The Long Sleep

Prologue

Last week had been a particularly grueling week at work. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. 

I worried and fretted all this weekend and I was very anxious about the upcoming week. 

So I decided to go to bed early. I remembered this was the weekend that Daylight Savings Time started, so I set my clock ahead one hour and I instantly drifted off to a sound, deep sleep…

Chapter 1

      It began with The Big Blast.

I was going about my everyday hustle and bustle work day when all of a sudden, it got very, very dark in the middle of the day. It was like a solar eclipse, which is when the Moon completely covers the Sun’s disk. 

      And then suddenly, there was a loud whirring sound. It was so loud I had to cover my ears, even though I and my co-workers were inside a big office building. Then, through the darkness, we could see a big red glow. An eerie red pall fell over everything as far as the eye could see…land, buildings, sky, clouds, people, cars, everything turned a glowing red that pierced the unnatural darkness.

      Then something hit the Earth which was The Big Blast. Everything simultaneously blew up and was on fire. We had to run to nearby underground storm shelters to escape the heat and the flames. The heat was extremely intense. We could feel it burning our flesh and singeing our hair. The soles of our feet turned black from the overheated pavement. 

      Soon we ventured out of the storm shelters.

Chapter 2

Our entire city and its skyscrapers and buildings and homes and stores and businesses now no longer existed. Everything was flattened. The land was scorched and charred beyond recognition. 

      Our shelter was the medium sized strip mall that was located about a quarter of a mile from where we survivors worked. 

      We rolled the old collapsed columns that once graced the mall, into and along the outside walls partially covering gaping holes that are open to the outside. The interior stores that once opened into the mall are now our little “homes.”

      We are completely closed in. There’s only one way in and one way out. 

The center of the mall is our gathering place. It’s where we eat as a group and gather for such things as meetings and weekly devotion. 

Parts of what was once the Food Court survived and provided us with some food and fuel from the several fast food restaurants that were housed in the mall.

There is a separate area at the far end of the mall where the children play on the few toy horses and electric cars that survived The Big Blast.

Running water is piped in from one old water tank that also somehow survived The Big Blast.

Supplies are running critically low, but we are making the most of what’s left. 

Chapter 3

There was an old mainframe computer salvaged from one of the nearby businesses and a man in our group was tinkering with it. And suddenly it crackled to life! 

A message popped up on the cracked, but still working, computer screen:

“Who are you?” the message asked.

“We are the survivors of what we’re calling The Big Blast. Who are you?” we answered back.

The computer screen was blank for a long while, and then all of a sudden it answered back:

“Where are you located?”

Anxiously, we answered back:

“We are holed up in the old Radio Shack Mall on the corner of what used to be Fifth Avenue and Meridian. There are about 56 adults, 30 men and 26 women and 18 children.” 

“Please, tell us who you are and where you are,” we implored.

      No one ever answered our last request and the computer screen remained dark.

No one responded.

Chapter 4

      We were running critically low on supplies, so we decided as a group to send out a large search party. We needed to try and salvage whatever might be out there that would contribute to our continued survival.

      Twenty able bodied men and women and husky young teenagers all ventured out together. They had ropes and knives and were dragging sleds and surf boards from the old sports store that was once in the mall. These were make-do sleds for carrying anything of use back to the encampment survivors.

      The group walked around the demolished and devastated city. They were shocked and saddened by the total destruction. 

      Along the way, they scavenged a couple of generators here, a tattered blanket there, and a few old tires and other miscellaneous other items.

Chapter 5

When the few sleds were fairly well loaded up, the group decided to turn back. They circled around a different way than they had originally come to scavenge a new area for anything salvageable.

      They found a few items. What they did find would have to do. They headed back to the safety of the encampment.

      When they arrived at the main door of the encampment, they were shocked! They couldn’t believe their eyes! 

They were startled and frightened by a group of alien-looking creatures who appeared to be guarding the front door of our encampment. The women screamed and ran over and clutched the men in their group.

The foreign-looking things were hideous. They were all white, actually colorless, and their skin was so transparent, you could see their internal organs and what appeared to be a very black liquid flowing in and through their bodies.

They had no hair and they had big black eyes. Dead eyes that were constantly moving – they appeared to see all, yet see nothing at all.

They had two sets of arms and hands. They all appeared to be holding a weapon of some sort, each weapon looking more ominous than the next.

There was a leader and one of our men said to him, “Who are you and what do you want?”

The alien pointed to the door of the mall. One of his servants opened the door with one of its four hands and then the leader motioned us in.

Chapter 6

      The rest of our group of survivors were all gathered together in a group in the middle of the mall and were surrounded by alien guards that each had a weapon. We had no weapons at all, we were at their mercy.

      Our scavenger party all hurried in and joined the others. We were scared to death and now we and our fellow survivors had all been captured.

      The aliens had found us from the information we ourselves had provided on the computer. We had been talking to these creatures and had given them our exact location! 

The lead alien and all his minions suddenly and simultaneously put their fingers up to what served as their mouths in what we would call a “Shhh” sign.

      This shell of our existence could easily be broken, but the secret can never be spoken.      

The doors of the mall then closed quietly behind us.

Epilogue

I woke up with a jolt. My heart was pounding and I was soaked with an inky black substance.

And nothing looked the same as when I went to sleep. The world, as we knew it, no longer existed.

Just how long had I been asleep?

The End