Into The Dark

Sophia got up from where she leaned against to check how insane she really was and whether or not the sun really went missing.

With only the candle in Anthony's hands lighting up her path, it was getting clearer to her that he hadn't been lying to her and she was sober enough to grasp that reality. She pulled the curtain blinds to the right, which Lexila would have done for her and with not much surprise left in her, she was about to sigh deeply, but her breath hung midway to its release as she slowly closed her lips.

Anthony understood that this was difficult for her, so he said nothing while she processed all of the weirdness she'd have missed out on had she been dead a minute earlier.

"…And tell me again why you're not freaking out about it all?" Sophia asked as she turned her neck towards where he sat on the bathroom floor.

"One of us has to pretend to have their shit more figured out, right? And also, I didn't really lose much…" He stopped talking, fearing that he might have said a little too much to the girl he'd just known a minute ago.

"How do you mean?" Sophia asked as she sensed a bigger message to that poetic phrase he'd dropped.

"I didn't have a family like most people. I recently moved up here to live with my new family, Greg and Stephanine. They adopted me." He finished talking, then he rested his folded upper lip on his lower lip hoping that this scene didn't get any more awkward.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say…" Sophia said with a lot of empathy to compensate for her insufficient words.

"It's okay, Sophia. You don't have to say anything, but we have to move, like, get out of here now."

"Wait. You just called my name. How did you know my name?" Sophia asked with a freaked-out facial expression.

"errmmm… there's no easier way to say this, but I've been studying about you for a while. I work as an analyst at Ares Photon Energy Company, the very one you wanted to intern at, so I was told to look into you as much as possible…" Anthony uttered every syllable weirdly, scared of the thoughts and impression of him that she was having in her head.

"You don't have to say any more. Anyone can know either of our names. It's the end of the 21st century after all…" Sophia said calmly and unbothered about all he'd just said.

While the silence was brewing within the walls of the bathroom, a medium-sized satellite dish that served as a street AI router crashed right on the bathroom window smashing the glass and sticking through the frames of the window.

Sophia, scared of the sudden heavy sound amidst all the creepiness she'd been harbouring inside rushed away from the window side and moved towards Anthony who already got up swiftly and slightly scared.

"That must be the storm coupled with the rising waves and temperature anomalies. We can't stay here. Let's go" Anthony said assertively as he looked at the frightened Sophia and held her softly by her arms, dragging her to himself as he held the candle in his other hand as he found his way and guided them outside the house that didn't look any different than the normal a-little-over-the-average-family space that it was.

Anthony picked up his pace while looking forward as he knew he had to be careful of anything and everything.

"Where are we going to again?" Sophia asked as she was more placid now than before.

"The Ares towers. That's the only place where we can be safe. In less than 3 hours from now, the whole city would have an average temperature of -14 degrees with a shortage of oxygen and a wild storm from every angle and direction. If the darkness and the weather don't kill us, the storm might, so just hold on tight." Anthony said directly as he needed her to understand the odds of their survival.

Sophia said nothing. What reply was natural in the face of the apocalypse? She saw in Anthony strength and will, and that was more than she could say for herself. She didn't even have the strength to kill herself. These thoughts sprinted in her mind at the speed of her feet and slowly, she began to feel cold. This was unusual, but pretty much like everything that was happening at the moment.

After over a thousand unevenly fast steps which felt like a million, they were a few feet away from the Ares towers. Sophia sighed in exhaustion from the pain in her legs and cold that was overwhelming her as she was letting out ice-cold air from her lips.

"We're almost there. It's right ahead" Anthony said to her.

She wasn't buying these words anymore as he had said that over a hundred times in the space of their sojourn. To her utter surprise, he was not lying this time as he slowed down and looked around them to see if they'd been followed.

They walked to the doors which were energy-powered, but had been wide open due to the absence of power that had plagued the world.

This place felt like a maze to Sophia but every nook and cranny felt comfortably familiar to Anthony who kept navigating every turn, bend and scaled the heights of the staircases she could barely see.