City Power

If you've ever lived in my country, you'd know that power outages are a regular thing. So regular that at this point in my life, I've become accustomed to coming home from a long day of work to no power. One time, I had no power for thirteen hours and unfortunately my water runs with power, so I had no water too.

I'm sure many of you could not even fathom that, but in my country with the rife, if not blatant corruption and nepotism, it's quite normal. I mean if people in power can buy their degrees and be employed without any qualification, then I'm sure you know why this is a common thing here.

But that's beside the point, today like any normal day I was expecting no power, and would you have it I was right. The power at my work went out and it seemed our generator had stopped working too. This was heaven to me, as it meant I could go home early.

The power outages in my city are on a rotational basis, so just because I had no power at work, didn't mean I wouldn't have any at home. However, that wasn't the case, it seemed as I drove the power was out everywhere. At some point there was traffic and as I inched forward my car stopped working. My heart dropped; I didn't want to be one of those poor unfortunate people who have car trouble in the middle of traffic.

As I scrambled to start it, I reached out to put my hazards on, and nothing worked.

I looked outside and saw other people also having the same issue. People were getting out of the cars and knocking on other people's windows asking if they had the same problem. I too got out of my car.

"Hey, is everyone's cars not working!?" I shouted.

A young black man with glasses responded to me, " Yeah, I have no idea what's going on".

" Ugh don't tell me city power is shutting down cars too", I said jokingly, he laughed with me, but our laugh was cut short by

the screaming.

In front of us people were running, and I swear I saw cars flip

over. I jumped into my car to avoid the stampede of people when I saw it through my windscreen. Armored beings in metallic suits where shooting at

people.

It looked like something out of a science fiction movie. I tried

to make myself as small as possible to avoid them seeing me. I could hear the screams of people and felt my car shake from the armored beings’ heavy footsteps. I was shaking and everything seemed so surreal, my heart rate went through the roof, my breathing became labored and my palms sweaty.

I felt like I was dying.

…………………………………………………………………………….

When I came to, it was quiet, I was still in my car and it was dark. My body was stiff from being in a huddled position and I looked out my window into the darkness. There were cars all around me and bodies, people lying on cars and others in the road.

I took a deep breath and opened the car door, slowly and listened for any sound.

 It was so quiet.

As I opened my car door at my feet was the body of a young woman, her still lifeless body lied at my feet. I felt tears well up in my eyes, my breath became labored again and I closed my eyes and remembered to take deep breaths.

I stepped out of the car, making sure to take my phone and bag with me.

I tried to switch my phone on, but it wouldn’t turn on, worry overcame me as I began to think about my family at home. I began to walk forward in the direction of my home. I walked in the darkness, stepping over bodies and being very careful to trip over the bodies littered before me. As I walked past the cars, I heard something. I ducked down, scared that the armored beings were still here.

I strained my ears and heard whispering, “Shhh… quiet”, it was a person. A spark of hope lit up in my heart.

“Hello” I whispered back and heard nothing, I understood that they must be scared. “I’m a person”, I felt the need to say that, and heard a response.

“C-can you help us?” It was the voice of a child, “Yes” I said immediately.

“Keep whispering, I’ll come to you”.

I heard the child whisper and carefully made my way in the dark towards them. When I finally came closer, I saw that it was a young girl, a toddler, and a baby. The young girl was around ten and was holding the baby that seemed to be sleeping. They looked so afraid.

“Hey there, my name is Kieran. What’s yours?”

The girl looked at me, “I’m Tasha, this is my brother Quinten and my little brother Daniel”.

“Where are your parents?” I asked, knowing full well they were probably dead. The older girl, Tasha looked down, “Mommy got hurt helping us hide”.

I felt a lump in my throat, “It’s okay not Tasha, I’ll help you okay” she nodded and the baby began to make sounds. “You want my to hold him?” She looked hesitant, “I won’t take him okay”, she nodded and handed her little brother to me.

“Do you remember where your car is? So, I can get your little brother’s stuff.”

“It’s behind you”, I turned around and saw a big blue BMW x5, the doors were open so I began to rummage through the car. I found the baby supplies and even groceries. Not knowing what was going to happen, I took the children's backpacks and put the light food in them.

“Here you and Quinten carry this on your back. I then too the baby’s wrap and fastened it around me. I was so glad that I had done this with my nieces before, so I didn’t struggle. I put the baby’s bag on my shoulder and stuffed my backpack with food and the drinks.

“Okay kids, we’re going to walk okay, make sure to stick close to me and don’t let go of each other”.

Tasha and Quinten nodded.

I was surprised at how calm and compliant they were. I would’ve expected them to be hysterical, but I chalked it up to their young minds, not being able to grasp the situation at hand.

We walked along the highway passed hundreds of dead people and cars. I was certain the armored beings were no longer here, I made sure to call out quietly every so often just in case there may be others.

We walked down an intersection, with a large strip mall ahead. We entered the parking lot and as we entered a large light blinded us. The baby began to cry, and I called out for the kids to get behind me.

“Don’t move!” said a sharp robotic voice, I felt my blood freeze.

As soon as the light shut off the area was flooded with very strange looking beings. They didn’t look anything like the ones who had attacked everyone, but I was still weary.

“Survivors!” they shouted and from behind the strange people emerged humans. The fear in me was blown away in an instant and I fell to my knees. The kids clung to me, still afraid.

One of the strange looking beings came up to me, “Don’t worry we are not here to hurt you. We are here to help”.