The Shadows Before Sunrise

“I’ve always found the lights to be overwhelming.”

“They always seem to be shining into my eyes, blinding my vision and reasoning. The lights are probably my biggest enemy, the obstacle on my path to success. I don’t see why we need the light anyways.”

“On the other hand, the darkness lets me feel free. Void of any and all color, it feels as if real life… isn’t real. In the darkness, I can feel my consciousness floating into the air, and time seems to stop. I feel as if I can do anything if I don’t have to see the world around me. I wonder what life would be like if it all went dark.” I wrote in my journal around 8 years ago. Back then, before the blackout, I thought darkness was my best friend. I always felt calmer in the dark. 

So much has changed since then.

This story takes place around 6 years ago, before the things and people I loved plunged into the darkness.

The story began with an event that no one enjoys talking about. The earthquake. While the earthquake was horrible, the aftershocks that followed were what dragged my safe place, my heaven, into a living hell. 

When it began, I was at school in art class. 

It was the end of the day, and the sun was setting outside. As I was painting the family portrait, I planned to hang it on the fridge once I got home.

Things never go as planned, do they? 

The murky blue water in my cup started to vibrate on the shaky table, and I could feel a shiver go down my spine. In a matter of seconds, the ground jolted and my classmates and I were thrown to the cold, hard, wooden floor. I could hear screams erupting from around me as the floor continued to shake. I was thrown back down each and every time I tried to get up. The screaming and crying continued, as did the earthquake. 

Having been just a kid, I couldn't help but cry too. Tears streamed down my cheeks as the teacher scrambled around trying to comfort us. Scared and alone in my little corner of the room, I curled up into a ball. I could feel myself flinch with every jolt that came from the ground under me.

I covered my ears and closed my eyes tightly. Maybe if it all went dark, I would be safe. 

Yet again, I was wrong. I was too absorbed in my own world of hurt and fear to pay attention to the world around me. I never heard her screaming my name. I never heard her say watch out, and I never used my left arm again. 

I don’t remember anything else from that day. Maybe if I had opened my eyes I would’ve seen the cabinet fall. Maybe I would’ve moved. Maybe I could’ve saved myself. Or maybe I still wouldn’t have been able to. Maybe I would’ve been frozen, and feeling just as powerless as I do now.

When I woke up in the hospital, I could see my sister asleep at the end of my bed. Feeling tired, I rubbed my eyes. But it was then that I realized only one of my arms was working. Where… was my other arm? Trembling, I glanced down. In place of my arm, all I could see was a densely bandaged nub. 

I felt as if my only option at that moment was to scream. 

A nurse rushed in quickly with terror in her eyes. 

“Shhh.. it’s okay,” she whispered, standing over my stiff hospital bed. 

My screaming faded away, but the tears kept streaming. The only sounds I could comprehend were my gasps for breath and the almost rhythmic beeping of the machines.

I was sure my heart was running a mile a minute. 

Was I dying? Was I already dead? I couldn’t tell. 

I felt sick. I felt unwell. I felt as if my world had been snapped in half, just like my arm. 

“Breathe! ” a voice screamed in my head. 

“You will be okay. You’ll get through this,” the voice continued to reassure me. 

I began to return to my normal breathing. My hyperventilating had come to a halt, along with a little bit of my fear.

“Breathe in, and out,” I could hear the nurse instructing. 

I inhaled, and I felt the throbbing, dull pain in my arm. If I hadn't known better, I would’ve thought it was still there. Exhaling, I let my eyes wander around the room. 

“Hey… Calypso,” I heard my older sister say. 

My vision quickly fixated on her as I glanced to the foot of my hospital bed. 

While I tried to respond, I truly had nothing to say to her.

“There’s... something I need to tell you,” I heard my sister say. 

She was shaking, and her voice was quiet. 

“Our house,” she paused. “It fell victim to the aftershocks. And,” she hesitated, blatantly holding in tears. 

Why did my sister have such a scared and hurt look on her face? What happened? Unfortunately, my questions would be answered, with words I never dreamt that I’d hear. 

“Mom and dad...” she sobbed.

“They’re dead.”

Silence filled the room. No one muttered a single word. All I could hear was my sister’s ceaseless wailing. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry too. But all that came out was a single tear. I felt powerless.

Yet again, my eyes shut tightly to wrap myself in darkness, isolating my consciousness from the cruel outside world. I wasn’t myself when I was by myself. I could be okay. I could cut off all of my problems and roam freely. 

At that moment, I thought my life was over. I can still distinctly remember running towards the light at the end of a long, pitch black tunnel. Yet when I woke up from my slumber, I was surrounded in darkness and silence yet again. 

The gasps for air were gone, the tears from my eyes had dried, and the rhythmic beeping of the machines had died out. But so did the light that used to engulf the room.

For the first time ever, I felt scared of what had once been my comfort. I realized how empty the darkness was. And right now, it was the only thing that I could see. 

Why did it have to happen to me? It’s not fair... I did everything I was supposed to do. I had good grades, nice friends, a loving family... where did I go wrong that caused me to be punished so horribly? 

Please, not now. I wished that someone would tell me that this wasn’t real, tell me it was all a funny joke. I wanted someone to tell me that everything was okay. I wanted someone to lie to me, and I wanted to believe it. 

We don’t always get what we want.

Nobody answered my silent call for help. It truly WAS real, wasn’t it? That was when I went numb. I guess it was real. I couldn’t feel anything. No pain, no sadness, yet no happiness. I just felt utterly and completely empty. Like a corpse buried underground, except, I was alive. Or was I? It was difficult to tell.

Void of any emotion, I sat in the suffocating silence for a few minutes, staring into the shadows. I swear that I could see them staring back at me, with the same amount of emptiness that I felt that day. 

“Are you alright?”

A voice pierced through the silence, and I was thrown back into reality. 

I realized I wasn’t the only one in the room. I could see a shadowed figure standing at the foot of my bed, staring at me, and another curled up in the corner with their face buried in their hands. Items were strewn across the room, and I spotted a broken vase of white, partially wilted chrysanthemums. A puddle of water sat on the floor, and I watched as the leftover droplets dripped down the beige, lifeless walls.

“I’m...” I started, but okay wasn’t the right answer. “I will be okay. Eventually.”

My voice was breathy and wobbly; I could feel myself trembling as I pushed the words out from my throat. 

“After you fainted... There was another aftershock. There’s been a blackout across the entire city. The whole town has gone completely dark,” the nurse stated. 

It wasn’t just the town that had gone dark, my whole world had gone dark. 

“I’m sorry for your loss, sweetheart,” the nurse whispered. 

“I’ll… give you some time to process.”

And with that, the door clicked shut.

I glanced back over to where my sister was in the corner. Carefully, I stood up from the bed and walked over to where my sister was. I sat next to her and gave her my best attempt at a one-armed hug. Her face was soaked in tears when she took it out of her hands. We both had the same expression plastered on our faces, woe. Our wistful eyes met for a mere moment before she pulled me in for a hug. Her embrace was shaky, but her grip was unrelenting. We both felt completely alone. But we both knew that we were alone, together. We clung to each other for over an hour on that cold cement floor, letting all of it out. 

It was the middle of the night when we finally calmed down. 

“I wonder what we’ll be like in 10 years,” she whispered out of the blue.

“I.. don’t know,” I replied hesitantly. 

I had my whole life planned out for me. Now, I was forced to rethink everything. My entire world was broken, and I realized that I had to work to rebuild it.

“What do you want to be when we grow up?” she asked quietly.

I was silent for a few seconds. What did I want to be? What could I be? I felt so helpless and powerless. I was sure that my future would be bleak. But all at once, something came over me. I wanted to be as far away from what I was now. I wanted to be something that I could feel okay being.

“I want to be happy.”

That was it. What I needed, what I longed for, was to be happy. Sure, I couldn’t get to that point now, but my physical and emotional wounds were bound to heal. I knew it wouldn’t be perfect, but something inside me told me that it was going to be okay in the long run.

“Me too,” my sister said with a sad smile.

“How are we supposed to get through this to the life we want to live?” she questioned.

“I’m not sure. But we’ll make it work,” I responded.

“I know we will,” she replied.

“Together?” I asked.

“Together,” she assured me.

And just like that, we were driven back to tears. I wasn’t sure if they were the same as the tears that had torn me apart. These droplets felt different, almost hopeful. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we would get through this together.

We stayed up all night, talking about life. Even though it was full of tears, we still had some smiles scattered throughout. We both knew that something in us had died. That a chapter had reached its end. But we also knew that we had an entire book ahead of us. We had a whole life to live. And while the past would weigh on us for a long time, we vowed to each other to never lose sight of the future. Because the next chapter was coming, and we had to start living it. 

And with that, dawn arrived. The bright sun flooded not only the hospital room, but the whole town, and my whole world with light. And for the first time in years, I was happy to be able to see it.