Equinox - Chapter One

As far back as I can remember, my life has been filled with violence. My first memory, for instance, is that of a drunken stranger beating my mother with what the Old Times called a 'baseball bat'. It was a strange instrument, made of the weakest substance known to mankind – wood. Who in their right mind would make a torture implement out of wood? Anyway, as this drunken man was attacking my mother with the pathetic excuse for a weapon, my mother simply ripped off her glove and fired at him from the miniature gun she always carried around with her, which at that time she had concealed in between two of her fingers. So I suppose that the real reason I am like this is because of the infinite memories of violence and horror I had in my childhood. This time, you really can blame it on the parents.
Actually, now that I think of it, my only 'normal' childhood memory is the one of my first day at school...but we'll come back to that later. Now is not the time for my childhood experiences – only a fool would talk of them openly at a time like this. I think that I should start by telling you about the day of The Taking; the day where it all ended.

The day of The Taking was a dreary one – all over the world, the rain was hammering down, the grey clouds expanding across the land, the wind was howling through the few trees that had not already been knocked down. For the past week there had been numerous natural disasters: hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis...there seemed to be no end to the demonic weather. But on the day itself, the weather was just miserable, it was not a threat.
Me, my older brother, and my mother were in our house. Well, it was a mansion, really. The oldest house in our city, it was also the largest. The house had been built over 350 years ago, and was the size of about seven average-sized houses. There were at least fifteen bedrooms, each one about as large as an entire floor in a small house. The several living rooms were decent sizes, about as large as three bedrooms. All of the other rooms in the house were quite small, by our standards – each was a little bigger than you would find in your average-joe house. The garden, however, was a completely different story altogether: it was nearly the size of a small park. There was a stream running through it, and a few small bridges along it. At the end furthest away from our house, there was a sizeable wood. Each tree was nearly as old as the house itself, and they all had an extensive history.
Anyway, that is enough about my house, I must return to The Taking. Ah, it was a dreadful day. So me, my brother, Daniel, and my mother, Anya, were all seated on one of the sofas in one of the many rooms. All of us were terrified, even though only I showed it. We were watching the news, hoping to get any updates about the extreme weather. There had been an earthquake a few miles away the day before, and the house had nearly come down. So there we were, sitting on the extremely expensive leather sofa (it had cost £15,000, and had a very interesting history) wishing that this day would not be our last. But then they came. But then the world as we had known it changed forever.

It was March, the 20th, to be exact. The day of the equinox. Even though it was a natural occurrence that came twice every year, everybody looked forward to it, as it coming would prove that the natural order of things had not been completely disrupted. When there were mere minutes to go, people were starting to become tense. What if it didn't come? What if nothing ever happened like it should? What if the sun never set? All these questions, but no answers.
So I suppose that you could say we were all relieved when the equinox came. For those of you that have not been blessed with the extraordinary intelligence I have, an equinox occurs when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the sun. The name, 'equinox' basically means 'equal night', as places to the north and south of the equator experience nights of equal lengths.
So the equinox arrived. The people of Earth were relieved that nature was still running vaguely as it should, but yet they were terrified that a natural disaster of epic proportions would occur at the time. I guess they were correct, in a way.
At the exact second of the equinox (obviously, we didn't know it was the exact second at the time, I did some research afterwards), the sky went black. The sun disappeared, and was replaced by a black hole. The gravity of the earth seemed to increase massively, as we were all crushed to the ground at once. I felt my legs break as they were pushed underneath my body. My ribs were cracking, my skull was being torn apart. The floors of the above stories in my house came crashing down on us. But in seconds, it stopped. It all stopped.
I was stuck underneath a beam of wood and a pile of rubble. There were several jagged shards of glass impaled in my right foot. I was barely concious. and I couldn't see – the blood from where my skull had been smashed had splattered over my face, especially my eyes. Everything went black.

I woke up a week later in a makeshift hospital. The 'hospital' was just a large tent with a few medical supplies stashed in the corner. I was lying on a sheet of some white, rubbery material. Well, white and red, as my blood had stained it and there were several pools of the stuff by my head. There were eight other sheets, each with an injured occupant. My head was thumping, as if I had the worst headache imaginable, and my ribs felt like they were bursting through my skin each time I breathed. My feet had gone numb, but as I sat up I saw an impressively large piece of glass wedged in a large gash on the underside of my foot.
Once I was sitting, I took a better look around me. Seven of my fellow wounded were still lying down, probably unconscious. The eighth, a man of about 70, was standing up and scraping at the side of the tent, as if trying to claw himself out. Scanning the faces of the people on the white sheets, I tried to find my mother or my brother. I couldn't see either of them.
As I was searching, a group of people dressed in white medical coats entered the tent. A young woman with short blonde hair walked over to me. She had a kindly face, but I could tell from her eyes that she was greatly depressed. She wordlessly gestured for me to try and walk. I carefully twitched my legs to a position in which I could stand up from, and attempted to put my weight on them. It went well for a minute – I stood up, but the minute my legs were supporting my weight, the numbness left my feet and the pain shot in.
I howled and threw myself onto the floor. All I could see was red, all I could hear was my screams, all I could feel was the searing pain in my foot. I blindly reached for the blade of glass and ripped it out, ripping my palm to shreds in the process. The pain lessened considerably, but the blood came pouring out. My screams subsided, and the white faced woman that had made me stand ran to get some bandaged.
She kept fumbling as she bound my foot and hand, I could tell that she was scared. Once she had finished, she mumbled something about, “Seeing other patients” and ran out of the tent. Judging by the retching sounds, I gathered that she had a low tolerance for blood.
I emerged from the tent some ten minutes later, as it had taken several attempts to stand and many more to actually walk. Squinting, I saw that the sun had come back – that is, if it had ever left. There was no sign of the black hole.
Looking around me, however, the level of destruction made me feel sick. Buildings were mere piles of rubble, trees had either fallen over or disappeared completely. A few had even been hammered into the ground, all I could see of them were the leafless branches that topped the pitiful looking trees.
There were people everywhere. Well, adults. Most of them looked like medical workers or people from the army, but there were a few normal people. Many of them were crying. Amongst the people, I couldn't see my brother or mother anywhere. Looking around again, I realised in horror that the destroyed patch of land I was standing on was what used to be my street. Working out which house was which, I staggered over to the remains of my house. What was left really did look like a bomb site. To be honest, the only reason I knew that it was my house was because I could see my front door, with the house number on it.
Walking through the rubble, I searched for signs of my family.
“Mum! Dan! Can you hear me?” I shouted, looking around franticly. No signs of either of them.
Tears were streaming down my face now. I had assumed the worst, that Dan and my mother had either been crushed under the power of the gravity, or had bled to death from an injury from the debris. But I kept walking, shouting, for hours. I lifted up sheets of glass from the windows, planks of wooden flooring, chunks of plaster. Nothing.
As the sun was setting, hopelessness flooded into me. Screaming, I sank to the floor, sobing. Shards of glass were piercing my legs, but I didn't care. All I cared about was my family. As I was crying, a woman walked up to me. She was my neighbour, but I didn't know her name – we never really bothered with names as we hardly ever saw any of our neighbours. Her eyes were dead, like I assumed mine were, as if she had lost everything dear to her. She bent down and lifted me up, still crying, and led me to a large wooden shelter that somebody had built.
When we arrived in the shelter, it was packed with people. It's looks were deceiving, I thought that it would only fit about twenty people inside. As far as I could see, there were at least fifty. No children, though. Well, there probably were, but I didn't bother looking for any. I had stopped crying, but all my emotions seemed to have switched off – I was a walking zombie. I vaguely noticed the woman who had brought me there bringing me a mug of hot chocolate. I automatically reached out for it and started to drink. It burnt my throat, but I didn't care. Some time later, I remember lying down in a sleeping bag that somebody had given me, and drifting off into a dreamless sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night. For a minute my mind was as it had been earlier: blank, emotionless. But suddenly, all of the experiences from the past week came flooding back. The freak weather...the sun...the black hole...Dan....mum....
It was as if the memories were on loop in my head. No matter how hard I tried to concentrate my mind elsewhere, the memories just kept on coming back. You may think that it would get better, that after the first few times it wouldn't seem so bad, but no. It got worse every time. More painful.
Blinking away the tears that were forming, I sat up and observed my surroundings, to try and take my mind off things. Something didn't seem right. There were people everywhere, sleeping: pensioners, teenagers, middle aged people. But I couldn't see any children. Actually, even all the teenagers looked at least sixteen. I couldn't see anybody that looked younger than fifteen. There weren't any children in the shelter.
For a minute I thought about the possibility that the children had a separate shelter, but quickly dispelled that idea. I hadn't seen any signs of another shelter, and the people who were in a good enough physical shape wouldn't have had enough time to build another one. But if that was the case, where were the children?
Being careful not to disturb anyone, I trod around the sleeping bodies and made my way to the exit (which, by the way, was also the entrance). Walking, I could see the shelter more clearly. The makeshift walls were made out of pieces of plaster and wood, which I suppose people had found in the ruins of various houses. The roof was made in a similar way, but I could see that wooden beams had been tied across the top in a complicated manner. I didn't bother looking more closely at the architecture, buildings never were my thing. I walked silently out of the hole in the wall that was the exit, and breathed in the air. Even though it was full of dust, and stank of rubbish, it was a relief to be out of the crowded shelter.
I suddenly noticed that my feet were absolutely freezing, so I looked down at them and saw for the first time that I wasn't wearing any shoes. I lifted my right foot up and examined the underside of ti, wobbling on my other leg. The area where the glass had been wedged had healed quite a bit, but it was still bright red. I could tell that there would be a scar there. Putting my foot down, (I have been waiting for so long to be able to say something of that nature) I walked around my ruined street. My only light source being the moon, I tripped over things more than I would normally, and that's saying something. I am an extremely clumsy person. You give me something, I'll drop it and break it. You tell me to run quickly somewhere, I fall over. It's quite a shame, really, my clumsiness. It does tend to make life more difficult.
Anyway, as I was tripping over various pieces of debris, I was also scanning the area around me for signs of where the children might be. There were hundreds of pairs of footprints everywhere, but they all seemed quite large. Not big enough for the feet of a child, unless they had unnatural growth spurts early on in life, but funnily enough, I doubted that all of the children in the area were giants. I could see a few army trucks parked on the barely-visible kerbs. They were abandoned, and were covered in dust. There were a few large lorries nearby, however, and I could see the silhouettes of men inside of them. Guessing from the amount of light, they had lamps in there. One of the men walked out, and I could see that he was wearing an army uniform.
I ran up to him. I think he saw me, but his reaction wasn't what I had expected. His eyes widened in surprise and he let out a small scream. He bolted back inside the lorry, and I could hear panicked voices arguing. All of a sudden, it went silent. I could hear a clicking noise that sounded suspiciously like a gun being loaded. Hearing this, I quickly decided that asking the army officials about the missing children would be a bad idea, and I walked back to the shelter. I decided not to run in case they took that as a suspicious move, and decided to fire. But I had barely walked ten steps when I heard a commanding voice, shouting, “Stop right there! Don't move! We have you surrounded!”
I froze. Terrified, I turned around, holding my hands up in the air before I was asked to. I saw that the order had come from the man that I had scared. He was holding a gun, and had it pointed at me. There were several other men from the army standing in a rough semicircle around me. None of them were openly wielding guns, but I could see that most of them had weapons secured to their belts. The man with the gun pointed at me, who was obviously in charge, slowly walked towards me, not taking his gun off me.
When he was about two metres away from me, he said harshly, “Why were you out of the shelter? Why were you coming towards us? Speak quickly and clearly.”
There was an enormous lump in my throat. I couldn't speak properly.
“I...I...I didn't know that you c-couldn't go out of the shelter. I didn't see a-a-any other children, s-so I thought that they might have been put into an-another shelter. I didn't m-mean to do anything wrong. S-sorry, sir.”
But the man was not convinced. He aimed and fired, the bullet shooting past barely an inch from my head, causing me to scream and several of his men to flinch. I could tell that he expected a more detailed answer, so I tried again, this time my brave side coming up.
“After the.....the black hole, extra gravity....thing, I could only see adults and older teenagers. I couldn't see any children around. So...so when I was brought to the shelter, and after I had rested, I thought....I thought that maybe the other children were being kept in a separate shelter. I was looking around, and I saw you and your men. I thought that you might know something, you being in the army, so I...I just came up to ask. I...I'm just scared!”
With the men staring at me, and the intense pressure of the moment, at the last part I couldn't take it anymore, and started to cry. I'm not sure whether the man with the gun took pity on me because I was a child or because I was crying, or whether he just decided that my story was adequate, but he put his weapon onto a pile of rubble and led me back to the lorry where he had been before. The lorry, strangely, had been divided into different sections, which I guess were supposed to be rooms. Each one was only just big enough to lie down comfortably. The man led me to an empty room, gave me a sleeping bag, and told me to rest for the rest of the night.

So there it is. The week of The Taking. So many mysteries: Where are the other children? Why didn't the black hole suck us in? Where did it come from? How come the sun came back?
At the time, I didn't have any answers to these questions. But perhaps that was better than knowing the truth.