The Mimics

Chapter 4

Aurora POV

The halls of the highschool, once a chaotic river of voices and slamming lockers, were now a tomb. Walking to class felt like trespassing in a museum of a world that was already dead. Only about a quarter of the student body had shown up; the rest were either hunkered down in bunkers or had fled the city entirely.

I sat in the back of my Calculus class, the air heavy with the scent of stale floor wax and unspoken dread. There were only three other students—two guys in football hoodies and a girl I barely knew who was chewing her fingernails until they bled. Mrs. Gable was at the whiteboard, her hand trembling slightly as she scribeled derivatives. She was trying so hard to be normal, but every few minutes, she’d stop mid-sentence and glance at her phone on the podium, her face pale and pinched.

My pocket buzzed. I glanced down, the blue light of my screen feeling blinding in the dim room.

Claire: Matt’s here. Whitney stayed home.

Claire: Rory, this is it. End of the world s*x. Go get him before the aliens eat us.

I scoffed, shaking my head at the screen. Typical Claire. The sky was falling, and she was still trying to play matchmaker with my virginity. I started to type back—something about how my "end of the world" plans involved a lot more canned soup and a lot less Matthew Henderson—when the world simply stopped.

CRACK.

It wasn't a sound; it was an impact. The air itself seemed to shatter, a bone-deep vibration that shook the foundations of the building until the desks rattled against the floor.

Then, the lights died. Not a flicker or a dimming—they were just gone. The hum of the AC, the whine of the projectors, the faint buzz of the emergency exit signs... everything went black.

"Nobody move!" Mrs. Gable screamed, but we were already out of our seats.

From outside, the silence of the "New Normal" was replaced by a symphony of horror. Tires shrieked. Metal twisted and groaned as cars lost their steering and slammed into poles, buildings, and each other. Screams drifted up from the parking lot, raw and jagged.

We scrambled to the windows. Below, it was a graveyard of smoking steel. A city bus had plowed straight into the brick sign of the school. People were stumbling out of their vehicles, staring at their dead dashboards in a daze.

Then came the whistle.

It was a low, terrifying moan that grew into a roar. I looked up and saw a commercial jet, its engines silent, its wings tilting aimlessly as it fell out of the sky like a wounded bird. It was coming straight for us.

"GET DOWN!" someone shrieked.

I hit the floor, tucking my head between my knees. The building groaned as the plane’s wing grazed the roof, a sound like a giant tearing a sheet of metal in half. Then, the impact.

The ground bucked. I was thrown against a desk as a massive explosion tore through the air, the heat of it momentarily searing the back of my neck. The windows in our classroom shattered inward, raining diamonds of glass over us. Dust and soot filled the air, making me gag.

The West Wing. The realization hit me like a physical blow. Chemistry was in the West Wing. Claire was in Chemistry.

"Claire!" I screamed, lunging for the door.

The hallway was a tunnel of grey smoke and flickering shadows. I tried to run, to get to the stairs, but a pair of strong arms caught me around the waist, pinning me back.

"Aurora, stop! You can't go back there!" It was Mr. Kent, the gym teacher.

"Let me go! My friend is in there! Claire is in there!" I thrashed, kicking and clawing at him, my voice breaking into a jagged sob. I didn't care about the smoke or the falling ceiling tiles. I just needed to find her.

"It's gone, Aurora! The whole wing is gone!"

I screamed until my throat was raw, but he didn't let go. He dragged me back toward the gym, away from the fire and the rubble, leaving my heart buried somewhere under the remains of the West Wing.

An hour later, I was sitting on the bleachers in the gym, curled into a ball. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and the quiet, rhythmic sound of people crying. I sat alone, my hands stained with soot, staring at the double doors. Every time they opened, I hoped to see a flash of bleach-blonde hair and a tan, smiling face.

But she never came.

"Rory!"

My mother burst through the doors, her hair disheveled, her face a mask of pure terror. She ran to me, pulling me into a hug so tight I could barely breathe. I clung to her, burying my face in her shoulder as the first real tears started to fall.

"We have to go," she whispered, her voice shaking. "The EMP... everything is dead. Your father is waiting outside."

As we walked out of the gym, I caught a glimpse of a figure sitting by the exit. It was Matthew. His letterman jacket was shredded, his face covered in a thick layer of grey ash and dried blood. He looked hollowed out, staring at his hands as if he didn't recognize them. He was alive. A few others were, too.

But as I looked back at the smoking ruins of the school, I knew the truth. Claire was gone. The world was cold. And the "normal" I’d been racing home to find was officially a ghost.

The darkness wasn’t just a lack of light; it was a physical weight. The EMP hadn't just turned off the lamps; it had severed the nervous system of the world. One minute we were a global society, and the next, we were huddled around flickering candles like ghosts in a museum. Every car on the road—from the newest electric models to the old trucks—had become a multi-ton paperweight. The city was a graveyard of silent engines.

Within forty-eight hours, the "civilized" world fractured. From the windows of our home, I watched the neighborhood dissolve. People I’d known for years—people who used to bring us Christmas cookies—were now breaking into garages to steal bicycles and raiding pantries for canned corn. The sound of breaking glass became the new background noise of Texas.

Because of Dad’s rank, we weren't left to the wolves. A military transport unit reached us on foot and with horse-drawn carts a few days in, and we were escorted to a military safe zone. It was a city of olive-drab tents and razor wire, a place where the air tasted like woodsmoke and desperation.

"Rory, eyes on the sight," my father commanded.

I stood in a makeshift range at the edge of the camp, the weight of the handgun heavy in my palms. Before the ship, Dad had taken me to the range for fun—it was just another hobby, like gymnastics. Now, his face was a mask of cold iron.

"This isn't target practice anymore, Aurora," he said, his voice low and urgent. "The things coming... they aren't going to miss. You can't afford to, either."

He stood behind me, adjusting my stance. "If you need to stop them without ending them, you aim for the pelvic girdle or the kneecaps. They won't be able to chase you. If you need them to bleed out while you make your escape, you go for the femoral artery in the thigh or the sub-clavian under the collarbone. They'll have minutes, and they'll spend those minutes dying."

I swallowed hard, my finger trembling against the cold metal of the trigger.

"But if they are close," he continued, his hands steady on my shoulders, "if they are between you and the exit, or between you and your brother, you don't hesitate. Center mass or the 'T' of the face. Instant shut-down. Do you understand me?"

"I understand, Dad," I whispered, the word feeling like a stone in my throat.

He turned me around, gripping my arms. "I’m going to be drafted soon. They're calling everyone up. If this place is breached—if anything happens—you don't wait for me. You take Theo, you take the kit I packed, and you run. You protect him above everything else. He is your heartbeat now. Do you hear me?"

I looked over at Theo, who was sitting on a crate a few yards away, playing with a headless plastic soldier in the dirt. He looked so small against the backdrop of tents and soldiers.

"I’ll protect him," I promised, my jaw tightening with a resolve I didn't know I possessed. "I won't let anyone touch him."

My father nodded, a flash of pride and deep, agonizing sorrow crossing his eyes before he went back to his soldier's mask. "Again. Sight, breath, squeeze. Do it until you can't feel the recoil."