Carey trotted along with me, and I felt tears welling in my eyes as I remembered looking over the lists. Susan, my neighbor, was among those lost in the Event. That was what they were calling it now. The Event. As if there was any name that could justify the real truth of it all. Most people still didn’t know what had happened, they were just glad to be alive and back home. Some ships fought to land elsewhere, not willing to go back to their countries if given a choice. With so much open space now, it was agreed that Canada, the US, and some European countries would take in refugees at this point. I wasn’t sure that the whole world wasn’t in refugee status now.
Carey started to go to his old house, and I knew I would let him in soon enough, but for now, I urged him to my house, and he happily obliged. I grabbed a few things, clothes mainly, and locked back up. This wasn’t my home any longer, and I doubted I’d ever live here again. I had a new life lined up. I went back to the Jeep, where armed guards were waiting. It was a couple hours’ drive to New York, even though they’d already begun the highway clear-up. The vehicles had been left with keys in them, most running out of gas, so they’d had to bring tankers, fill them up and drive them away to large fields. I would let the bureaucrats worry about the logistics of getting people their cars back.
A few hours later, I walked into the UN building in New York for the first time. Magnus, Natalia, and Mary were waiting in the lobby and I ran to them, enveloping my partners in crime in a massive group hug.
“Am I ever glad to see you guys,” I declared.
Everyone looked well-rested and clean. Magnus almost looked a different man, clean-shaven and with a tie on. I supposed I probably did too. I looked down and saw Nat and Magnus’ hands intertwined, and I gave them a grin.
“Are you guys ready for this? We tell our story, then the world tries to start over,” Mary said.
“I’ll just be glad when it’s all over. I want nothing more than to disappear and let the government worry about everything now. Don’t we deserve that?” Natalia asked, and I was still surprised to hear her voice.
I had a feeling that it wasn’t quite over for us but kept it to myself. We headed into the UN General Assembly Hall, where massive screens were set up, playing live feeds of the largest mass funeral in the world’s history. From around the world, we were sending the dead back into space on the vessels. I had been amazed at the support for the idea, with so many conflicting religious beliefs out there, but everyone seemed to be okay with it. Cleanse the planet instead of burying three or so billion people.
We watched as the containers, as we had called them, lifted into the sky and were remotely sent out of the atmosphere and into space. This took over an hour, and many were openly weeping. I thought of my mother, who hadn’t made it, and countless others who were huge parts of my previous life, now floating in space. I was glad to know that my best friend James was among the survivors, and I was looking forward to seeing him again.
In the room filled with the world’s top surviving leaders and ambassadors, we spoke our side of the Event. Everyone listened with wide eyes, and many times, there was clapping, as if we needed the praise. We didn’t. When it was all done, they spoke of forming a world government. It was the only way to have a unified presence in a universe much vaster than we ever knew. NASA spoke of duplicating the technology we had now, and then hours after we started, I was finally asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Dean, can you please describe this threat you mentioned?”
I swallowed and spoke what I knew about the Kraskis’ enemy. In this case, I didn’t think the enemy of our enemy would be our friend. My pulse raced as I talked, my new hybrid blood coursing through my body. I knew it wasn’t over for me. I reached over and squeezed Mary’s hand.
The End of The Event
The Survivors Book One
New Threat: The Survivors Book Two
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About the Author
Nathan Hystad is an author from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada. When he isn’t writing novels, he’s running a small publishing company, Woodbridge Press.
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The Event (The Survivors Book One) Page 22