Lux: Volume 1

Author: Bronwyn Graffham

  Copyright © 2015 by Bronwyn Graffham

  Just a Civilian

  “Hey, wake up.” I woke up to my older sister, Sarah, shaking my shoulder. “Honestly, how do you even sleep through that kind of earthquake? It was shaking the entire house for God’s sake!” I slowly sat up on her couch, drowsily opening my eyes.

  “I slept through an earthquake? That’s too bad.” I brushed a hand through my long brown hair, catching all the tangles with my fingers. I winced.

  My younger brother, Edmund, popped into the room. He was fourteen years old, and hoping to be a journalist. I worked as an editor, so he got introduced to the idea of writing while he was still quite young. He was good at it, especially for someone of his age. He liked to come to work with me sometimes, and watch the writers write. They liked him quite a bit, and they helped him with his work and enjoyed having him there, “Are you going to leave soon? Can I come along? I finished all of my chores, I swear!” It was summer vacation; the fact that Sarah was driving him so hard on his chores was sort of annoying.

  Sarah was twenty-three, and I was twenty-one. My mom left our family once Edmund was born, and our dad ended up taking care of all three of us on his own. He got a job as a traveling salesman, so we’ve had nannies and babysitters for as long as we can remember. Eventually, he decided that Sarah was old and mature enough to watch over us, and she stepped into the nanny role. My dad pays her pretty well for “babysitting” us all day and all night. Edmund is still too young to get a job, so I got one earlier than I wanted to, so that I could help out with buying food, and be able to get what I wanted. It didn’t take long for me to decide that I wanted to be an editor of our city newspaper, along with the couple of magazines that the company took care of.

  I stood up. “I’ll be heading out soon. Let me change my clothes and brush my hair and teeth.” Sarah huffed, but didn’t demand he stay home. He had done his chores, after all. I stood up, running into my sister’s room where all of my stuff was. I always slept on the couch; I couldn’t stand being stuck in the same room as her. I slipped out of my plain tee-shirt and shorts and replaced them with a pair of comfy dark blue jeans, and a baggy maroon shirt with some sort of random design on it. I think it was advertising some restaurant. I never cared enough to actually read it.

  I stepped into the bathroom, brushing my teeth and pulling a comb through my hair. I really needed to cut it, the length was really inconvenient. I put it in a sloppy braid, and stared at myself in the mirror for a moment, looking into my blue eyes. I gave myself double pistols, cracking a smile. “Alright, we’re leaving!” Edmund ran to me, his backpack on his shoulder. We headed out the door and towards the bus stop. We walked too slowly, though, so we had to run at the bus before it left us. We paid the driver and sat down in a seat near the front. He started talking about the earthquake I had slept through. “I just can’t believe you slept through it! It woke me up, it shook the entire house. The news people said that scientists were just as surprised as we were. There weren’t any signs of it coming.”

  “Weird. Hey, maybe it was actually an alien space ship landing on Earth!” I joked.

  He laughed, “As cool as that’d be, they assured us that it was just a quake.”

  We joked about it until we were at our stop. We headed into the office, and I sat down at my desk to begin my work. Edmund sat in a small chair next to mine and pulled out a small journal, where he started writing. We both stayed there for a bit over an hour, occasionally saying hi to my coworkers, before we decided to get up and go to the McDonalds down the street for lunch. We got up, leaving our work at my desk.

  As we were walking back with our food, the ground began to move again. We had trouble keeping our balance, thinking it’d be better to stay still and not move around. We should’ve started running right then, right when we heard the loud ‘thud’. We both started looking around wildly, trying to determine what had fallen over. Soon, there was a loud, deep shout. It sounded like a battle cry, in some language that I’d never heard. There were shriller, terrified cries after that. My eyes widened, as I grabbed Edmunds hand and ran away from the noises. We were blocked by a large… thing. It was standing on two legs, and covered in black scales. It tilted its head at us, letting out a low hiss. I started backing away, trying to get Edmund to do the same.

  He didn’t move, though. He was stuck like a deer in headlights, his eyes wide. The thing growled at him, lifting up a hand with long, shiny, sharp claws. He took a step back; tears showing in his eyes as he looked from the things face to its claws and then back again. He whimpered when the thing opened its mouth—which stretched all the way across its head, so it really just looked like its head was splitting down the middle—and let a long black tongue sliver out. “…Run.” I whispered.

  Edmund turned to look at me, opening his mouth to say something. He didn’t get to say it, though, because the thing shoved its claws into his gut, shoving him backwards with the force. I screamed loudly, in a pitch I didn’t know I was even capable of making. “Edmund!” I cried, reaching for him. His mouth was open, and I was able to tell the exact moment that his soul left his body. His eyes dulled as blood drizzled out of his mouth. I looked at the monster in horror, taking another step back. I had to get out of there. I whimpered as it turned its head towards, finding that my body wouldn’t move. My legs felt weak from grief and horror, and I didn’t think I could run.

  I probably would have just stood there and gotten killed if a bullet hadn’t hit the thing in the head, directing its attention. It turned to where the weapon had come from, a pair of iridescent wings erupting from its back as it flew towards the shooter. I turned and ran, trying to avoid the battle that seemed to be going on. I felt like I was in a Marvel movie, but I wasn’t anybody important. I was just somebody there that they could kill off for effect, or show running and screaming out of screen in the distance. I was just a civilian.