The Intrigue, part 1

Night of January 3rd.

I was at a store in the late afternoon. I was standing between sets of automatic sliding double doors, facing the store. There were polished dark wooden stairs that lead down into the store. There were racks of clothing and a jewelry counter. Typical department store things. The checkout counter was in the back of the store. The walls were the same polished wood as the stairs and floor, high shelves with intricate designs.

It was Black Friday, and the sun was low in the sky. Store capacity was reached and they were only letting in 2 people at a time as 2 people would leave. I finally got in, was looking around, and my little brother was there. He was about 6 years old. He put his leftover breakfast on a shelf and I yelled at him. He told me the food was cold and hard and he didn't want it. I walked over and poked the cheesy eggs. Definitely not cold and hard, but rather gooey. "David..." my voice trailed off as I saw him reaching for a button in the corner of a store. He pressed it, which made the wall above the checkout counter move out into shelves, extending over the counter. Again, I yelled at him, and mid yell the store started shaking. At first I thought it was from the shelves being extended, but no. I looked around and realized it was an earthquake just as a store employee yelled “Everybody out!!!!” Things were falling over. People screaming. Dust in the air. The building was collapsing. Walls crumbling. I was moments from getting out when a chunk of the ceiling fell on me.

I screamed. “Help!! Help me!!!” But everyone kept running out and away. I would have too. I summoned all my strength in a state of panicked adrenaline rush, and managed to roll out from under it and into the street. The ground was still shaking hard. I started running home, which was not far away. This town was not built for an earthquake. Everything was falling. People on the road driving were looking around, confused. It’s difficult to feel an earthquake when you’re driving. The quake stopped. I was entering the main street of a neighborhood. A man was just getting out of his car in the driveway and asked “What happened?” and I told him between heavy breaths that there was a 13.2 earthquake before running off again toward home.

The sun had just gone below the horizon. I was almost home. I saw an old lady in a car with the headlights on, and she looked confused. The car had the steering wheel on the right side, and I stopped and asked through the open window if she was ok. She looked at me and stated “My heart won’t start! I’m a hundred and ten years old!” I looked at her more closely, horrified as I realized she was partly decayed. It was as if she would have died at the age she was meant to, and the years until she would have been 110 were applied to the decaying process. I looked around. In the yards next to houses were ‘people’ standing up. They were wearing a black cape with a hood, mumbling “Intrigue. We are intrigue.” The woman in the car screamed sharply. They saw me and started to sprint towards me.