A New World

Michaela Rae Paxton was a happy, all american girl. She got good grades from kindergarten to college. After graduating, she opened a small practice where she saw about 10 clients a week. Everything was as she thought it should be in her life. Her love life had not always been stable, but for the last 8 months she had been seeing a great man, who she could see spending the rest of her life with. His name was Leonardo, but he went by Leo.

It was two days before Michaela's 27th birthday and her plans were to just have a quiet dinner with Leo, but he had other arrangements. Leo had planned a surprise party, inviting all Michaela's friends. He had even flown in her parents. Leo was going to ask Michaela to marry him. So the morning of her big day, Michaela awoke to Leo holding a small wrapped box. "What's this?" She asked excitedly. " Open it and find out." He replied. It's a beautiful heart shaped locket. "I love it, thank you, so much!" She exclaimed. He gave her a kiss and helped her put on the locket. He reminded her about their dinner and she reassured him, she would be there on time.

Seeing all her friends and her parents made it such a special birthday. Then when Leo got down on one knee to propose it was just like a dream, of course she said yes. After 7 months of planning her dream wedding it was now only 3 days away. Michaela thought she would be nervous or anxious, but she felt calm.

Then the night before her wedding day, the world shook and it shook hard. The shaking only lasted about 4 minutes but that seemed like an eternity. The power was out, buildings had crumbled, there were fires, and car accidents everywhere. Michaela had grown up in California so earthquakes didn't really scare her, it was when she called out for Leo and he didn't reply that her heart sank. She called for him again and again, and the last time she screamed out for him as her voice cracked tears started to run down her cheeks. Why was he not answering her? Was he hurt or worse? She ran threw the house clinging to the heart shaped locket, he had given her that she had promised to never take off. Then very softly she could hear her name being called it was Leo, he was ok she thought. She kept looking for him, trying to follow his voice. She kept calling out to him.

It seemed as though the closer she thought she was to him the further away his voice seemed to get. She thought, "Am I going crazy? He is answering me, right? "Leo, Where are you?" After a long silence. She heard "I'm forever in your heart." That made her mad. Why was he playing some weird game in a situation like this? She called for him again "Leo, Where are you right now? Are you ok?" But this time Leo didn't reply, no one replied it was just silence. Michaela then remembered Leo was going to stay the night at his brother's house with the wedding being the next day. So who was it she had heard?

Trying to get ahold of herself she searched for a flashlight. Then she started to look around the livingroom it was a mess, a complete disaster. She went outside to discover their house was the only one still standing. She could hear sirens. People were screaming and crying in the streets. One of her neighbors ran up to her crying, she couldn't find her children. Michaela was still worried about Leo, but had to help. So they wasted no time, Michaela run over with her flashlight trying desperately to see or hear anything that would show that those kids were ok. "What are their names?" Michaela asked the now hysterical women. Who replied "Sandy is 8, Raymond is 10 , and Alex is only 4." Michaela thought a 4 year old, this is not going to be something she could handle, finding the body of a 4 year old.

She called for the kids, looked and listened, but nothing. She couldn't see very well it was so dark, but she kept trying the best she could. Then just for a second the flashlight beam caught what Michaela thought was a hand. It was, it was a little hand. Michaela called to the mother "Come help me, I think I found something!" The still crying women came quickly and started digging with Michaela. It was Alex, the 4 year little girl was alive. Scared and holding on to the hand of her older brother Raymond who was also ok. "Where's Sandy?" The mother asked almost yelling . The kids didn't know they said that they had not seen her even before the earthquake.

Michaela was grateful that at least the 2 kids were found and safe, but she knew she needed to find Leo. As the night went there was still had no cell phone signal, no power, and the roads were all closed off.

Michaela started walking she thought Leo would have to be at his brothers house and that was only about 5 miles away. As she walked, she noticed that the sound of the sirens had lessened. She stopped walking for a moment and used her flashlight to try to look around, much to her surprise she saw what appeared to be an army of people walking about 6 across, they walked in perfect uniform but didn't seem to be stopping to help people or to clean up or repair all the damage in the streets. She thought to herself what kind of army could this be? Then a ray of light from her flashlight caught the face of someone she knew, someone she loved, someone she had been searching for. It was Leo, he was ok. He was safe. He was walking in this weird army. So she called out to him. "Leo," she shouted as she walked towards him. "Leo" but nothing he didn't turn his head or even slow his walk. He stayed in perfect uniform with the rest of the people. Michaela tried to flash her light on some of the others faces as she did she noticed that another face looked familiar to her it was Sandy from next door. Michaela remembered seeing her before playing in the yard with her siblings. Michaela tried calling out to her as well, but same as Leo no reply.

Michaela didn't know what to do, she ran back up to Leo grabbing on his arm, calling his name. She even tried slapping him in the face. Nothing, nothing, he just stayed in line walking. She didn't know what to do, but she knew she wasn't gonna loose him, again so she just walked right beside him going where ever he was going.

After walking for what felt like forever, trying the whole way to get Leo's attention, Michaela looked down at her watch, they had been walking for four hours straight, it was 6:30 am. The sun was not rising in fact it was just as dark now as when she started. She had no idea where she was, where she was going or how she was gonna get threw to Leo. It was about 20 mins later that the army of random people just stopped. Still in their perfect uniformed lines just stopped. Michaela was even more confused she shined her flashlight so she could see the other people's faces. It didn't make any sense, some were old, young, men, women, all colors and all sizes it didn't appear that any of them had anything in common. As Michaela looked at the faces of these people, there six rows behind Leo, she saw another familiar face, it was her mother. She ran over to her surely, she would be able to wake up her own mother from this seemingly unbreakable trance, but nothing. Michaela's mind was going a hundred miles a minute: Where was her father? Had her mother been so close this whole time? What was she going to do? How was she going to wake them up?

Then a loud, deep voice broke Michaela's thoughts. She quickly turned off her flashlight trying to blend in with the others to see just what was going on. The voice said "You all already know why you are here now we must move quickly." Then everyone started walking again still in perfect uniformed lines so Michaela just walked along side. They were all going into what looked like a large floating room. Michaela was terrified, but she wasn't going to loose her mother and the love of her life, so she followed suit. Once inside the floating room it seemed that the trance was wearing off, people were starting to talk to each other but no one was questioning where they were or why they were there. It's like Michaela was the only one who didn't know. She found her mother first, as she went to her Michaela started to ask her what was happening when her mother said "Hi baby, I don't think you are suppost to be in here." Michaela finally just blurted out everything she had been holding in "I'm not supposed to be in where? and why am I not? and what was wrong with all of you? Where is here, and why has the sun not come up? where is daddy? and what the hell is going on?

Her mother only replied "Your to emotional thats why, and now you better leave." Just then Leo was right there Michaela turned to him and asked "Do you think I should leave too?" His reply was not what she expected or wanted to hear. He said "I think you shouldn't have come here in the first place."

Michaela started crying, she had no idea why this was happening. She said "I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me what the hell is going on!" Then the voice from outside spoke again. It said "Michaela the world as you know it is now over, the people in this room were chosen a long time ago for specific reasons. We knew this day was coming and I'm sorry but you will have to leave." She argued with the mystery voice accusing him of thinking he was God and demanding to stay with her fiance and her mother. The cold loud voice just replied "The sun has exploded, I am taking the people in this ship to start a new world they were all previously vaccinated with a special vaccine and you were not. If you stay it will be a horribly painful death." Michaela replied "So you do think your God! What happens if this vaccine of yours doesn't work? Then you have sentenced all these people to death!"

She agreed to leave but begged her mother and Leo to go with her, but they just dismissed her turning their backs towards her. The voice then said "Go now!"

Michaela had no choice she left the ship scared, alone, confused, and heart broken. Once back on the ground she stood watching almost in disbelief as the ship took off. Michaela didn't know where she was or how she was gonna be able to find her way home. She thought if she could get back to her father and tell him what had happened, maybe he would know what to do, maybe he would know how to tell people about the sun exploding.

Then the Earth started shaking just as it had done before, Michaela held on to her locket as tight as she could. This time the shaking was much stronger causing the earth to crumble and sadly Michaela never saw her father or anyone ever again.