A Dark Sun

• Bella Brown, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2010

It was summer. The sun beat down on my tan skin as I ran my fingers through my long, thick blonde hair. I was in my grandma’s wheat farm, where I was in one of the many long stretching fields. I looked down to find I was wearing my good church white dress. It was knee length and had thin spaghetti straps, and I only wore it on special occasions. I looked up at the sky and reminisced in the warmth and familiarity of the farm. I indulged in all the memories I shared here as a child. I plonked down on the ground only to find that as I looked around me, I was surrounded by bodies. My families dead bodies. My mother, my father, my grandma, my grandfather. I began breathing heavily and shuffled backwards and bumped into more bodies, this time of my brother Jordan, and sister Mollie. All laying lifelessly amongst the wheat. Tears flowed from my eyes and I screamed at the sight of it all. It was too much. I turned around and bumped into a man. I didn’t have a chance to look at him properly before he pulled out a gun from his belt and pulled the trigger.

I woke up. Sweat trickled down my forehead as I tried to steady my breathing. It was just a dream. Surely my family couldn’t be dead. Just to be sure, I hopped out of bed and opened the door to the rest of the bedrooms in my house. Walking down the hallway I peeked into their rooms. Mum and dad were sleeping silently with the constant rise and fall of their abdomens. Jordan was snoring softly like always while Mollie was silently mumbling to herself. Everything was normal. I sighed a sigh of relief and tucked myself back into bed, lay my head back leisurely and closed my eyes, knowing I was safe with my family, in my house.

It was a brilliant cloudless morning. I stifled a yawn and stretched my arms high above my head. I peered at the clock and gasped. It was 9 o’clock and I had long missed my bus. Why hadn’t mother woken me up? “Mum! I’ve missed my bus, you’re going to have to drive me to school” No answer. “Mum!” The silence engulfed me. I couldn’t take it any longer. Just like I had done the previous night, I stepped across the mahogany floor boards and opened the door to my parents room. It was completely empty of everything. All the knick-knacks and pictures me and my siblings were completely gone. Vanished. I looked into my brother and sister’s rooms frantically. The same had happened with their rooms as it had with mum and dads. I shot down the stairs into the kitchen to find my phone but stopped halfway and cussed silently. The same man from my dream was in the kitchen. He threw his head bag and laughed a horrible, grim laugh.