The old re-run of Futurama cut out and the Presidential seal appeared on the screen with the words please stand by underneath. I figured this a good time to run to the bathroom. I really had to pee and didn't want to miss Bender becoming Pharaoh, even though I had seen it thousands of times. I snuck away to the bathroom, and when I returned, I saw the president giving a speech.
Trump had gotten through the early parts of the speech, and was now talking about the attack that had taken place in four cities at once. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Orlando had all been hit. The president kept going on about how everything that could be done to help the citizens was being done, but there was no mention of who attacked or how the attacks took place. I wasn't really worried. I live in Vermont, and the closest attack was New York City. I figured if it was a nuclear attack, then the president would have said something.
Then my cell started buzzing, usually not something that happens at 10:41 pm on a Tuesday. It was my best friend Shawn. Shawn said “Dude have you seen it. The internet is on fire, we just got attacked with magic.”
“What?”
“I’m telling you dude, Reddit is ablaze, 4chan is on fire. Youtube keeps having videos go up, and then getting pulled down. I managed to get a couple of the clips before they disappeared. There is even one of the guy who is claiming responsibility. I haven't watched them all yet, but you should come down and watch them with me.”
“…”
“You there?”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re not messing with me?”
“Why would I? You know me. I’m a skeptic through and through. I barely believe that the sun is what gives us light, but I can’t prove otherwise. You have to get Sarah and come down and see these videos man. This is going to change the world. Magic man, magic is real!”
“So why can’t I wait until tomorrow?”
“This is the biggest thing to happen in our lifetimes, well, besides you finding a woman to put up with your shite. Come on man, this is a world changer. It’s bigger than Doom 3 was!”
“All right, you’re right. I’ll be down. I’ll see if Sarah wants to come too.”
“All right, I’ll see you in a bit.”
“All right. Peace.”
Sarah
Sleep had been elusive for Sarah, there was something about tonight that made her feel restless. Sarah had taken her sleeping pill, but still was having a hard time getting into a deep sleep. There was something keeping her from entering the restful R.E.M. cycle. Maybe it was because Blake hadn’t come to bed yet. Sometimes she just needed to have the warmth of the man she loved beside her to sleep well. As she drifted from the waking world, and then back to light sleep Blake came in and his weight displaced her on the bed. Sarah pulled the sheet and blanket back for Blake, but he just stayed there, on all fours, looking like an excited puppy.
“What is it?” Sarah said
“That was Shawn on the phone. America has just been attacked. It feels like it did on nine eleven, but there is more. Four cities were hit this time, New York, Chicago, LA and one more.”
“Oh my god, that's terrible.”
“It is, but there's more. They were attacked with magic!”
“What?”
“Magic.”
“Quit playing with me and come to bed.”
“I'm serious. Shawn has videos that have been pulled from youtube, and he wants us to come down and see them. This is life changing stuff.”
“Don’t you have class tomorrow?”
“I think most of the country won’t be doing much of anything tomorrow, come on.”
“All right, but if you are screwing with me, well just tell me now so I can go back to bed. I promise I won’t be mad.”
“I’m not screwing with you unless Shawn is screwing with me, and I saw the alert about the attacks. Just not the magical bit, so let’s go.”
Blake and Shawn had been friends for 15 years before I came on the scene, and that is a lot of history. I know he loves me, but Shawn is something more to him in other ways. I knew that this was important to him. Those two shared special things together that made them tighter than covalent bonds. I heard Blake say something about buying me a coffee on the way and I got my ass in gear.
After getting dressed we went out to the car where I promptly fell asleep again. It is at least a twenty minute trip to Shawn’s without stopping for a coffee, so I figured a bit of a nap would do me just fine. This time though I had a dream and it was intense. I was standing in the middle of a collapsed building, and there was chaos all around me. Blake was at my feet and he was bleeding from his head. I had something coming from each of my hands. One hand looked like fire and the other was surrounded with a purple haze, but of a shade of purple I had never seen before. I felt, I..I don’t know how I felt except angry. I looked into the distance and saw a man coming. He had a shaved head, but I couldn't see his face. He had a leather racing jacket and jeans and was covered by dirt and debris. I felt even more anger, but I knew to be wary cause shit was about to get heavy.
Chapter 2
Blake woke me up right at the climax of what my dream, saying “We're here love, here is your coffee.”
I was a little startled and felt this weird pang inside my head but it quickly passed. The god damned sleeping pills could do bad things if you didn’t sleep when you were supposed to. I took a sip of my coffee, and got myself together as much as I could to and went into Shawn’s. Shawn has a wife Eleanor, and the couple has two kids, two big dogs and a cat. Kennedy is their oldest, she is from a relationship Shawn had with Blake’s cousin and the couple have their own child Annabelle who isn’t quite crawling yet.
As we approached the door Shawn appeared and held it open for us, welcoming us in. He ushered us into the living room and we all sat down. I cuddled up to Blake while Shawn and him talked a bit. They looked so excited, like kids on Christmas morning. Shawn had his laptop fired up and started to show us the mayhem. People were in the street throwing fireballs from their hands. Picking up cars and throwing them into building. A person changed another person into a frog and then stepped on it. Explosive balls of energy whipped by the camera-person and that was all that was on the first clip.
The second one was of the empire state building shot from the ground. Then all of a sudden in green glowing fire an image appeared on it. It looked like a wizard’s hat with two wands crossed under it. Then the building exploded.
The third clip was at Walt Disney World in Orlando. It looked as if the people in costume had taken on their persona's in real life. There was a person carrying his child in his arms running to the entrance only to have the Big Bad Wolf tackle him. The man and child didn't stand a chance, somehow the wolf at them whole, each one with one bite. Then a lumberjack came into frame and cut the wolf open. The father and child were still alive. The lumberjack started stuffing the Wolf's belly with rocks and the camera switched to another scene. Buzz Lightyear was leading a group of civilians to the gate while some Sith were cutting people down with light sabers. Then you could hear the woman recording the cell phone video say “no fucking way” and that was it for that video.
Clip four was of a man whose face was distorted, but not by any means I had seen before. It was like you could see his face, but your eyes would slip right by to focus on what was around him. Yet his voice made you pay attention. He talked about how there was a new generation of people coming to age and his group called the Mad Hatters were here to wake up the people. I realized it was the man from my vision I started feeling really weird and that pang in my head started getting really bad and I sort of blacked out.
Blake
I was blown away by what I had been watching. I mean this could have been some Hollywood stunt for a new movie series, but it was real. Then we got to the video of the guy who face made you look to anything but his face was talking. He started saying something that I couldn’t understand. I looked to Shawn to ask him if he was getting any of this and then it felt like Sarah was getting up. She was, but she was starting to float and her eyes were closed.
Blake looked up at Sarah and was speechless. He expected to hear some witty comment come from Shawn, but nothing was forthcoming. Shawn was passed out in his chair. A little hum could be heard coming from him and there was a smell of earthiness in the room. Blake got up as quick as he could and repositioned Sarah so if she fell, she would land softly on the sofa. Blake began to talk to Sarah, asking her to talk to him, and then Shawn. As Blake got more and more frantic he woke Eleanor whop was now coming down the stairs.
El peeked in around the corner and said “Hi Blake.” and headed to the bathroom. Blake now had tears running freely down his face and was on the edge of losing it. Was he the only one seeing this? Sarah still levitated and Shawn still was unconscious and El was oblivious. El came back from the bathroom and asked “Could you guys be more…” Then she saw what was going on. She looked from Sarah, to Blake and asked Shawn if he was okay and then she looked at the laptop screen. Then El fell over.
“What the fuck? What is going on? You guys can’t leave me here like this. Just then Annabelle started crying and the video stopped playing. One or the other snapped the adults out of it and they came to. Sarah was still floating and Shawn was staring at her.
“What was that?” Shawn asked.
“El fell, she’s over there on the floor, you might want to check on her.” Said Blake
“I’m alright.” Said El, as she got to her feet. A little blood trickled from her cheek.
“Get me down.” Sarah said
Blake gently tried pulling Sarah down, but the more he pushed the more she resisted. Sarah reached out to the couch and as she got a good hold it was like gravity turned on for her and she fell back to the couch. Blake and the others just stared at her, wanting to ask if she was okay, but still not knowing what to say.