Page 2 of Splintered Shadow
Three bouncing dots appeared on the screen.
“Sorry. I suck. Don’t be mad. I just miss you,”Trisha wrote.
And Sarah missed Robert. Three years after her fiancé’s unexpected death from an aneurysm, it still hurt. One day he had a headache, laid down for a nap, and never woke up.
The grief counselor told her not to make any big changes right away, but Sarah couldn’t sleep in the same bed—their bed. Staying in the same apartment was too much. She felt stuck in molasses, sunken by the memories, and needed to break free. So she moved as far as she could to keep a reasonable commute to her job. On a good traffic day, it was an hour’s drive to the old neighborhood, her friends, and her parents’ house. Close, but not too close.
It was great. New grocery store. New gas station. No memories waiting to ambush her every time she passed their Sunday morning bagel place. No neighbors with concerned frowns asking her how she was doing.
It was also lonely.
The apartment seemed even emptier, just her and the laundry basket.
Robert wouldn’t want her holed up in her apartment, hiding behind the excuse of laundry and work to avoid people. He’d want her to go out and enjoy herself. Live.
Re-engage with the community, the grief counselor called it. They wrote the phrase down on Sarah’s action plan like those were steps she would actually take before their next appointment.
She sighed and picked up the phone.“Give me an hour. I need to put on my face.”
Trisha replied with a series of emojis that made no sense.
Star. Peach. Exclamation point. Lightning bolt. Dog. Heart. Heart.
“See you soon,”Trisha wrote.
Her chest tightened, panicking at the audacity of hergoing outandhaving funwith friends.
“Dammit,” she muttered, blinking quickly to avoid crying. She tossed the phone down, swiping at her eyes. This wasn’t a big deal. This was doing things she used to enjoy with people she liked. This was part of her action plan.
Her phone buzzed and vibrated next to her on the bed.
“Trisha, not now.” She wasn’t in the mood to be guilted into a girls’ night.
The power went off in the building. The only light came from the phone’s screen.
Color swirled and pulsed across the screen.
“Initiating…”The words flashed across the screen.
Light erupted from the phone, swirling above the bed. Red, blue, yellow… a rainbow-colored vortex materialized. The air pressure dropped. Sarah felt it in her bones. Then a suddenwhooshas the vortex sucked everything toward it.
This was not good.
Sarah scrambled back. Hair whipped around her face. Clothes—socks, tops, the slippers on her feet—were pulled into the swirling rainbow portal.
It caught her ankle. The force of it yanked her leg up and sent her flat to her back.
Sarah flopped over, clutching the mattress. Blankets and sheets came away, flying up to partially cover her face, and she was dragged through the vortex.
Vekele
“An anomaly,” Vekele said.
He tilted his head to better view the information on the tablet’s screen. An anomaly could be anything from a sensor malfunction to interference from a solar flare.
Or an invading force trying to slip through Arcos’ security.
“An anomaly,” Baris agreed.
