Chapter 1
The first thing Sophie noticed was the silence.
It wasn’t the peaceful kind. It was wrong—like the world had taken a breath and forgotten how to exhale.
She had been driving on the interstate, forty miles from home, when every light on her dashboard blinked at once and went dark. The radio cut mid-sentence. The engine coughed, shuddered, and died. Her car rolled forward in dead momentum before drifting to a stop among dozens of others.
Around her, vehicles coasted and stalled in chaotic patterns. Some smashed into guardrails. One truck jackknifed across two lanes, its horn frozen in a dying scream before even that fell silent.
Sophie tried the ignition. Nothing.
Her phone screen was black. No power. No signal. No life.
People were stepping out of their cars now, confused, shouting questions into the air. A man banged on the hood of his SUV as if violence might bring it back to life. Somewhere nearby, a child was crying.
Then a shadow passed overhead.
Sophie looked up just in time to see an airplane gliding low—too low—its engines dead, its wings tilting like a wounded bird. It disappeared beyond the trees, followed by a distant, hollow boom.
That was the moment fear became real.
Something had happened. Something enormous.
And Sophie was stranded in a world that had just shut off.
