The Luminosity Series (Book 1): Luminosity
Read The Luminosity Series (Book 1): Luminosity Online
Authors: J.M. Bambenek
Tags: #Post-Apocalyptic | Dystopian
LUMINOSITY
BOOK ONE
THE LUMINOSITY
SERIES
J.M. BAMBENEK
LUMINOSITY
Copyright
© 2016 by J.M. BAMBENEK
All
rights reserved.
No part of this
book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written
permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book
review.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and
incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual
events is purely coincidental.
ISBN-13:
978-1530820818
ISBN-10:
1530820812
Table of Contents
On
the eleventh night since their arrival, I couldn’t deny the possibility. Their
thin spires of teal light slithered in the sky, weaving between the
incoming clouds above me. It was my first time seeing the northern lights—a
rarity in this region of the country. But along with their recurring glow came suspicion,
a curiosity that begged to be put to rest. And that evening, their true
consequence would emerge.
A
year earlier, rumors ignited on social media. People spoke of a secret—a
conspiracy to shelter us from a disclosure that would alter life as we knew it.
As outrageous as these claims sounded, no one could dismiss them, and as talk
resurfaced, the lights became an everlasting signal. They screamed their
message—this was more than a breathtaking phenomenon. This was a warning—a sign
we couldn’t reject.
It
became the subject of debate for days. I wanted nothing more than to detach
myself from the ridiculous conspiracy theories. But nowadays, we couldn’t avoid
the garbage that the media pushed, making it impossible to decipher their
attempts to calm us, and their hunger for intrigue. Even harder was it to
separate fact from fiction. Worrying only seemed to heighten the paranoia. And
after Evan’s dad died unexpectedly last year, I longed for life to be ordinary
again. Little did I know, everything was about to get worse.
That
night, I took a deep breath, sitting in the driver’s seat. Already running
late, the engine roared as I swung my old Chevy Malibu onto the freeway that
led into town. The roads resembled a black river as sprinkles of rain trickled
from the sky. My foot pressed down on the gas pedal, the momentum jerking me
forward as my cell phone’s echoing chime bounced from all corners of the car’s
interior. It was the third time he called—the third time we got cut off.
“Hey.
I’m on my way. I should be there in ten minutes.” I expected to hear his voice
this time, but a crackle of static filled my ear instead. “Evan? Are you
there?” After several seconds of dead airwaves, I hung up.
It
wasn’t uncommon for me to lose signal out here. Living in the mountainous
region of Golden, Colorado was reason enough not to rely on cell signals. And
with the potential for communication disturbances, I guess I should have known
better. They talked about it on the news that week—a series of massive solar
flares emerging off the sun. It had been wreaking havoc on reception ever
since.
He tried to call me
back twice. Both times I answered to the eerie static buzzing from the other
line. Desperate to understand what was so urgent, I ignored the road. And by
the seventh unanswered ring, I knew something was wrong.
Headlights glared
against the wet road. They flashed in my peripheral vision as the tires hissed
past me like snakes. I wanted to ignore my curiosity, but hundreds of cars
occupied the freeway exiting town—too many for a Wednesday night.
The horizon glowed a
distinct cobalt blue amidst the dreary sky. The impending alarm rose as I
considered all possible explanations. But only one made sense, and I refused to
consider it.
Now,
larger raindrops pelted against my windshield, my wiper blades unable to keep
the rushing blur of water away long enough. I flinched at the impatient roar of
a gunning engine as their distorted headlights swerved around the other cars, avoiding
collision by mere seconds.
Close
call,
I thought.
The
hostile blaring of horns overwhelmed the rush of raindrops, sounding out of
tune as they passed me by. Several police sirens wailed in the vicinity,
getting louder as I progressed toward town.
I
dialed Evan again. The signal was choppy and the line continued to ring, never
once reaching his voicemail. Distracted by my lack of connection, I tried to
figure out where the sirens were coming from, but it was useless from my
location.
A
parade of cars pulled over on the opposite side of the highway. After a few
moments, the high-pitched scream of tires gripping the wet pavement caught my
attention. This time, two more vehicles sped off, skidding around the others in
my lane as I approached, too close for comfort.
Near
miss.
My
heart pulsed at full speed—a rate my breathing couldn’t keep up with. That’s
when his voice broke through from the other line. But my relief to hear it was
only temporary.
“Evan!
Can you hear me?”
“Aubrey—road—right
now. You—” he said between the overshadowed crackling.
“What?
I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up again.” I hung up for the last time. In an
instant, my blood ran cold as the blurry red lights of an ambulance flashed in
my rear-view mirror. Now, they raced in my direction, emerging from the
darkness. I swerved to the side, washing through the shallow puddles without
coming to a full stop. Once they passed, a grumble unleashed in the distance,
shaking the ground beneath me. Then, my phone lit up again. Glancing too long
at the screen, I veered off the road’s shoulder before the uneven ground jolted
my head up. The phone rattled inside the cup-holder, demanding an answer like a
pestering child refusing to be quiet. My tires squealed as I swerved into the
right lane. And with the force of my jerky twist, the phone slid onto the
passenger-side floor. Wide-eyed, I white-knuckled the steering wheel as I
hydroplaned through the dark ponds of water ahead of me, nearly losing control
of the vehicle.
I
blinked in shame.
On
the floor, my phone illuminated again as a reminder. With the quick catch of my
panicky breath, I glanced at it in dread. No way would I try to reach for it,
so I switched on the radio instead. Nothing. Every station was silent. Alarmed
by the sudden lack of broadcast, I turned the dial a few times. Then, I heard
it—the siren of the emergency alert system blaring through my speakers. After a
few seconds of its horror-like tone, it faded into a sequence of choppy squeals
and frequencies. But this wasn’t a test. Something awful was happening—enough
to warn the entire region—enough for everyone on that stretch of freeway to
stop and stare at the sky.
As
I slowed down, the distant noise intensified, thundering across the sky into
rumbling waves as I peered above me to identify them. A helicopter? Maybe, but
it couldn’t be just one. This sounded like hundreds of them in sync to one
another. Still, nothing was visible but a faint glow above the clouds.
“What
the hell is going on?” I whispered to myself as I pulled over, clicking the
shifter in park along the shoulder of the highway. My hands shook as I reached
for the phone, the wiper blades smearing against the windshield in an
unsettling scream. That was when every suspicion rekindled as I listened to
Evan’s voicemail.
“Aubs,
you need to turn around. I’m at the café downtown. The military is outside. No
one knows what’s happening. They’re warning people to go home. The President is
about to speak. The lights, they aren’t just happening here. They’re happening
all over the world. It’s all over the news, on every channel. Don’t wait. Get
home as soon as you can. Hurry, Aubrey...” Evan warned in a shaky voice, drowning
out amidst panicked cries in the background.
A
sharp pain pierced my chest as I took a breath, and in that moment it crossed
my mind again. The rumors. The stories. The talk of solar storms and auroras in
the sky—it all aligned. Still, the truth terrified me. No doubt I needed to
know what was happening. Everyone did. But I also had my whole life ahead of me—one
I was free to live, unburdened by endless limits, by my mother and her sulking
behind closed doors, by our broken family. But if the rumors
were
true, all
of it would have been for nothing.
A
venomous chill came over me at the hint of possibility. My intuition crippled
me, refusing to accept that this was just an elaborate hoax like people wanted
to believe. Now, I’d give anything for it to be so simple.
Trying
to calm myself, I imagined Evan’s face when I met him at his father’s grave
that year—the relief that was always obvious whenever I arrived. I pictured us
in the years before, laughing together with Janelle and Aaron in front of the bonfire
at the old campground. The way he looked at me after his father died gave away
his fears. He worried one day he’d lose me too.
Sixty
miles per hour was the speed I reached after breaking through traffic—before a single
pair of high-beam headlights raged toward me, blinding me in a collage of stubborn
blue dots as I attempted to return home. I squinted to focus, but they remained
in my vision. Forced to choose, it had come down to that one moment—my final decision
to switch lanes, to free myself from their luminous glare. But instead of
slowing down, the other vehicle sped up. And in that second, life threw me on
the path of annihilation. With little to no warning, the car struck me on the
side, sending me in a mad dash off the slick highway.
In
the time it took for me to blink, the ground shifted position. I screamed in panic,
attempting to slam on the brakes to control the outcome of the collision. But I
couldn’t stop. The bald tires screeched before the momentum betrayed me—the
velocity tossing me around like a rag doll before flipping to a violent finish.
I landed several yards from the point of impact, off the beaten highway. All I
remembered was the scent of burned rubber and the sharp, piercing shriek of
shattered glass. Soon after, everything went quiet.
♦ ♦ ♦
I
opened my eyes to distorted raindrops gathering in the cracks of my broken
windshield. The heavy rain settled, but the smell of smoke choked me as it
surged from the engine. A searing sensation radiated from my left side.
Coughing sent a rippling wave of agony throughout my entire body. My headlights
beamed through the smoke ahead, but the lights on the dashboard flickered,
wanting to die. The buzz of the tires spinning above only added to the horror.
Panic would soon follow. My car was in flames, and I’d burn with it if I didn’t
get out. But there was no way out.
Upside
down, I remained trapped in the driver’s seat with my arm wrapped in an upward,
twisted position, tangled around my seatbelt, mummified by its restriction. The
windshield was cracked into thousands of squiggled lines, like a ten thousand
piece puzzle ready to collapse. Tiny shards of glass dug into my skin as the
familiar ringtone chimed from afar. Relentless blasts of car horns and infuriated
shouts continued. The only thing people cared about, it seemed, was getting out
of town.
Instinct
set in as the fire rose higher from the front end. I bellowed out for help,
nearly passing out from the energy it took from me. But before long, a set of tires
pierced to a halt from the dampened highway behind me.
“Aubrey!”
Evan rushed to the wreckage. After the slopping of his footsteps stopped, he
crouched down in the mud to assess the damage. In the rain, his hair appeared
darker, curled, twisted, and wet against his face. And when I noticed his
wide-eyed expression, he was no longer recognizable.
“Ev?”
I heaved in delirium before suffocating on the fumes again. There wasn’t much
time. But tugging on the seatbelt was no use as he tried to break me free. His
body shook as he glanced at the smoke exhausting from the engine. Dread filled
his eyes as he cringed at my fragile appearance. Panicked by the fire, he swiped
the sharp edge of one of his keys back and forth against the thick fabric that imprisoned
me. Soon after, the tension in my arm released, causing an indescribable throb
as it broke loose.
“I
have to move you, okay?” Anxiety sunk into his voice. I cried, knowing the pain
would be unbearable, nodding to him in acceptance. But he didn’t wait for my
approval. Coughing from the billowing smolder, he grabbed ahold of me from
underneath my arms, pulling and lifting me up gently out of the upside down
window. I screamed out in torment as my body dragged and shifted position. We
were a safe distance away before the sudden awareness of my injuries and the
fear in his eyes staggered me. After grazing his hand on broken bits of glass, a
drop of blood dripped down his palm as he reached for his phone, trembling with
every movement.
“Please,
someone help! I’m—I’m off Route six about five minutes from town! My
girlfriend’s been in an accident! We need a medic out here right away!” he
yelled to the dispatcher as he turned back toward the highway.
Girlfriend.
I suspected he’d thought of me that way, but it wasn’t until that fateful night
I learned how important I really was to him.
His
voice strained and cracked between breaths, tripping over his words. When he
looked to me, a development of tears overwhelmed him.
For
several minutes, he repeated my name. He begged me to stay alert, to keep my
eyes open, reassuring me I’d be okay. But judging from the intensity of pain, I
knew better. My body ached against the pulsing ground as I stared up at the
clouds. The sound sliced through them like knives as raindrops dribbled across
my cheeks. The helicopters were visible now—their blades forming a reflective beam
that ran parallel to the sky. Evan’s voice dissipated as my audio muffled,
marking the beginning of my descent into unconsciousness. He screamed my name
countless times as my vision blurred. But just before I accepted my fate, red
lights flooded the side of his face from a distance behind me. His eyes shot
upward in relief, waving the emergency crews over to us. As I drifted away, he
cried out to them, until finally, it was over.