Sound of Silence

A low humming filled my head. Head noises were the worst thing about being deaf and I was inclined to ignore the humming except it got worse. Fast.

Tension turned into pressure then into an intense pounding in my skull. Like the best of a thousand drums but with a metallic edge. Like I was too close to a machine that was putting out a million gigawatts of power.

I didn't know what the hell a gigawatt was, my knowledge was limited to movie lore but the number sounded like a lot to me. I swore when I lifted my head that I saw visible waves of energy coming into the tent.

An impossibility but there it was. The source of the waves wasn't known to me but the source didn't matter right now. I was truly fucked if the waves hit me.

I did the only thing I could do, dive deep into my sleeping bag and zip it over me. At the bottom, I curled into a ball of twenty three year old human flesh. If I survived this, I would have quite the tale to tell.

The pounding grew worse. I longed for it to stop but instead the intensity of the waves increased. I had no others for what was happening, I used my limited knowledge of science and applied it to this unknown source of energy. From what I could tell, solely by feel, was that the energy wasn't natural.

It had to be man made. A nuclear bomb? Perhaps. One that was close enough to generate enough heat and energy from miles away. An EMP strike seemed evident as well. For as little as I knew of EMPs anyway. The one thing I did know from my voracious reading of science fiction novels was that EMPs affected electricity. Shut down the internet worldwide.

The thought had me scrambling for my phone which, luckily, was in the sleeping bag with me. I powered it on and tapped the screen. The screen turned blue then blinked on and I sighed with relief.

I attempted to send a message out to my parents. The ellipses did their thing. Three dots winked on and out as I impatiently and fearfully hoped for an answer.

Instead of a response, my phone shut off and wouldn't turn back on no matter how many times I pressed the on button. I was hoping to at least learn what was happening out there. Surely someone knew why the energy waves were present. Why the ground shook and why my head hurt so badly.

I stowed the phone in my pocket. The light from the phone had been a small comfort for too short a time. Inside the sleeping bag, the air was stuffy. Not much light came inside and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic.

Beneath the tent, the ground moved. The tent poles slid on the slick canvas and collapsed on me. The tent folded in on itself adding to the sensation of somehow having crawled back into my mother's womb. It was not a calming sensation.

I shook with fear, breaths coming too fast. I held on as best as I could. If I was about to die, I hoped it wouldn't hurt. I hoped it would be quick.

I'd seen a dead person only once in my life and it was my grandpa. His reposed form in the casket had frightened me. I refuse to look at him in that state.

Death was a source of confusion for me. I was only five at the time and yet no one bothered to explain to me why my grandpa wouldn't look at me when I called his name. Or why people cried. The eulogy was beyond my comprehension. I heard nothing of the speeches people gave. I could only gaze at their somber expressions and wonder why they were so sad.

The ground heaved me away from the tent opening taking me from thoughts of the funeral. I rolled inside the sleeping bag and kept on rolling. My cry was lost to the wind that blew fiercely all around me.

The tent was ripped away from me. I fell and went on falling. I braced myself for death and landed hard on solid ground. It didn't seem like the time to unzip the sleeping bag so I waited.

Gradually, the tremors seized then stopped altogether. I laid prone inside the bag, too afraid to venture out. What worse calamity would befall if I did?

Usually, at this point in a science fiction movie, something way worse did happen. So I stayed inside, avoiding this new reality.

Silence descended. Even my head became quiet. So quiet I could actually hear my heart beat. The pressure ceased, lifting off my head. I cried from the relief of pain.

Every few seconds the ground would move then settle. Common sense told me to wait just a little longer. To be sure another wave wasn't about to come.

I lost track of time. I couldn't check my phone for the time or peruse the internet for status updates. The world was still intact that much I knew. The ground was solid beneath me but I had no clue where I had landed.

I could be miles away from the campsite for all I knew. And miles away from my friends.

Guilt took hold. I hadn't given one thought to my friends. Were they still alive? Had they been thrown about as I was?

Suddenly, the unknown was too great. I unzipped the bag and poked my head out. To my surprise, I wasn't too far from camp. Trees and shrubbery were largely intact with a few branches dislodged here and there.

With aching bones and a sense of dread, I crawled out of the sleeping bag, my left hand clutching my phone like it was my only lifeline left. Never mind the fact that it didn't work.

I attempted to stand and promptly fell back down. The world felt wobbly to me. I assessed the damage on my body, waiting for the dizziness to subside. My bones were all intact. I found several bruises on my arms and legs but everything else seemed okay. I had no cuts or broken bones.

I explored my face just to be sure and came into contact with my ears. The cry that tore out of me set my pulse racing. I came away with blood on my fingers.

I angled my phone screen, catching the faint morning light. From an awkward angle, I managed to survey the damage to my ears. Blood dribbled out of them, drying on my chin and neck. I didn't dare touch them, the pain was too great so I left them alone.

Until I could access the status of my friends, I put the state of my ears aside. With my phone in my pocket I attempted to stand again. The nearest tree gave me some support but the world still spun.

I felt upside down. The sky was the floor and vice versa. I recalled the last time I felt this way and knew instantly what was wrong. My inner ear equilibrium was off. Vertigo was the order of the day.

I collapsed to the ground once more. This time, I didn't wait for the dizziness to go away. Instead, I crawled toward the dying embers of the once lit campfire.

With my eyes to the ground, I felt fine but whenever I lifted my head a fraction too high, the dizziness returned. Nausea accompanied the dizziness, but I swallowed it down and pressed on.

When my fingertips struck the rocks outlining the fire pit, I stopped crawling. I sat up and breathed in deeply for a five count and exhaled.

I kept my eyes focused on the rocks. I touched them, feeling their rough texture and solid nature. They grounded me, solidifying me back into reality. I continued to breathe, allowing other sensations to make their presence known. The scent of dying embers, the charred wood, the yeasty beer and tangy scent of lemon on cooked fish filled my nose.

I recalled last night vividly. I had nursed a beer, not really into drinking much. The boys, Jonas and Mark, had brought the beer, willing to carry it through the wilderness on our week-long camping trip in the Upper Peninsula.

Bethany drank as much as they did but I didn't like losing control. Getting drunk took away my other senses and left me with a sense of helplessness. I learned this from past experience that drinking too much gave me vertigo.

A horrible feeling, one that I hated so much I swore never to drink more than one glass of anything. And I sipped it too. No more losing control.

After a long time, the sensation of feeling tumbled around inside stopped. My world righted and I could lift my head without it spinning.

I did it slowly, using familiar landmarks as a source of grounding until I could scan the campground with ease. Of the three tents, two of them were missing. Mine and Mark's.

Bethany had spent the night with Mark last night. Jonas offered to occupy my tent but I refused. He called me a bitch but I pretended I didn't hear him and went to bed.

I assumed he went to sleep too but with the sun now streaming between leaves and branches, I saw that Jonas hadn't gone inside his tent at all.

With dread twisting my stomach, I edged closer to Jonas. He was face down in the dirt, his arms twisted at odd angles. I was afraid to touch him but I had to know.

I very seldom used my voice but this time, I spoke. "Jonas? It's me, Cassie."

I poked him in the shoulder but he didn't wake up. With trepidation, I mustered enough strength to roll him over. I screamed so loud and long my throat hurt.

Jonas was not only dead, his face was contorted in a frozen expression of pain. His eyes were forever open in shock. Dried blood crusted his ears and skin, giving him a zombie-fied appearance.

The same thing that had happened to me, happened to him. Whatever that energy pulse was, it affected him way worse than me. He died. I didn't.

I still had no idea what caused the waves of energy to flood the campground or if the same thing took place all over the earth. Was it localized or was the entire earth affected?

I got to my feet.

There was nothing I could do for Jonas. I held onto the hope that Bethany and Mark were still alive.

That I wasn't the only one left alive in the world.