Interrupted

May walked down the street, hands in her pockets.

She wasn’t quite sure where she was headed, but she knew the area. She glanced at the map on her phone, and at the pin marking her destination on it. It was about a half a mile away now. Pretty far, all things considered.

She’d spent the last few hours putting the finishing touches on the final version of the spiral model she’d made. The café had been her venue of choice. It wasn’t that she hoped to see Bianca there, but she wouldn’t have turned her away. She’d put in some adjustments to its growth and changes over time. With any luck, they’d fix it completely.

Over the past couple months since developing it, her theory of the extirpations’ movement had become better and better—more and more refined. Her time thus far had been spent theorizing, but this was just the second time she would go out to the field, to see if it had any predictive potential whatsoever.

She couldn’t stop fidgeting at the sleeves of her shirts as she walked. She checked her phone again. The dot didn’t move, as she logically expected. But one can never be too sure, or so May thought.

She walked quickly down block after block toward the last bend. On her way, the city was eerily quiet. It had been in the small pocket of suburbia that her house was in among the rest of the city, but she attributed that to the work day, and maybe that school was officially done with until the following year so kids could be with their families.

No, this quiet was of a completely different kind from the quiet one might expect on a dreary, nothing day as the world approached its end. It was as if everyone had already vanished, but instead, they rotted in their homes, surrendering to their fates.

She passed by a coffee shop, and she wasn’t even sure if it was open. The inside was dark, and not for any tint on their windows: the lights, menu displays, televisions, and everything else in the building were off. People must be quitting their jobs, she thought.

Some still had some vigor remaining. A few people sat in bars and threw parties, living their dream lives until the apocalypse took them. But they were few and far between, and the end was still months away.

Assuming we can’t stop it, after all.

At long last, she approached the location. She stopped. It should be somewhere around here, she thought, whirling around. But with each passing moment, her arms hung lower and lower at her sides, her tired slouch deepening more and more. Her foot tapped itself on the concrete beneath, itself itching to get near an extirpation right now. Just to know whether she was onto something.

“Sis?” she heard from over her shoulder.

May jumped, spinning. Behind her, leaning on the concrete wall of the front of an empty shop rested Alice. Alone.

“What the heck are you doing out here, Alice?” she asked her sister, hurrying over to her. “Are you okay? Where’s Dad?”

“Uh,” she began, leaning her head around the corner into the tight alley next to her, “he’s back there.”

“What? Why?”

Alice shrugged.

But the look on her face—childishly brooding glare, crossed arms, lean onto the stone behind her—told May that she knew more. “Alice, come on.”

Alice shrugged.

A crack echoed through the alleyway, washing over the two of them in waves as the sound bounced around the cramped space. Alice threw her hands up over her ears, grimacing, and May nearly did the same.

“What was that?” May asked, holding her hand toward the alley and staring at Alice.

She shook her head frantically. “I dunno! Dad went in there, like, ten minutes ago!”

“Well, I’m going after him,” May said. “You stay here!”

“No! I’m coming too!” May heard her sister’s running footsteps following her forth as she ran toward the open door at the end of the alley.

“Did he go in there?”

“Uh, I think so!”

May flew through the door, leaping down the steps just through them. She caught her sister when she nearly tumbled down them after her.

May whirled around, searching for a sign of some kind. Her eyes settled on the form of a beaten man, slouched in a corner. His face was thoroughly bloodied, but she could tell: not her father.

“Where is he?” May shouted at him. “Where?”

The man’s glazed over eyes lit up for a moment. He blinked. And pointed.

Straight above them.

May looked up. “How?”

He stared blankly.

“How?” she shouted at him, stomping her foot.

“The door…!” he croaked.

May glanced over her shoulder. A door hung ajar across the room. May slammed through it. Alice huffed along behind her, keeping up.

A staircase spiraled up from the ground, extending for more floors than she could count up to the top.

“Dad climbed this?”

“I dunno.”

May took a breath.

Then she started to climb.

The stairs felt like they went forever. Whenever she looked up, more and more spiraled high above. But she pressed on.

With each passing step, her mind walked her back to Opal Tower. Her knees grew weaker. Shakier.

And as if it felt the memory resurface, she felt something on her skin.

A familiar tingling. Terrible. It vibrated against her.

Her vision exploded in rainbows. They swam in front of her eyes, but she pressed on.

Her heart pounded, and her legs were jelly. She’d neglected Alice up to now, but was relieved to see her dragging herself up on the railing, trailing just behind.

Before them was a steel door. The placard on its surface read, “Roof Access.”

May grimaced, breath accelerating. The air shook her lungs, never giving her a clean one. 

Then she charged through.

When it swung aside, she first saw two figures. One of them was tied to a chair. The other stood away. They were hunched over. Their hand obscured their face.

Then, she saw her father. He knelt down, missing foot extending behind him. His arms reached out, elbows locked.

And in his hands: a pistol.

Pointed directly at the masked figure.