James Frey - The Calling

As she makes the trip to the stage, a chant begins in the back of the assembly. “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!” She smiles, turns, and looks at all her friends; her classmates; Christopher; her older brother, Tate; and her parents. Her mom has her arm around her dad, and they look proud, happy. Sarah makes an I’m nervous face, and her dad smiles and gives her a thumbs-up. She steps onto the stage, and Mrs. Shoemaker, the principal, hands Sarah her diploma. “I’ll miss you, Sarah.”

“I’m not leaving forever, Mrs. Shoe! You’ll see me again.”

Mrs. Shoemaker knows better. Sarah Alopay has never gotten a grade lower than an A. She was All-State in soccer and track, and got a perfect score on her SATs. She’s funny, kind, generous, and helpful, and clearly meant for bigger things. “Give ’em hell, Alopay,” she says.

“I always do,” says Sarah.

She steps to the mic, looks west over her class, her school. Behind the last line of 319 students is a stand of tall green-leafed oaks. The sun is shining and it’s hot, but she doesn’t care. None of them do. They’re finishing one part of their lives, and another is about to begin. They’re all excited. They’re imagining the future, and the dreams they have and hope to realize. Sarah has worked hard on her speech. She’s to be the voice of her classmates and wants to give them something that will inspire them, something that will drive them forward as they embark on this new chapter. It’s a lot of pressure, but Sarah is used to that.

Sarah leans forward and clears her throat. “Congratulations and welcome to the best day of our lives, or at least the best day so far!” The kids go crazy, and a few prematurely toss their caps into the air. Some laugh. More cheer, “Sar-ah! Sar-ah! Sar-ah!”

“While I was thinking about my speech,” Sarah says, her heart pounding, “I decided to try to answer a question. Immediately I thought, ‘What question is most often asked of me?’ and though it’s a little embarrassing, it was easy to answer. People are always asking me if I have a secret!”

Laughter. Because it’s true. If there was ever a perfect student at the school, it was Sarah. And at least once a week, someone asked what her secret was.

“After thinking long and hard, I realized it was a very simple answer. My secret is that I have no secrets.”

Of course, that is a lie. Sarah has deep secrets. Profound secrets. Secrets that have been kept among her people for thousands and thousands of years. And though she’s done all the things she’s popular for, earned every A and trophy and award, she’s done so much more. Things they can’t even imagine. Like make fire with ice. Hunt and kill a wolf with her bare hands. Walk on hot coals. She has stayed awake for a week straight; she has shot deer from a mile away; she speaks nine languages, has five passports. While they think of her as Sarah Alopay, homecoming queen and all-American girl, the reality is that she is as highly trained and as deadly as any soldier on Earth.

“I am as you see me. I am happy and able because I allow myself to be happy. I learned young that being active breeds more activity. That the gift of studying is knowledge. That seeing grants sight. That if you don’t feed anger, you won’t be angry. Sadness and frustration, even tragedy, are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that happiness isn’t there for us, for all of us. My secret is that I choose to be the person that I want to be. That I don’t believe in destiny or predetermination, but in choice, and that each of us chooses to be the person we are. Whatever you want to be you can be; whatever you want to do you can do; wherever you want to go you can go. The world, and the life ahead, is ours for the taking. The future is unwritten, and you can make it whatever you want it to be.”

The kids are quiet now. Everyone is quiet.

“I’m looking west. Behind you, above the bleachers, is a bunch of oaks. Behind the trees are the plains, the land of my ancestors, but really the ancestral land of all humans. Past the plains are the mountains, from where the water flows. Over the mountains is the sea, the source of life. Above is the sky. Below is the earth. All around is life, and life is—” Sarah is interrupted by a sonic boom overhead. Everyone cranes their necks. A bright streak breaks over the oaks, scarring the blue sky. It doesn’t appear to be moving, just getting bigger. For a moment everyone stares in awe. A few people gasp. One person very clearly says, “What is that?”

Everyone stares until a solitary scream comes from the back row, and it hits the whole assembly at once. It’s like someone has flipped a switch for panic. The sounds of chairs tipping over, people screaming, total confusion. Sarah gasps. Instinctively, she reaches through her gown and grabs the stone around her neck.

It’s heavier than it has ever been. The asteroid or meteor or comet or whatever it is, is changing it. She’s frozen. Staring as the streak moves toward her. The stone on the chain changes again, feeling suddenly light. Sarah realizes that it’s lifting into the air under her robe. It works itself free of her clothing, pulls in the direction of the thing that is coming for them.

This is what it looks like.

This is what it feels like.

Endgame.

The sounds of terror fall away from her ears, replaced by stunned silence.

Though she has trained for it for almost her entire life, she never thought it would happen.

She was hoping it wouldn’t. 742.42898 days. She was supposed to be free.

The stone pulls at her neck.

“SARAH!” Someone yanks her arm hard. The fireball is riveting, terrible, and suddenly audible. She can literally hear it moving through the air, burning, raging.

“Come on! NOW!” It’s Christopher. Kind, brave, strong Christopher. His face is red with alarm and heat, his eyes watering, spit flying from his lips. She can see her parents and her brother at the bottom of the steps.

They have seconds.

Maybe less.

The morning sky darkens, turns black, and the fireball is upon them.

The heat is overwhelming. The sound is paralyzing.

They are going to die.

At the last moment Christopher vaults off the stage, pulling Sarah with him. The air fills with the smells of burning hair, wood, plastic. The necklace pulls so hard in the direction of the meteor that the chain digs into the skin of Sarah’s neck.

They shut their eyes and crumple onto the grass. Sarah feels the stone pull free. It sails into the air, seeking out the meteor, and at the last minute the huge fireball changes direction, stopping a thousand feet short and skipping over them like a flat rock on a smooth lake. It happens so quickly that no one can see it, but somehow, some way, for some reason, the ancient little stone has spared them.

The meteor flies over the cement grandstand and impacts a quarter mile to the east. The school building is there. The parking lot. Some basketball courts. The tennis courts.

Not anymore.

The meteor destroys them all.

Boom.

They’re gone.

Those comforting and familiar places where Sarah has spent her life—her normal life, anyway—are gone in an instant. Everything wiped away. A new chapter has begun, just not the one Sarah hoped for. A shock wave rushes out and over the field, carrying dust and darkness. It hits them hard, flattens them, knocks them down, blows out their eardrums.

The air is hot and choked with particles, gray and brown and black. It’s hard to see. Christopher is still with Sarah. Holding her. Shielding her. He pulls her close as they’re pelted with stones and dirt, fist-sized chunks of god-knows-what. There are others around them, some hurt. They cough. They can’t stop crying. They can’t stop shaking. It’s hard to breathe. Another shock wave passes through and pushes them farther into the ground. Sarah gets the wind knocked from her. Spears of fleeting light illuminate the dust. The ground shakes as things begin to fall around them. Hunks of cement and steel, twisted cars, furniture. They can do nothing but wait, praying that nothing lands on top of them. Christopher is holding her so hard it hurts. She is digging her nails into his back.