*** Chapter One: Santos day 1 ***

“I got it!” I whispered, showing them my prize. It was a bottle of liquor I had managed to nab out of the house, there were dozens of them, one going missing wasn’t going to get noticed.

“Shhhh!” Maira put a finger to her lips as she looked around outside for any adults, then broke into a giggle.

It was new years which also happened to be my grandfather’s birthday, meaning that the entire family on his side was currently packed into one house celebrating doubly. This time of the year tended to get wild and memorable.

My usual group of favorite cousins were huddled up in the upper floor of the outside storage doing stupid things like stupid teenagers.

“I couldn’t get the glasses so we are going to have to pass it around,” I said, screwing off the top and taking a swing. It wasn’t my first time, but the burn still made me cough.

“I’m next,” Maira declared before any of my other cousins could take the bottle. She tried her hardest not to cough, but broke out into a fit and almost wretched.

“You ok?” I asked, laughing.

She only nodded.

Moses took the bottle next, he took a longer swing and broke into an equally long coughing fit. He passed it off to David who was beside him.

“No way,” he shook his head.

“Aww come on don’t be a chicken,” Maira teased.

“Fine,” he grumbled and took a small sip. “Blegh!”

The bottle got passed around twice more before it was totally empty.

“We should totally play truth or dare,” Maira suggested.

“Nuh uh,” Moses protested.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “The last time we played that we got into a bunch of trouble.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have jumped off the rooftop,” Maira suggested.

“And who dared me to?” I looked at her with a raised brow.

We couldn’t help but laugh.

“I have cards against humanity,” David suggested, showing everyone the little black box the cards come in.

“That sounds like fun,” Maira reached out for the box. “Gimmeee…”

Her body suddenly grew limp, I have excellent reflexes and was out of my chair ready to catch her, but my own body betrayed me. It suddenly became numb and I was overcome by a sensation something similar to the static field of the old tvs, except that the sensation covered my entire body. While I couldn’t catch her very well I still managed to prevent her from getting hurt.

“Maira!” I called out to her once I felt myself back in full control of my body. I laid her down and turned her face towards me, her eyes were closed. I placed my fingers on her neck, after a slight moment they registered a pulse.

I looked up only to find my other cousins similarly slumped in their own seats unconscious. I checked them as well, their hearts were beating and I could feel their breathing on the palm of my hand.

“What the fell is going on?” I whispered to myself. I wanted to wait it out, but what if they needed medical attention? Boy, was I going to burn at the stake for this.

Their safety was more important to me than my own skin, making my mind up, I headed for the house. On the way I discovered an uncle slouched over in a chair, bottle in hand. I thought nothing of it, thinking he’d drunk himself to sleep, until I went inside and found everyone on the floor seemingly having dropped where they stood.

I went around making sure that no one was left in awkward positions, before checking my phone. My battery was full, but my signal was nonexistent. I tried other people’s phones, but none of them had signal, even the locked ones displayed zero bars.

Not knowing what else to do I started moving bodies to the couches and beds. I moved the kids up to the playroom where I could just lay them out on the carpet. It took time and I had worked up a sweat getting the heavier adults to better locations.

As I laid down one of my younger cousins on the playroom floor my brother, who had been among the first I had brought up to the room, sat up out of nowhere kicking in my fight or flight response. My hands trembled with adrenaline as I pulled away from the cousin I had just laid down.

“Samuel,” I called out to him, his eyes had a lost look in them. He turned towards me and there was panic in them as he scanned the room. “It’s ok. Everyone is fine just sleeping.”

His eyes still held fear and panic, but he contained them.

“Follow me ok?” I told him, he only nodded. “Let’s go.”

I walked up to him and pulled him up then guided him to the next body I needed to move. He followed me around like a robot, that was fine, it was better to feel like you were serving a purpose even if it was nothing over wallowing in panic.

As I moved an aunt into the house from the garage fireman style, I looked over to my brother. “Go and make sure that the stove isn’t lit and make a quick run through the house and blow out any candles that might have been lit, too.”

He nodded and rushed off.

Once he came back I heard a voice coming from the living room, I had gone into the master bedroom to drop off my aunt on the bed along with most of the other women. “Santos!”

I rushed into the living room and found David standing there looking around on the verge of panic.

“David,” I called to him. “I’m here.”

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Everyone is unconscious, whatever happened to us up there happened to everyone in here as well,” I explained. “Help me move some of them to better spots.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes still wide with confusion.

“Some of our family are lying down on the cold floor,” I spoke slowly. “We need to put them on the couches that are left or on the carpet. It has been a while since you fell unconscious, I don’t know how much longer they are going to be like that, but it is better that they don’t stay too long on cold surfaces.”

David moved around too slowly to be of any help and had to be constantly told what to do, the whole situation was probably overwhelming him, but it was frustrating to deal with it. Nonetheless I said nothing and kept moving bodies. Why was our family so freaking big?!

Eventually I had to get the mattresses from the guest rooms down to the first floor, because carrying people up to the second floor seemed very much impossible, especially with the one person big enough to help me was a total mess at the moment.

As the last of the family was moved to better spots, I finally had a chance to think about what I should do. My first thought was to head for the neighbors, but as I ran out towards the driveway I was met with a scene I did not expect, it was so out there my mind reeled for a moment. I hit pause on thought and simply stared as my eyes conveyed what they saw to my brain.

Everything was gone.

The road was gone, the houses nearby were no longer visible, everything outside of the lands of the house were gone. Everything was replaced by a forest and high mountains to every side.