1st 5 Pages January Workshop - Kerr

Name: Carryn W Kerr

Genre: Young Adult romantic, light science-fiction, adventure.
Title: Petriville

“By the tender age of five, I had outlived my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. In fact, by this age, I had outlived almost Earth’s entire population.”

Encased in an invisible and indestructible compound, the town of Petriville had a safe launch into Earth’s orbit. Those days, though, were little more to me than broken threads of memory.

Today was my sixteenth birthday — my Age of Understanding. Today I’d come face to face with, not the stories that filtered through school halls, nor the facts recorded in history books, but the raw, uncensored truth. Although I had yearned for this moment, now that it was here, my heart wouldn’t stop thumping against my rib cage.

This morning at breakfast, Mom and Dad had given me sixteen silver sparkle bangles. Now, I stood outside our Virtual Experience Room, trying to summon the courage to enter. I shook my wrist and watched the bangles twinkle while jangling like wind chimes against my antique, white gold wrap-around bracelet pen.

When footsteps approached, I looked up. Liam strode the dark wood hallway towards me. Leaning against the door frame and crossing his feet, he spoke, as always, in rapid-fire, “You ready, Cassidy?” All morning, he had traced my movements, clenching his dense blonde brows.

I bit my lip, not exactly answering him, “Li, the first time you entered the VE, did you ask Mom and Dad to go with you?”

He shook his head and shrugged, “They offered. Call it pride, or whatever, but I hardly wanted them to see me break.”

“And did you?” I met his bright green eyes, “…break, I mean?”

“Not to scare you, Cassidy, but everyone does.”

My eyes dipped for a moment, “I wanted to do this alone, but...” I broke off.

Liam lay a venous hand over my shoulder, “You don’t have to, Sis. Mom and Dad would go with you if you asked.”

“Not Mom and Dad, Li.” I fixed on my leather sandals, adding softly, “I’d rather you were there.”

He puffed a smile, “I‘d definitely prefer that.”

Without hesitation, as though I’d change my mind if he waited, he pulled the door open and held his hand out, palm up, towards the center of the room. Maybe he was right. I would perhaps have back-peddled, had I had a second thought. Instead, I gritted my teeth and stepped inside. Liam followed me, and the door sealed behind us. The ceiling-mounted VE cube threw a triangular light to the floor. The light expanded, sliding over our feet, up our legs, bodies, heads. A gravitational pull sucked Liam and me toward the center of the room, into another time.

I drew in the fragrance of spring flowers and freshly cut lawn. The soft early evening breeze brushed my skin. And tiny recording drones floated around spectators like silent flies, recording moments that would become Petriville’s history. As sunset’s orange glow deepened, a much younger three-dimensional version of Dad exited our home. The drones took in every facade of Dad’s tall, fair, sculpted physique. My eyes dropped to the young version of Mom — stretched out on our front lawn. An incredulous expression lit her olive-toned face, her dark hair haloing around her head; jeans never quite long enough to reach her ankles.

The breeze fluttered seven-year-old Liam’s blonde curls, as he clasped my five-year-old hand in his and pointed to the sky. I recalled none of it but noted how, even then, we were tall for our ages. Even then, my deep blue eyes contrasted my olive skin and straight, dark hair while the knobby knees, Liam so often teased me about, protruded below the hem of a pale blue dress, I could almost remember.

“Hey, now, Emily. So, here we are.” Dad hummed in his smooth baritone as he paced back and forth.

Mom fluttered her long fingers as though to push a recording drone away. Her smiling, elite English accent flowed through the speakers in warm harmony. “Oh, stop fidgeting, Peter. Come lie here with us.” Without tearing her gaze from the sky, she held her hand out to Dad.

“Give me a minute, hey Ems. I’ll join you in just a bit.”

The scene was so lifelike I found myself tiptoeing through the scenery, afraid to step on anyone. I turned and looked up our block, then in the other direction, spanning the gentle arc of the walkway fronting our homes. Neighbors stood or lay on their lawns, on the pavement, or in the park over the walkway. Quite still, mouths agape. No eyes left the darkening sky, and no one smiled at the myriad of tiny recording drones floating around each family. Slowly, I followed their focused gazes.

It had not been visible that day: the day of the launch. But as Petriville had rotated, the most magnificent scene had materialized, laced in tones of the softest blues to the deepest greens. And draped over Earth, clouds floated in languid majesty, crisp white to deep, dark grey.

Considering how bleak Earth had looked for a long time, I turned my sixteen-year-old head to my eighteen-year-old brother, “This is not new. Earth isn’t much different now to how it was then.”

“Wait, Cassidy. This is so that you can see how it was for everybody when we first arrived in Earth’s orbit. Set the mood, so to speak.”

Almost as soon as Liam had spoken, the scene faded, and we were back in our home VE Room. Then, a new Visual Experience descended from the cube, spreading its light out and up over us.

Again, Mom and Dad were outside our home, this time in the park across the walkway. No children were out on this dark night. No adults lay on the grass. Drones skimmed the crowds, though everyone ignored them. All eyes locked on the night sky, and all mouths stood agape. Whimpers escaped both men and women. I followed their stares, drifting skywards.

My chest tightened. An enormous flaming ball and tail descended toward Earth. As the mass drew nearer and nearer the beautiful planet, a deathly silence fell.

Recording drones took in spectators’ faces. I stopped on the angular features of an attractive, brown-skinned man. The younger Joshua Carter’s thick-rimmed glasses tipped to one side above his prominent nose, his electric shock of salt and pepper hair and beard, wilder than ever. A burden bore down on none, I was sure, like the astrophysicist who had identified the massive asteroid, diverted into a collision course with Earth. Horror contorted his features, while Caroline, his wife, clung to him, keening mournfully into his neck, her glossy black hair braids obscuring her high cheekbones and beautiful face.

Even though I knew the outcome, I found myself wishing things would work out differently: the meteorite would incinerate in Earth’s atmosphere; the asteroid would glide past — miss Earth entirely. Impossible, of course.

As Dad pulled Mom back against him, she dropped her face, swatting away drones. But she was not quick enough to hide the tears flooding her deep blue eyes and cascading down her cheeks.

Then, as ethereal brightening seared the dark sky, a shimmering explosion rose from Earth in a mushroom of debris!