normal person, there was still my emotions to eat at me. There had been too much to process in too little time. I had gone from loosing any hope of a normal future to loosing everyone I cared for shortly after. Try as I might to push away the negative, avoiding any thought of my family was impossilbe, so I focused on simply finding them. It helped, but not by much.
I avoided others like the plague. I saw quite a few people, sometimes in groups and sometimes by themselves, walking the streets, seemingly headed for no place in particular. I wasn't up for trusting strangers, especially with what the state of the world in it's current condition.
I was already at the edge of the neighborhood, and had determined to continue going as far as I could when the sky opened up. Despite the heat, when the first drop of rain hit me, I could already feal the chill of it on my skin. At first, I was thankful. I opened my mouth wide and drank whatever I could get that was falling from the sky in torrents. I had thought ahead and brought with me a wide container to catch rain in and also brought a few empty water bottles. My shirt was quickly soaked through and I twisted as much as I could get out into the bottles as well.
But even after all of them were filled to the brim, the water still came, and I was freezing. I cursed Texas weather that could give me a warm sunny day one minute and ice cold rain the next, before I turned back the way I had come.
I needed some kind of rest tonight, but I knew I wasn't going to get any in this mess. The idea of walking into a stranger's house, especially under these conditions, was not that appealing. But I didn't have much of a choice. I walked to the closest house near me, knowing that it was just as likely to house a murderer as a kind little old lady. I was hoping for option three: Nobody home at all. If I had known who I would find, I probably would have turned back. But, eventually, I grew to be thankful.

[Wednesday]

((I don't know If I would drink the ran... might get her a bit sick.))

[Monday]

((...why?))