Space Storage Capsule #103,567142

By the time the eclipse was over, I was a lot less innocent. But when it started, I was a regular twelve-year-old girl with skinned knees, anticipating the last summer of my childhood. To be fair, at the end of that day, I was also plunged into a lifestyle no one saw coming. A lifestyle dictated by a continuing rain of debris that lasted far longer than anyone predicted, and by the drastic change in tides and weather when the moon’s orbit was altered. That summer I started my period and I took it seriously, packing my dolls, stuffed toys, and this letter away into an Eversave tube labeled, Tammy – 1 to 12 years. It must still be in the vacuum of space storage. Either that or untethered and drifted away. Either way, it was inaccessible and of no use to me now. No, now I only need to settle a score.

The day started off cold, the way early spring days do. I was used to it, though, and dressed in the outfit I had chosen for the day’s activities. It was a red jumper with matching shorts and I felt quite grown up turning this way and that in the mirror, admiring the sway of the short skirt. When I went out to the arboretum to do my chores, goosebumps rose on my arms and legs, reminding me that it was not quite spring yet. But the day promised to be warm and my family had planned a nice outing at the park to picnic while we watched the moon passing over the sun.

               Mother usually watched me pretty closely, but today the boys were cutting up, and Grandma’s hat kept blowing off into the grass. Mother would send me after it but once it went across the road. I waited until she waved to go across. I was waiting to cross back when the whistle went off. That meant the show was about to start and I didn’t want to miss it. I bounced in place until I saw Mother’s hand and then I started across. Just then a sound rippled through the crowd. It was between a sigh and a moan and for a few moments, everything was still. Then a noise arose. It was like thunder, only louder. I made it across and headed for my family just as the sky started to darken. But it didn’t go gradually like we were told to expect. It went as sudden as if a very large someone had stepped between us and the sun. I stopped, disoriented, and was turning in place trying to spot my Mom when I was swept off my feet by an arm around my middle. Suddenly the ground was blurring by as I was carried swiftly across the grass. I squirmed and thrashed and after several minutes of this, I was dumped on my side on the ground. I immediately began to try and scramble away when someone I couldn’t see grabbed a handful of my hair, stopping me in my tracks. I screamed and was trying to pry the fingers open when I was slapped hard by an unseen hand. My ears were ringing and my vision was blurry as tears flooded my eyes. I was pushed backward and landed in someone’s lap. Powerful arms came down around me and a voice began to whisper in my ear about horrifying things that would be done to my brothers if I didn’t stop struggling. Things that made my hair stand on end, and a fist of fear punched me in the gut, rendering me silent as I listened to that voice. It told me I belonged to him and that he could kill me with one hand if I didn’t do exactly as he said. My imagination was equal to the task, filling my head with image after petrifying image. I felt something swell into an uncomfortable lump beneath my bottom as fingers began invading my personal spaces. Pain lanced through me, stealing my breath from my lungs. I heard my name shouted from what sounded like very far away. I strained to hear the distant voice but it had fallen silent. From where I was held, I couldn’t see anything but the arm encircling me and the far-off horizon of buildings, a dark light about halfway up the dome of the sky. The hand in my field of vision had a huge scorpion nearly covering the whole hand. The tail curved up toward the wrist and looked to me like it was about to sting the dim bulb above it. I was momentarily distracted by the thought that it already had. It had stung the sun and put it out. I could still see it up there like a lightbulb without the light and it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. The remote voice called my name behind me again, but I couldn’t move as the hand continued to painfully assault my privacy. The one in front of my face moved to cover my mouth and nose and I couldn’t breathe. I began to fight in earnest as spots appeared before my eyes. Just as a more complete darkness began to filter in from the sides, the hand withdrew and I was pushed violently away, tumbling into the grass and landing on my back. I felt wetness on my bottom and between my thighs and thought with shame that I had peed myself. I rolled onto my belly and levered up onto my hands and knees. People were throwing belongings into bags and baskets and heading for their cars. Someone stepped on my hand and I cradled it against my belly as I crouched there in the grass. I could hear my father’s voice calling for me as well as my mother’s, and stayed still for a heartbeat, listening. Another burst like thunder louder than the one before startled me, and I stood and looked wildly around for my family. The park was a crazy mass of running people, the wind blowing harder than I’d ever seen. Recognizing the building the restrooms were in, I ran around it toward the picnic table where we had laid out our food. It was empty. They were all empty. People were still brushing by me on their way to their cars, and that finally made me realize something else was happening. As I tilted my head to the sky, my father grabbed my arm.

               “Where have you been?!” he demanded angrily, shaking me a little in his fear and relief. I pulled my arm free and looked back up at the sky. The dark light I had seen briefly before was still there, only darker. It looked like the part of the new moon you could only barely see. My dad grabbed my arm again. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” he shouted. I met his eyes and saw in them how afraid he had been for me. I jumped toward him, slamming into him as I leaped into his arms. He caught me, hugging me to him and holding my head to his shoulder as he carried me toward our car. I looked up again, just in time to see huge chunks of unknown debris starting to rain down to the ground. Abruptly the darkness was lit by flames and we were dodging burning pieces of falling sky. A piece of smoking boulder landed in front of my father and he leapt it in one huge stride. When he landed, I bit my tongue and I will forever taste iron and salt when I think of that day. The day we all had to go live underground because a wandering planet entered our solar system and passed between us and the sun, grazing the moon and causing part of it to break off and fall down upon us. I told no one about what happened to me that day. The day I put away childish things and shrugged on a jacket of righteous retribution. The day I started training to hunt down the man with the scorpion tattoo.