Rising Shards

Each footstep was made like a single miniscule creak would mean my doom. In a way, they kind of did. My home was deathly quiet again, which felt like standing in a silent spot just as a tornado passes through. Well, it wasn't a tornado, but we were in the midst of an actual storm.

A void storm had the general feeling of a regular thunderstorm, and for non-Cani it didn't feel any different than one. For Cani, especially void born ones, it absolutely did. I felt a headache getting worse all day, not just from the stress-clenching of my jaw and pretty much every muscle I had done all day. I wasn't void born, but it felt like there was a low rumble within me, a pull somewhere else, and I feared every moment that I'd be zapped far away.

I had to sabotage the machine my mother had built, to make sure it let them go wherever the hell they thought this would take them, but stop it from taking Zeta. I inched forward, not entirely sure what my gameplan was for actually accomplishing this.

I could barely see in the dark, but the machine had its lights on, and their sickly yellow glow was my guide.

I froze for a moment, thinking I heard a creak from my parents' bedroom. I don't think I had ever been that still in my life. From my research about the folks retreating into the void during storms like this, I learned that many take a certain sleeping pill that lasts long enough for them to sleep through the jump, waking up peacefully in some new place. With a dangerous jump like this, they ran the risk of waking up over a big canyon or in space or something, but presumably the machine would direct them to a less fatal location. I assumed my parents took those, but I couldn't be certain. I didn't hear any further creaking, so I carried on.

My heart pounded as I reached the machine. The four bulbs on the side were my target. I had desperately tried to find any notes on which one belonged to which family member, but found nothing. They didn't react to my touch, so I couldn't do some kind of "I can feel the part that resonates with me the most" deal here. I felt a bit defeated right away. Did they sort by age? Completely randomly?

How did I ever think I could do this? I could screw this up and end up with just Mom staying and Dad and Zeta being lost. I didn't even have my binder of printed out info because I couldn't read it in the dark and was too afraid of the noise it'd make if I dropped it.

I felt way too sweaty as I tried to figure out what to do. Should I give up and go back to bed and hope for the best? Should I just unscrew all of them and wait for the next void storm, or just move out. But I couldn't leave Zeta. I couldn't just gamble her fate like this. I had to be both immediate and cautious. I don't think any single moment in my life up to that point was this stressful.

Just as I felt hopelessness threaten to consume me, I heard someone behind me.

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