Day 7: Beyond Our Understanding

(I decided to write a short story for Day 7 of my 2023 Halloween Prompts.)

Deciding to run or hide was how we spent our last normal day. No "I love yous," no gratefulness was shared. Jack didn't even tell me about my first day of school, something he always did whenever a major change happened to either of us. There was just a longing for survival and a desire to be a family for a bit longer.

As the clear sunrays turned to deep orange, a fear settled at the bottom of our stomachs; all we could do was sit at the table, looking at our hands that were barely visible in the darkness. Waiting, hoping that morning would come just as quickly as night did and that we wouldn't be the first to be found, or better yet, that we wouldn't be found at all.

It was stupid to believe that we could hide. If we had our own house, yeah, but you can't hide in an apartment complex for long. Not with a lot of people scrambling for their own survival. It didn't take long for the screams to start. The apartment below us was the first in our building section. Ms. Drew and her long-term boyfriend, by the sounds of it, put up a fight, throwing furniture, pots, and whatever they could find at the swirling vortex that was surely pulling them in.

The next was an apartment on the floor above us; the pleas echoed but never finished as more screams broke out. In a haste, Jack shot up from the table and immediately went to the front door, pushing his weight just as a loud thumb hit. The knob jiggled as a small clanking sounded through our quiet home.

Jack cursed under his breath and held the large lock in place.

"Jack? It's me, Nate! Let me in!" Nate shouted, jiggling the knob to loosen Jack's grip.

Resting his forehead to the door, Jack didn't say anything. His blue eyes picked a spot on the door and stared at the space as he distributed his body to cover as much of the door as he could.

"Jack! Open. The. Fucking. Door!" Nate pounded on the door between each word, then started ramming his body against the wood.

Jack felt the door shift, the piece of wood already weak due to years of management neglect.

"Damn it! Go find somewhere else!" Jack finally shouted when one screw on the middle door hinge fell, disappearing between the blanket-filled boxes near the door we meant to spread out but never got the chance to.

"You promised! I-"

The buzzing of the vortex is loud. Loud enough to send painful vibrations into the ear canal. Almost accepting the pain, Jack turned around, his back hitting the door with a thug, and caught my gaze. He shifted his eyes towards the hallway, eyeing me to hide in the special hiding space he had spent all morning putting together, "just in case," he told me when he showed me.

Normally, I would fight his overprotective nature, but seeing the color slowly leave his tear-filled eyes made me not want to, not during our last moments. So I ran to his room, not taking one final look at my brother, into his closet where a black metal box, big enough for only me, sat in the corner behind a mountain of shoe boxes. As I sunk into the narrow space and closed the metal door, the front door slammed in, hitting the living room wall, but no scream echoed. No fighting happened. Only the loud buzzing of a vortex swam through the apartment for five seconds, then the silence followed.