Saturday was the last time I felt truly alive. I don’t quite remember the exact date, but I do remember it was Saturday. This is all coming out wrong; because obviously it wasn’t the only Saturday and obviously it wasn’t the last Saturday, except it was. I wish I remembered exactly how I felt, wish I would have cherished every waking moment, but I didn’t and I don’t. Then Sunday came and all hell broke loose, (almost) literally.

Stella let out a bloodcurdling scream and I instantaneously woke up. I swore that scream triggered the end of the world, and it would have made sense if Stella, my older sister, hadn’t been screaming about the plethora of jets claiming the sky as if it’s an entitlement given only to them. If we’re being honest, I was more amazed by the exuberant amount of emotion she was showing than by the actual fact that she was shrieking bloody-murder in such an earsplitting way that the deaf could perceive it.

Despite the fact that I was still in my pajamas, which weren’t really pajamas so much as boxers and white tube socks, I ran into her room, ready to calm her down, but she wasn’t in her room. The excruciatingly loud wail had come from outside the house, where she was standing with my mother and younger sister. Mother was dressed for work – including very unpractical heels– that is, if you ignored her black, tear-stained cheeks. My younger sister, Delilah, was clutching mother’s hand as if she never let go thing’s would be okay, my sister is young and naïve and still believes in things like fairies, or, an even more farfetched fantasy: fathers. Our father, whom I spend most of my time pretending never existed, was not right in the head.

He used to be the kind of guy that would tease Stella about her latest boyfriend and would look at my mother with the kind of adoration that I thought only existed in books, but, like I said, that was before. My father took up a new hobby of binge-drinking on liquid courage and would be caught dead holding my mother’s hand shortly after he lost his job. It was also around that time that my mother started obsessively applying foundation to parts of her body that should never have foundation on them. Her face took on a sickly white, or maybe it just looked that way because of the dark circles that had formed underneath her eyes and seemed to get darker with each passing day, as if the ash from the collapsing world on her shoulders had found its way into the delicate skin beneath her light brown orbs. Needless to say, once the riots started, he didn’t stick around long. My father – who was supposed to protect us from all harm that should come our way, told my mother, my beautiful mother who still loved him, even though he didn’t deserve it – that he was going out to look for a job and that was the last time I ever laid eyes on the man who used to give me piggy-back rides around the backyard and would throw me onto the trampoline, smiling bigger than the moon. All I could do for the longest time was hope he would make his rotation, because if we were small, insignificant stars, he was the enormous and brilliant sun whom we dedicated each passing day to.

We could hear the creaking of the jets as they opened up their various compartments containing I-think-you-know-what from the ground. Without thinking, I grabbed Delilah’s hand, tore her away from our mother, and ran to City Hall; the only known building with a bomb-shelter. We lived close in town, but that didn’t change the fact that Delilah’s short legs could only run so fast. I scooped her up into my arms and prayed Stella and my mother were close by. You can’t let anything happen to her, I reminded myself and pushed my legs harder than ever before. I clearly wasn’t the only one who had thought of the large building for safety as the other citizens rushed in the open doors. I awkwardly jumped onto the grass and ran for the opening, nearly pushing an elder woman down, but I didn’t care. Delilah was the only thing on my mind. Over the commotion I could hear loud voices, but couldn’t make out the words, it’s not like I cared anyways.

I followed the crowd into the bunker, ignoring the stunning murals on the walls that I’d come to love, and sat her on the ground as we were ushered into a room with little furniture.
“Seventeen and under only, all others are obliged to evacuate the premises,” a man announced through speakers.

An official looking man –who obviously worked for whatever-government was in myriads of jets in our sky, ready to eradicate every living thing –took Delilah’s diminutive hand (despite my protests) almost violently and let her get comfortable on the floor as I waited by the entryway. Automatically I despised him for having his life together while our city was in peril, but I also admired him for his poise. I cast my eyes away in disgust, more with myself than anything.

I looked up just as Delilah’s large, not-so-naïve-anymore, green eyes met mine. She tilted her pointy chin down as she closed them and breathed so deeply I could see her tiny chest rising like a mountain and then falling, caving in, coincidentally similar to our lives.

The man turned around and I almost expected him to take my hand like he did Delilah’s, but instead he glanced towards me with dark, numb-looking, brown eyes that admitted nothing.

“Stella,” he said as he struggled for breath, and I realized he was glancing over my shoulder.

I quickly turned around as Delilah sprinted past me, running into our sister’s arms, both crying tears that proved they were not breaking so much as already broken and nearly choked on spit as I recognized the man in front of me.

He barely had time to regain his composure before the sky shook, but automatically fell to the floor as the earthquake of the blue roared through our ears, with the kind of sound that would have been miraculous if it was the 4th of July and fifty-thousand times more quiet. The sort of noise that reverberated like thunder through our skulls and ricocheted off of our rib-cages like a twisted game of pinball played within us.

I was selfish because I forgot all about Stella and Lilah. God knows that Stella was doing everything humanely possible to ensure the safety of our younger sister, our Lilah. Yet, there I was, sitting on the floor with my boney knees almost puncturing my muscle-less chest, oblivious to the tears pouring out of my eyes as teenagers and children surrounded me, seeking one last shred of hope before their inevitable death.

It’s as if hours have passed, but in reality I know only minutes have come and gone. An acute awareness of time was something I’d never been able to grasp, and never before had I wished I could, until now. Not like it would matter, though, would it? When or where I die will not change the fact that my end will come and there will be days when I won’t wake to the smell of my mother’s terrible cooking as she rushes with makeup in one hand and an egg in the other, to get ready before a meeting. Never will I get to be frustrated again as I endlessly remind her that I won’t eat eggs and haven’t for the past year. Honestly, I cannot say that I will miss being ignored around the clock, because that’s what comes with being the middle-child, but I would gladly take the feeling of abandonment over this potent fear enveloping my entire being.