Chapter 1
There are moments in time that can never be forgotten, Moments that change us as people. Charles had experienced a great many of those in his 28 years on Earth. The death of his father. Losing his mother to the bottle. His hellish childhood growing up under the thumb of Kurt Marko alongside Cain. The life changing terror of September 11.
That last one was the event that continuously ricochet through his mind as he watched Times Square blink out. In an instant it went from a bright, rushing metropolis to a dead standstill. There was no buildup to it, no moment of warning. Traffic stopped and the lights went down in the blink of an eye. There was a long moment of echoing silence before chaos broke loose. People were panicked and enraged. But no one had a clue as to what was going on.
Charles grasped for his phone in his pocket to find it a cold, useless lump of metal. It was 10:19 on a Tuesday morning. He only knew that because his father’s old wristwatch continued ticking comfortably on his right wrist. As with all the momentous moments that came before, Charles knew his life would never be the same.
~~
It had been a week since the first black out. It had lasted for exactly 15 minutes. It had encompassed the globe. That last bit of news wasn’t even the most disturbing bit.
Hospitals had kept electricity, but so had the homes of bedridden patients. Not kept electricity as much as the machines the patients depended on to survive had continued running without it. Everyone was baffled. Doctors, scientists, politicians, and holy men all had their say. Preaching the evils of global warming, the signs of the end times, blaming other nations for what some called a massive cyber attack. Charles didn’t know what to believe, but none of those explanations seemed quite right for some reason.
The second blackout came four days after the first. It lasted for exactly ten minutes. Planes hovered in the air unmoving, like models strung with hobby wire from the clear blue sky. Charles had heard the reports of planes gliding along with no equipment or sensors during the previous blackout, but had found it hard to imagine. Seeing something even more bizarre right outside his window had sent goose bumps running up his arms.
The university shut down after that, sending the panicked students home in a rush. Most of the professors and auxiliary staff left as well.
Charles was accustomed to being alone for holidays and the like, but something felt different about this. A certain sense of doom hung in the air, just like those planes Charles thought darkly as he walked along an uncustomarily quiet New York City street.
The military had been recalled to their posts. No battles were being waged anywhere on the globe. “That’s a first in human history,” Charles had thought to himself, still in shock over the current events.
All weapons of war had ceased to function during the first blackout and had never come back on line. They could not be restarted, rewired, or reprogrammed. They sat as silent monuments to the greatest and most terrible of mankind’s ingenuity.
The third blackout occurred exactly a week after the first. When the world had changed so irrevocably in seven days, could it ever go back? Should it? Charles wondered idly as he sat in his luxurious but empty brownstone with only his small calico, Albert, for company.
The blackout lasted for exactly five minutes and the tide stopped. The sun and moon froze in place. The stars sat still in the firmament. This was confirmed in every way it could be. But it made no sense unless the earth itself had ceased to move. Had stopped rotating, had stopped orbiting the sun. And that made no sense, how could it?
Charles was used to being the most intelligent person in a given room, but this series of events had him baffled and more than a little terrified. It was times like these he wished he had someone to call his own. His friends had all returned to their families. But he was alone.
He wasn’t a religious man, but from what he knew of end times stories, none panned out quite like this.
The following morning he opened his door to two federal agents asking for his help. Within minutes he and Albert- the young couple who usually watched him for Charles had fled the city- were on their way to the CIA headquarters at Langley. Though Charles didn't know it at the time, this was another momentous event, easily dwarfing all that had come before it, and his life would never be the same.