Prologue

Introduces the main characters as the nuclear meltdown occurs and the oddness begins.

           Screaming woke her up. Lying on the ground, Kristen opened her eyes to see an orange cloudy sky partially hidden by tall buildings. She sat up, her head spinning. To add to her confusion, the earth shook. The screaming got louder. It drew her attention to its source; a few dozen people were on the streets, most collapsed, others clinging to lampposts and benches to hold themselves up.

            The earthquake stopped, and Kristen breathed a sigh of relief. The people in the streets ran to the middle of it, as if trying to avoid the potential of falling buildings. The woman crawled into a nearby alleyway. She stood up slowly, touching the part of her forehead where her headache was the worst. With the momentum of standing, her feet left the ground. She shrieked as she kept floating up. Her eyes rolled wildly, trying to find and grab something before she drifted off into the sky. She hooked her arm on a fire escape rail on the second story of the building.

            As suddenly as she started ascending, she fell, desperately hanging onto the railing. She wrapped a second arm around the rail and managed to get a foothold on the landing beneath her. She climbed over the rail and collapsed on the fire escape, breathing heavily. She made sure that there was another platform above to catch her if she started floating again. She curled up in a ball with her hands clutching her head, and muttered, “What the hell was that?”

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            The orange sky deterred Paul from leaving his apartment. After all, it wasn’t every day that Kattegat had a neon orange sky. He wondered if it was caused by radiation like something on TV. Walking away from the windows, the earth shook. He squeaked and sprinted for a doorway. He opened his apartment door and stood in it, clinging to it as the foundations shook. A half minute passed before it stopped. He ran back to the window, but the condition hadn’t changed outside. He reached out to close the curtain, when a vine as thick as his wrist sprung out of his arm and broke through the glass.

            He jerked his arm back and the vine flicked back, knocking over a lamp. He grabbed the vine that seemed to be controlling itself. It struggled in his grasp, pushing against him and knocking him off his feet. “Go away! Stop!” He shouted as if that had any effect on it.

            It did. The vine coiled up, disappearing back into his arm. It was only then that he noticed the vine looked exactly like his tattoo, an ivy vine with leaves and flowers that wrapped around his wrist; he had a matching one on his left wrist. He rolled down his sleeves before trying to close the curtain again.

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            Theo sat on a bus patiently waiting for his stop. He didn’t mind that the sky was turning the color of orange soda; the man just wanted to get to his house in peace. The sudden trembling of the earth could hardly be felt over the constant rumbling of the bus. The bus driver, however, took immediate notice and stopped the bus. Stalling on a downward slope, the brake didn’t give them enough traction on the unsteady ground as they slid towards an intersection.

            The bus rammed through a streetlight, crashing into a building. The right side of the bus pressed against the crumbling building. Standing up and turning to face his patrons, the driver took charge of the situation. “Ladies and gentlemen at the emergency exits, please open the doors, so we can all exit the bus in a calm manner.”

            The person sitting by the right-side emergency exit didn’t bother trying. “We can’t go through this door,” He said to the driver.

            Theo’s own proximity to the other emergency exit caused a flurry of people to approach him. The young woman beside him strained to open the door as the other people on the bus became impatient. “Move out of the way!”

            “Let someone else try!”

            Theo placed his hand on her shoulder. “Let me try,” He suggested politely.

            She nodded and moved out of his way. He grabbed the handle and pulled; it didn’t budge. He growled, pulling harder. His hands started glowing blue. With a small explosion, the door flew off. Theo regarded his hands with some surprise as the glow faded. He faced the rest of the bus, who looked on in awe. “Well?” He huffed. “The door’s off, so let’s get out of here.”

            He stepped out of the bus and turned to help his seat buddy out. She hesitantly took his hand. The rest of the bus soon followed her lead, peacefully exiting the bus.

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             Alicia examined goods at a convenience store. Her fingers grazed a variety of the same type of chips. A smile spread across her face as she picked a certain brand. Her eyes flicked to the orange glow coming from outside. The man at the register stared outside the window intensely. Alicia walked to the register to be stopped by an earthquake. She fell, unsteady in her heels. She curled up with her back to the roof while covering her neck with her hands.

            When the shaking stopped, she got up. Nothing seemed to have changed inside or outside the store. Alicia proceeded hesitantly to the counter. The man smiled, still kneeling behind the counter. “Nice weather we’re having,” He joked as he stood up and brushed off his pants.

            She laughed lightly, mostly for the guy’s sake. She picked up a candy bar from a display by the register. “I’m pretty sure earthquakes aren’t supposed to happen this far north,” She commented.

            The worker leaned over, his face expressing a conspiracy in mind. “Maybe something happened at the Institute.”

            Alicia placed a hand over her heart. “I sure hope not cause I work there.”

            Cashier chuckled. “Man, I wish I worked there.”

            The man reached out and took the bag of chips. He rung it up, while she replied, “It isn’t that fun. We’ve been studying the effects of radiation on food. And all we learned so far is that candy bars.” She held up the one in her hand. “Melt when exposed to nuclear radiation.”

            The candy bar went limp in her hand. She dropped it on the counter with a mildly disgusted look on her face.

            “What?” He asked, picking up the candy bar. “Oh, it melted.”

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            “Make me a willow cabin at your gate and call upon my soul within the house.” Tae strutted around the stage. “Halloo your name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out ‘Olivia!’” The man’s voice broke on Olivia, jumping up.

            The auditorium rung out with laughter. He called out again, “Olivia!” in a fit of angst, dropping to his knees.

            The laughter continued. Tae smiled, breaking character. His director sat in the first row of the darkened theater, just barely within view. “Where is my Olivia, today?” He asked. “The play is in two weeks!”

            The director checked her phone. “She is at home with the flu,” The director said. “And her understudy isn’t here, for some reason.”

            “You were just fine without her,” She continued.

            The earth started to shake. Tae took a knee as the director cowered under her seat. A rattling sound warned of a stage light. It shook loose from the rafters and fell. Tae held out a hand, hoping to stop it from falling. The earthquake jerk to a stop when electricity shot from his hand. It collided with the stage light, sending it flying into the seats.

            He stood up on unsteady legs and peered out into the darkness to see the damage. “Did that hit anyone?” He called.

            “I don’t think that is the important question here, Tae,” The director replied, almost vitriolic. “The better question is what the hell just happened?”

            His shaking hands drew his eye. “Well h-heck, I shot lightning out of my hand. And, saved the stage from a light.”

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            A woman was walking down the street after the earthquake; unlike everyone else, she didn’t seem panicked. She moved around in sort of a daze, looking up at the sky knowing something was wrong, but she couldn’t place it. The sky had turned burnt orange and it hurt her eyes to stare at it. But it was nothing compared to the cotton that filled her head and made it hard to string a single thought together. Her ill appearance caused another woman to approach her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright, miss?” The other woman asked.

            The concerned woman was pretty with long blonde hair. The woman held her head for a second before nodding. “I’m fine,” She said. “Maybe, a little bit tired. I don’t seem to recall…”

            She ran her hand through her hair, which was blonde just like the woman’s hair. Glancing at the concerned lady, what once was concern was now replaced with fear. The other woman backed away before turning and running. “… Anything,” The woman finished with a sigh.

            The dazed woman remained confused. Her brain was spiraling as she kept walking down the street, wondering where she was going. Only when her reflection shone through a lamppost-lit store window did she understand why the woman was so afraid. The dazed woman was exactly like the woman from before. “Huh, I wonder how that happened. I must be a shape shifter,” She muttered. “No, that’s crazy. Super powers don’t exist… right?”

            She turned and walked on, heading nowhere in particular.

Reviews

[Eli]

I think it would be helpful if the characters were introduced in the prologue with names. It would help me keep track of who is who when they show up again later. Also, three of the characters seem perhaps too nonchalant about their new powers. The one in the bus, on the stage, and the shape-shifter seem like their attitudes are "that was weird, oh well". It would be more interesting if their reactions varied a little more. Personally, I would freak out! Otherwise, nice hook!

Side note: I noticed the misuse of a word. "That" instead of "what" with the lady reacting to the shape-shifter.