Miranda stayed in the attic, curled up in a ball, until morning, unable to sleep. She hoped she would never have to sleep again. If she did, the night terrors would come. As the morning light crept in through the attic window Miranda cried one more time, then dropped down into her closet and slowly crept downstairs. She was quiet, listening for any sound.
Miranda checked on her dad. That had to be him. Gruesome. She ran to the kitchen sink, sick. Deep breaths came next, an attempt at composure. There was a hole in the living room floor, below was the crawl space. She had to know for certain. Miranda eased through the hole. The sobbing came again as she curled up into a ball. Her world was over.
Exhaustion eventually took hold, and she slept. It was a fitful sleep. She had always been a brave and strong girl. That was evident from the way she handled herself on that horrible day, along with her composure during the interview. She quickly packed a bag and left the house. She moved quietly, so quietly. A neighbor had said the downtown core area was intact, the bugs had left that area alone. It would be the safest place. No bugs. No people to attract the bugs. Miranda left. She was only sixteen. Only sixteen.
END TIMELINE DROP. +
***
And I’m back. Like I said, we’re all still getting used to this. The event that triggered the Alert was nowhere near us. There are so many terrible things happening all over, with the monsters rampaging, provoking terror. I’m going to get back to journaling. It helps to take my mind off ... all of this.
I am the Keeper of the Record, authoring the Journal of a special operations unit. As crazy as it sounds to me right now, we are in training to become a unique spec-ops team. One of my tasks is to maintain an accurate account of the invasion and a timeline of events. At this point we don’t know who will read the Journal. I’ll aim for an interesting account of the facts. Don’t worry, I’m a good shot.
Mom and dad work a lot. Well, they used to. Now they shelter in place at home. Because of work schedules we spent quite a bit of time with Grandad while growing up. He lives around the corner, shortcut over the backyard fence, and through the animal habitat greenway. The other part of the “we” spending time with Grandad is my sister Mia. And, then, there are the twins.
Mia is about to turn seventeen. Yeah, we are close in age, less than a year apart. Poor mom. Mia is rather precocious, as even she would admit. “Hi, I’m Mia and I’m rather precocious. Get over it.” Not exactly like that, but you get it.
What’s are you jabbering about Mia? The ‘get over it’ part sounds more like me? Yeah, well, get over it. Who’s writing this thing, you or me? Oh, quit worrying, I’ll be sure to write some nice things about you.
Mia is glamorous with long golden hair always perfectly arranged. Hmmm. Really, she is a lot of fun. We get along famously most of the time. There is the normal sibling rivalry I suppose. I am the older sister so of course I’m usually right. Eleven extra months of wisdom. Well now, let’s be honest when writing in the Journal. The truth is Mia is very mature for her age.
There, how did that sound Mia?
Of late, Mia is interested in biology. I think she will be some kind of doctor. She loves animals too. Maybe a vet? Hasn’t made up her mind; a lot of interests. Mia goes to the same high school as me. She will be going into 11th grade, I will be entering 12th. There I go again. We won’t be going to school in the fall, not with the invasion. Yeah...
Mia has uncompromising boundaries which she is always happy to extend to others. Interestingly, that usually works itself out in a good way. She is the sort that will step in between a bully and the person being bullied. And if she gets in trouble helping someone else, as might have happened in the 3rd grade, several times in middle school, and ... well, you get it. Getting in trouble for a good cause doesn’t bother her at all. She will do what she thinks is right no matter the consequences. Mia has always been strong, but now she is somewhere a few notches above super strong.
Her “gift” is the ability to become super dense. Not dense like dumb. Well, sometimes.
Just kidding Mia. Oh, don’t get all huffy, they know I mean dense like heavy and concentrated. Graviton and Higgs boson stuff.
Mia, with the help of her nanites (some call them nanobots), controls the Higgs field. Well, control is probably too strong of a word. She does utilize the field to some extent. She is also able to interact with and use gluon field energy fluctuations.
The Higgs and gluon field forces are directly related to gravity and mass. I know, it’s enough to give you a headache, right? And I like science stuff! Anyway, her capability suggests DARPA was working on anti-gravity or something along that line. You’ll see what I mean soon enough.
Mia doesn’t look any different even when she is dense. That’s because Volume = Mass / Density. We keep dancing awfully close to technical stuff. Apologies. This isn’t a science or technical journal. What all this means is, Mia can become pretty much indestructible and very strong.
I’m very nice to her when she inverts. That’s what we call it when she becomes dense. She inverts, causing an increase in mass and strength. We had
