ONE: The Boy in the Bubble

ONE: The Boy in the Bubble

He woke to the taste of blood and the agony of a sharp, terrifying pain. His ears rang. His head pounded. His bare chest was pressed to the carpet his parents had installed in their new apartment just a week ago.

It still smelled funny. Gluey and artificial.

Daddy! he screamed. Momma!

Blood fell from his mouth onto the carpet. One of his arms was caught under his body, and he couldnt move it. Something had pierced the side of his stomach. It hurt.

It hurt so much.

He called again for his parents. But his own voice sounded weird. Distant.

On the floor all around him, shards of glass sparkled in the orange glow of his nightlight. There was wind in the room.

The window must have broken, but he couldnt see it from here.

He looked around as best he could and spotted Wummy, plump and smiling, lying beside him. The stuffed wombat was half hidden by a comforter that had spilled over the side of the bed.

Sobbing, he reached for Wummy with his good arm and grabbed him by the ear. Beneath them, the building shook. A fire alarm began to shriek.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

Suddenly, there was a deep thoom of sound. The boy felt an awful pain in his ears as the world exploded around him. Somethingsomeoneblasted through the exterior wall of his bedroom. The ceiling crumbled. Chunks of concrete flew through the air like cannonballs.

With his face pressed to the floor, the boy didnt see any of it.

But he felt small pieces of rubble hitting his back. Then, he felt a crushing, smothering weight as the mattress from his bed landed on top of him. Pain from whatever was stabbing into his side shot through him, making every muscle spasm.

He screamed as loud as he could. In response, he heard nothing but a terrible rushing noise and an endless high-pitched whine.

Something heavy landed on the mattress. The air was pressed from his lungs. He couldnt breathe.

Im going to die. Im going to die. Help.

Dying was painful.

It was dark.

He wanted his mother. He wanted

###

Light.

The boy didnt know what had happened. Maybe he had passed out. Maybe hed been struck on the head, and his memories were having a hard time sticking. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was awake now, and there was light all around him. A semi-transparent globe of it encased him, glittering like a bubble full of silver stars.

He was suspended inside the bubble, his body frozen. He tried to twitch his fingers or turn his head. But his mind was the only part of him that could still move, and it seemed to be moving more sluggishly than it should.

On the floor at their feet, the third stranger lay still. He was a teenager, the boy thought, though it was hard to tell in flashing lights. He wore a black hoodie, and his pale face stared up at the ceiling, unblinking.

Is he frozen like me?

But no. The person in the hoodie wasnt inside a silvery bubble. He was sprawled across the carpet, and as more of his body came into view, the boy saw that it had been ripped nearly in half.

Horror rose, filling him, only to drain away as if someone had pulled a plug.

The man gestured toward the dead body, his face agonized. His mouth opened wide, as if he were shouting. But inside the bubble, there was no sound.

The woman looked toward the body, too. Her face was serious and sad. She reached over and gently shut the dead boys eyes.

She closed her own and said something.

Maybe she's praying, too.

Then, she stood. As she did, she glanced up and looked at the boy in the bubble. Their eyes met. She seemed startled and upset for a moment before taking a deep breath and hurrying toward him, smiling broadly.

Its a fake smile, he thought.

It was the smile adults used when they were trying to convince you that something wasnt as bad as it really was. The one they wore before they gave you shots at the doctors office.

The smiling woman positioned herself between him and the dead body, then she pulled a small pad of paper and a marker out of her jacket. She wrote something and held it up for him to read. The print was clear and large.

DONT BE AFRAID. WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU.

She gave him plenty of time to read it, then she wrote on a new page.

MY NAME IS HANNAH. MY FRIEND IS ARJUN.

He was faintly disappointed they had real names. Lots of superheroes used code names but not all of them.

I WILL COVER YOUR BUBBLE. THEN WE WILL TAKE YOU TO A SAFE PLACE.

My names Alden, he thought. What place? Where are my parents? Will they be there?

But he had no way of speaking.

Hannah gave Alden another strained smile and a thumbs up. Then, she bent down to the floor. She popped back up a moment later holding Wummy. She unzipped her jacket part way and made a show of carefully tucking the wombat inside before zipping it back up so that his smiling face peeked out just under her chin.

She gave the bubble another thumbs up.

Alden caught a glimpse of Arjun and the nameless dead boy as she bent again. The superheros face was hidden by one shaking hand. Then a blanketAlden's own comforter, stained with bloodwas tossed over the whole silver bubble.

And he couldnt see anything anymore.