The Dawn of Chaos

Thin streams of rain ran down the bus windows, blurring the lights of the waking city. Natalie leaned against the glass and stared outside, her gaze empty. The engine droned with a sleepy hum, and her dark-ringed eyes kept slipping shut as the bus rattled through the streets of Seattle.

Her head snapped up. A military SUV passed the school bus.

Two boys beside her were talking loudly.

“Bet it happens again today,” one of them said, trying to joke.

Nobody laughed.

“They evacuated the school three times last week,” the other replied, though his foot tapped nervously against the floor.

“At this point, they might as well just cancel school,” a girl called over.

Grumbling and sarcastic remarks spread through the bus. Still, nobody laughed. Most of the students had the same dark circles under their eyes.

Natalie stared ahead, listening to her classmates. In her pocket, her hand clenched around a crumpled scrap of paper bearing the names of three missing people.

Her sister’s was in the middle. She had carried it with her for six months. It made her miss Lisa a little less.

The bus came to a stop in front of Roosevelt High School with a squeal of brakes. Natalie got off with the others, opened her umbrella, and headed up the steps toward the entrance. She kept her head down as she walked, never once looking up at the stone owls above the massive wooden door with its copper fittings.

Once inside, she folded her umbrella and leaned it against the wall beside the others. Keeping her eyes on the floor, she pushed her way through the crowd gathered in the lobby. When she reached her locker, she opened the combination lock with practiced ease. The code was her sister’s birthday. It used to remind her to start planning for it in time. Now she thought she might need to change it.

No.

That would mean letting go.

She reached into the locker for her notebook, then tossed it back in among the rest. She wasn’t going to take notes anyway. Without speaking to anyone, she headed upstairs to their classroom. It was already almost full.

She muttered a few quiet greetings as she passed people who used to be her friends, without meeting their eyes. Once again, only her old seat was free.

Front row. For months, she had wanted to move farther back so the teachers would leave her alone. The chair legs screeched against the wooden floor. She sat down and ran her fingers over the words and drawings carved into the desk. A year ago, she never would have believed she could do something like that.

Now, she smiled as her fingertips brushed over her sister’s name among the profane words and obscene doodles. She didn’t even notice the bell ring or the teacher enter.

Mr. Thompson greeted the class loudly as he walked to his desk and set down his laptop. His jacket was wrinkled, and patches of rain still darkened the shoulders. Behind his thick-framed glasses, the circles under his eyes stood out beneath the fluorescent lights.

Without further preamble, he launched into the lesson. He recited names and dates in a monotone, glancing at the clock every so often as though he was looking forward to the break more than his students.

Meanwhile, the kids tossed notes, stared at their phones, or whispered among themselves. Natalie wasn’t paying attention either. She was looking at the poster beside the board.

EVACUATION PLAN!

FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS!

The entire class seemed to sigh at once when the bell finally rang. Mr. Thompson gave them the usual speech about being prepared because he would call on them next time. Everyone knew he was bluffing.

The students behind Natalie were arguing about what the government was trying to hide.

If they’d seen what I saw.

“It was too long ago. You don’t remember it clearly. You were distressed because you’d lost your sister. It was dark. You hadn’t slept enough.” That was what her psychologist kept telling her.

Bullshit. Every word of it.

Missing. Not lost.

The sound of the door closing pulled her from her thoughts again. She looked up. Another teacher. Another class. Natalie lowered her head onto the desk and closed her eyes.

Without warning, the school’s emergency siren blared from the speakers.

Natalie jerked her head up in terror, her stomach clenching. The world blurred around her.

She was no longer at Roosevelt High School. She was back in the forest.

The dawn sky glowed red between the trees. She had been searching for her sister with two other counselors, and suddenly she was alone. She knew what was coming.

Breathing hard, Natalie scanned the trees until something moved among the shadows. She turned toward it. It had antlers, but it couldn’t have been a deer. It was too large.

And Natalie had never heard of a deer with glowing eyes. Two pale points shone back at her from the dense darkness. Too high off the ground. Too far apart.

Natalie’s throat went dry. She couldn’t move. She could only tremble.

Then a searchlight cut through the darkness. The beam from the camp jeep swept across the trees for a moment, and the figure vanished.

Natalie was back in the classroom, gasping for air.

The others were already lined up by the door, visibly tense, and the teacher was calling her name impatiently.

“Natalie! Come on! Are you okay?”

“I’m coming,” she forced out.

She pushed herself to her feet on unsteady legs and fell in at the back of the line. They were already in the hallway when the sound of vehicles reached them. Tires squealed on the wet pavement. Engines rumbled. Then a voice boomed from a loudspeaker outside.

“Everyone evacuate the building immediately!”

The students stared at one another, eyes wide. This wasn’t a drill.

Then the first shots rang out.

Students started screaming. The line fell apart instantly. They shoved past one another and ran for the stairs. Natalie’s legs refused to move.

Gunfire rattled across the school grounds. The windows shook.

“Stay calm!” Mr. Thompson shouted. “Everyone follow me! We’re going out through the rear exit!”

To the football field.

The other teachers followed his lead, shouting instructions as they tried to bring the situation under control.

Natalie was carried helplessly along with the crowd. She could almost hear the wind whistling through the trees again. Feel the morning dew against her skin...

A child crying.

There hadn’t been a child crying in the forest. She was at school. Natalie turned toward the sound.

A little boy was crouched against the wall, sobbing.

The crowd stampeded toward the exit. Natalie threw herself toward him.

An elbow slammed painfully into her side. Several people stepped on her feet. Someone caught her across the face, fingernails scraping the skin just below her right eye.

All she could see was the little boy rocking back and forth with his eyes squeezed shut, his arms locked around his knees and tears streaming down his face.

Natalie threw herself over him, shielding him from the crowd with her body.

“Come on!” she shouted.

The boy didn’t respond. He only squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. The sirens seemed to grow louder.Then an otherworldly roar carried in from outside, followed by another burst of gunfire.

The dark figure stood in front of Natalie again. Cold white eyes glowed from within the shadow.Students kept pushing past her as though none of them could see the creature towering in front of her.

Natalie froze.

Her scream disappeared beneath the chaos. Then the sharp metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She blinked. The figure was gone.

Only the little boy remained, sitting on the tiled hallway floor in front of her. Natalie raised a hand to her mouth. She really was bleeding.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then grabbed the boy. He didn’t resist.

With a strained grunt, she hauled him onto her shoulder and let the terrified crowd carry them down the hallway, down the stairs, and toward the rear courtyard. As they neared the exit, a deep, heavy thudding joined the chaos outside. The teacher leading the group shoved open the emergency exit, and the crowd poured into the schoolyard.

Rain was still coming down hard.

Students stopped short, squinting and shielding their faces with their hands. The thudding was even more deafening outside. Natalie instinctively pulled the little boy closer. People slipped around her. Others shouted, shoved, and swore.

She was slightly taller than average, enough to see over the heads of the students crowding the yard. Dark green vehicles stood in the middle of the school grounds. At first glance, they looked like ordinary SUVs, but the heavy armor and roof-mounted searchlights made it obvious they were military vehicles. The beams swept across the concrete wall separating the school grounds from the street.

The girl looked up. Now she knew what was making the deafening thudding sound. A military helicopter hovered above the schoolyard.

“Come on! Move!” soldiers shouted. “Get on the buses!”

The students froze at the sight of the soldiers gripping their rifles. Another roar tore through the air. Deep. Guttural.

Then came another burst of gunfire.

“You heard them!” Mr. Thompson yelled, pointing toward the buses waiting near the entrance. “Run!”

Something slammed into the brick wall from the street side. Chunks of brick and plaster rained onto the ground. The students bolted for the buses, yanking one another back and scrambling past anyone in their way. Several slipped on the wet grass.

Their cries of pain were quickly swallowed by the raging storm. Natalie hurried toward the vehicles as well, holding the boy against her shoulder with one arm while reaching into her pocket with the other. Her fingers closed around the crumpled note.

The soldiers were focused on the brick wall. The students stumbling through the rain were left on their own in the chaos. One beside Natalie muttered a prayer. Another screamed a friend’s name. Most of them ran with their phones clutched tightly in their hands. Only a few yards remained between them and the buses.

Did she go through this too?

Natalie didn’t even realize she had reached the bus until she found herself standing in front of its open door. Before she could process what was happening, the students pushing from behind forced her aboard. She dropped into the first empty seat. The bus filled quickly, leaving Natalie pressed against the window. Beside her, the little boy was beginning to come back to himself.

“What’s happening?” he looked up at Natalie through tear-filled eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said as the bus pulled away.

Natalie held him close. Another military convoy passed outside the window: dark green SUVs and armored vehicles, their searchlights cutting white paths through the rain.

Water rushed through the roadside ditch. Soldiers stood along the edge of the road, weapons in hand as they scanned the area.

Natalie looked back at the school as it grew smaller behind them. She noticed something. A red glow stained the gray sky behind the building, as though the horizon itself were burning. Her chest tightened. She had seen that before.

Back then, dawn had been breaking, so she had assumed that was what had turned the sky red. But it wasn’t dawn now.

The little boy breathed quietly against her, his tear-streaked face buried in her sweatshirt, but he wasn’t crying anymore. Muffled sobbing came from the back of the bus. Someone else was laughing hysterically.

Natalie was still shaking. Her damp fingers tightened around the note. This time, it didn’t help. She wanted to close her eyes and shut out the world around her. But whenever she did, the shadow’s pale, glowing eyes were waiting for her. So she stared helplessly out the window instead. A tear rolled down her cheek while the gunfire, the sirens, and that unnatural roar echoed in her ears.

Streets rushed past on the other side of the glass. Barricades. Police. Emergency crews. The bus came to a stop with a squeal of brakes.

They had reached the evacuation center set up inside a former sports complex. Hundreds of parents were waiting in the parking lot. Mothers pulled their sons into their arms while fathers anxiously shouted their daughters’ names.

Natalie stood holding the little boy’s hand, searching the crowd for a familiar face. Then something yanked the child away from her. She spun around angrily.

A young woman had scooped the boy up and was clutching him to her chest, crying. Natalie wiped her eyes and gave a faint smile. The mother looked at her, still holding her son tightly, and gave her a silent nod.

“Natalie!” someone called.

Before she could even turn around, someone nearly knocked her off her feet. It was her mother, hugging her so tightly it felt as though she never intended to let go. Natalie turned toward her and hugged her back. Through the strands of her mother’s hair, Natalie could see her father standing a few steps away, watching them anxiously. When he caught Natalie’s eye, he smiled.

The rain still hadn’t stopped.

“We were so worried,” her mother whispered against Natalie’s neck. “I prayed to the Lord that you’d come home safe.”

Natalie pressed her lips together, her whole body tensing. Her mother had turned to religion for comfort after her sister disappeared. At first, she went to church every Sunday. Then every third day. Eventually, every other day.

God had nothing to do with this.

Natalie clenched her jaw but said nothing.

“Katie, let’s go home,” her father said as he joined them, gently rubbing Natalie’s back. “Nattie’s soaked. She’s going to catch a cold.”

After a moment’s hesitation, her mother let go, though she kept holding Natalie’s hand. As if she were afraid Natalie might disappear at any moment. As soon as they got into the car, her mother turned toward her.

“What happened, sweetheart?”

“Katie...” her father sighed as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Give her a chance to breathe.”

“It’s okay...” Natalie said. “There was another evacuation... but this one was different. The military was there. It was really scary. And there was... there was something else too. Something big. I don’t know.”

A shiver ran through her, and she suddenly felt dizzy.

“You okay, Nat?” her father asked, watching her anxiously in the rearview mirror. “You’ve gone completely pale.”

“Yeah. Of course. I’m fine.”

They spent the rest of the drive in silence. Natalie sat lost in thought while her parents kept glancing back at her.

Something was there. Something that didn’t belong in this world.

Natalie looked up in surprise when the car stopped. She hadn’t even noticed they were home.

“Come on.” Her mother opened the door for her. “Let’s get inside. I’ll get you some lunch, and then you can lie down for a while.”

“Thanks,” Natalie said wearily.

After changing out of her wet clothes, she headed for the kitchen, but her mother steered her into the bathroom instead.

“I’m fine...” Natalie protested tiredly.

“Oh, really, young lady?” her mother asked, raising an eyebrow.

She took out a damp cotton pad and wiped Natalie’s face with it.

“Then what’s this?” she asked, holding up the bloodstained cotton.

Natalie stared at it, then reached for her face, but her mother slapped her hand away.

“You haven’t washed your hands yet!”

“I don’t remember how it happened...” Natalie murmured, staring ahead.

“Doesn’t matter.” Her mother smiled and gently stroked her cheek. “I’ll disinfect it, and then you can go eat.”

Natalie sat quietly while her mother cleaned the cut.

Afterward, she shuffled over to the dining table, where a plate of lasagna and a steaming cup of tea were already waiting for the girl. Her parents went back to the living room to give her some space and began whispering. Not quietly enough.

“How is she?”

“Just a small scratch under her eye.”

“What do you think happened? They said there was gunfire on the news.”

“I don’t know, Robert.”

“Could it have something to do with Lissy’s disappearance?”

Lis.

Natalie flinched.

Her elbow struck the mug, spilling tea across the white tablecloth. She stood without a word, left the plate untouched, and headed toward her room. Her parents didn’t stop her. They only watched her from the couch with worried expressions.

Natalie stumbled down the hallway and stopped outside her sister’s bedroom. The door was locked. She knew why.

They had started packing her sister’s things into boxes.

Natalie knew they hadn’t completely let go. Her mother still prayed for her. Her father still watched every news report.

And yet, every time Natalie saw those boxes, it felt as though they were erasing her sister from the house, piece by piece. She was furious.

At her mother for seeking refuge in a god that didn’t exist. At her sister for disappearing and leaving her behind. At the world for allowing things like this to happen.

She felt as though she might be sick if she didn’t hit something right then. In the end, she only let out a long breath, turned away from her sister’s door, and went into her own room.

She shut the door behind her, blocking out the rest of the world. But there was no shutting out her own thoughts.

Old posters still covered the walls—bands she hadn’t listened to in months because every song reminded her of how things used to be.

She dropped onto the bed and hugged the pillow Lisa had bought her a few years earlier.

“BEST SISTER” was printed across it.

Her vision blurred. She didn’t want to cry. That would mean she was already mourning Lisa. Natalie punched the mattress, then wiped her eyes.

She hadn’t lost her. Not yet.

She sprang off the bed and went to her desk, sweeping the school supplies scattered across it aside. She pulled out the notebook where she had been collecting anything that seemed useful since her sister disappeared. Again and again, she flipped through it, hoping to notice something she had missed before.

The first few pages were filled with names of the missing. Lisa Holloway was at the top. More and more names followed beneath hers until, after several pages, Natalie had given up. There were too many. Thousands in the U.S. alone.

After that came printed articles she had glued into the notebook. Government statements, blog posts, pictures. Anything that might have something to do with what was happening.

According to the authorities, there was no cause for concern. The situation was under control. Some version of that appeared at the end of nearly every article.

“LIE” Natalie had scrawled beside it.

The next few pages were filled with blurred figures, antlers, and pale eyes.

Natalie quickly turned past them.

Then came a map of Seattle, every known Rift marked in red.

Rift.

That was what people had started calling incidents like the one that morning. Nobody knew exactly what they were.

Beside each location, Natalie had written down whatever she had managed to learn about the incidents.

Capitol Hill — gunfire.

Queen Anne — military lockdown.

Ballard — roar?

A chill ran down her spine. She crossed out the question mark. Then she marked their school on the map and wrote beside it: Red sky.

Next came the newest section. She had only started it a few weeks ago. A single word was written across the top of the page.

MANA?

She had come across the term recently. Some people claimed that a new kind of energy had appeared on Earth and that it might be connected to the Rifts. Natalie still didn’t know what to believe. But if it was real… Maybe it had something to do with Lis too.

But what if it’s the reason she disappeared?

The creak of the opening door made her look up.

“Your father and I are going to watch a movie.” Her mother poked her head into the room. “Want to join us?”

“Not right now. If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is.” Her mother’s eyes drifted to the open notebook. “But if you change your mind... we’d be happy to have you.”

Natalie nodded and turned back to her desk. She heard her mother sigh before closing the door behind her. The girl pulled out her laptop and opened a live stream from an online news channel. The reporter spoke in a calm, measured voice, as though she were reading the weather forecast.

“According to authorities, the situation is fully under control. No civilians were injured during this morning’s incident in Seattle thanks to the rapid and professional response of emergency personnel. There is no cause for public concern. We ask everyone to remain calm and follow designated evacuation routes if necessary.”

Natalie touched the cut beneath her eye without thinking.

Footage played in the corner of the screen. Soldiers herded students through the rain and onto buses while searchlights swept across the red sky. She could hear the rain, the students shouting, and even the distant crack of gunfire. Natalie leaned closer to the screen.

She recognized the schoolyard. She could even pick out some of her classmates among the blurred figures.

Something was missing.

“They cut it out...” she whispered.

She rewound the footage. The wall shook, but there was no roar.

She rewound it again.

On-screen, dozens of heads turned in the same direction at once. They had heard it too.

They were hiding something. And if she could figure out what, maybe it would bring her closer to Lis.

She crumpled the newspaper clipping between her fingers, the same one she had carried with her for months.

Three names were printed on it. Lisa Holloway in the middle, Levi Blackwood below her, Noah Fletcher above.

The two boys had disappeared from the camp too, just like her sister. Natalie had been the only counselor to come home. She remembered Noah entertaining everyone around the campfire with stories while Levi sat silently staring into the flames.

Are they wherever Lis is? Or are they gone for good...?

At first, Natalie had spent countless hours searching online, looking for connections between the missing. Blackwood was an unusually rare surname, which made it the easiest to search for. She thought she had found another missing person with the same last name once, but she wasn’t sure anymore.

There were too many missing people. She couldn’t make sense of all this chaos on her own.

That’s when she felt it for the first time.

For a moment, Natalie had no idea what was happening to her. She thought she was having some kind of attack. Her heart started pounding wildly, as though a boulder were pressing down on her chest.

Gasping for air, she grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled it away from her neck. Then her arms and legs started to go numb. It felt like thousands of ants were crawling beneath her skin. She was just about to scream when she noticed something that made her freeze.

A reddish-purple light was spilling in through the window.

Natalie rushed over to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. The quiet Seattle side street had become unrecognizable. Cracks raced across the asphalt. Light pulsed from inside them. A deep rumble shook the street. A deafening crack echoed between the houses as the road split open along one of the cracks.

The reddish-purple glow became painfully bright. The opening kept widening and pulsing. As though it were alive. Raindrops vanished without a trace as they fell into the opening. It swallowed them like a black hole.

Then the all-too-familiar siren began to wail. Natalie couldn’t look away, even though the unnatural light burned her eyes. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the pulsing reddish-purple light. Then she realized something. The symptoms were gone.

All except one.

Her heart was beating in rhythm with the Rift pulsing in the crater in the street below. Something seemed to move beyond it. Natalie wasn’t sure she had seen it clearly.

She narrowed her eyes and stared into the flickering light inside the cracked asphalt. Something moved again. This time, she was sure.

Her throat went dry. Her breathing turned ragged, and blood hammered through her veins. For a moment, something stared back at her from inside the Rift. Its pupils were white, set in sickly pale eyes veined with red.

She wanted to scream. To run. But her legs wouldn’t move. The rhythm quickened in both her chest and the Rift.

Then claws dug into the asphalt at the edge of the Rift.

Natalie jumped back from the window, pressed her back against the wall, and slid to the floor. Tires squealed on the wet road. The military had arrived. Her ears were ringing. Her heart was pounding in her throat. She couldn’t think.

Then a reckless idea flashed through her mind.

She slipped a hand into her pocket and grabbed the crumpled clipping, then closed her eyes. She put her tongue between her teeth and bit down hard. Pain shot through her body. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Natalie sprang to her feet, hurried back to the window, and grabbed the sill. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth. The wind drove rain through the open window and whipped through her hair.

Natalie didn’t move. She refused to turn her back again.

The creature roared again, deep and rasping. Natalie felt the vibration in her bones. A group of soldiers immediately opened fire. The bullets didn’t seem to affect the creature in the slightest.

Several soldiers spread out around the Rift as though they were searching for something. Then the creature dug its claws into the asphalt again. It looked as though it was trying to drag itself through the opening. Natalie gripped the windowsill tightly as the creature’s head slowly came into view.

Its skin was pale and hairless. Its eyes sat on the sides of its head. As Natalie watched it, she felt a strange tug in her stomach. The creature suddenly snapped its head toward her. It had no nose. Between its eyes gaped a large opening filled with rings of teeth. Nausea washed over Natalie as the creature’s pupils narrowed into vertical slits. The pulling sensation in her stomach intensified, drawing her toward it.

Hunger.

Ravenous. Maddening hunger.

Natalie blinked. The feeling vanished. As if it had never been hers at all. Only its echo still throbbed in her stomach.

“Found it!” one of the soldiers shouted, drawing both Natalie’s attention and the creature’s.

A dark, gleaming object stood on the carefully maintained front lawn of one of the houses. The soldiers immediately began cordoning it off. Natalie narrowed her eyes, trying to make out its details in the flickering light of the streetlamps. The obsidian-black stone reached roughly to the soldiers’ waists. Its shape reminded Natalie of a prehistoric chipped-stone arrowhead.

The creature went berserk at the sight of it.

Muscles twitched beneath its pale skin as it tried with all its strength to force itself through the Rift. Then a figure in yellow appeared among the soldiers.

Natalie blinked. She thought she was seeing things.

The soldiers leveled their weapons at the handcuffed man and escorted him toward the stone. The prisoner in the yellow jumpsuit stopped short near the stone. He dropped to his knees and began pleading with the soldiers, but Natalie couldn’t hear what he was saying.

One of them kicked him in the chest. The prisoner fell against the stone.

Natalie felt a violent yank at the back of her neck, as though a hook had snagged it. At the same moment, the strange stone flared with reddish-purple light. Natalie threw a hand over her eyes.

For an instant, the glow from the stone painted even the sky red.

By the time she looked back at the stone, the prisoner who had been kneeling among the soldiers was gone. Only the obsidian stone remained. The girl’s eyes widened.

For the first time, she felt like she wasn’t completely in the dark.

The creature’s pained roar tore her out of her racing thoughts. The Rift around its head had begun to shrink, as though some invisible force were pulling it closed. For a moment, it looked as though the creature’s head had become trapped. Then, with a violent jerk, it yanked its head back through. Only one arm still hung through the Rift into the quiet Seattle street. Finally, the creature withdrew completely to the other side of the Rift. Only the claw marks remained.

One pale eye was still visible through the narrowing opening. Its gaze swept across the street. Then stopped on Natalie.

They stared at each other until the Rift closed.

A shockwave rolled through the street, rattling windows and doors. Natalie tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She was soaked through, and the night was cold. Neither was the reason why she was shaking.

“Nattie, what are you doing?!” Her parents burst into the room.

Her father immediately pulled her away from the window while her mother drew the curtains shut. Natalie still caught sight of the soldiers heading toward their house, their eyes fixed on the upstairs window.

They’re probably going to have a few questions.

The corner of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.

That’s fine.

So do I.

Hold on, Liss.

I’ll find you.