Prologue - NaNoWriMo

On a whim, I decided to do NaNoWriMo. I think it'll be fun :) Here's the prologue to my story! Tentative title is: Struck. I sincerely hope it's not as sucky as I feel it is.

Prologue

I always considered our world to be “normal.” There is a reason that superheroes don’t exist. There is a reason that all of my fantasies about being a superhero won’t come true. There are times when I’m so lost in them, I can feel the power surges. I can feel the rush of adrenaline when I think of saving the world or fighting a random villain causing mass chaos in my general vicinity. However, my fantasy stops. I am still in the real world. I’m not going to get superpowers.

So, watching the news with my boyfriend, I never expected this day to come. There had been news of a meteor potentially crashing down to earth. What did I think? Was my life going to be all Deep Impact or something? No. As far as I know, the meteor is going to land somewhere in Africa. Yes, it is the motherland, but I’m not particularly concerned about the crash site. Maybe there was a tribe living there; maybe animals; maybe an expanse of wilderness. However, I am too disconnected to use any of my empathy or sympathy to care.

We brace ourselves, as little as we need to, for the impact. We don’t know what is going to happen, whether or not the meteor would or could trigger an extinction event. Scientists proposed that the meteor large enough to do damage to the earth where it landed, or was supposed to land. If it happened to land in the ocean, well, crisis averted. It would create minor tidal waves.

So, as we sit on the couch on this boring Thursday night watching “Meteor 2011,” I wonder what change, if any will come. How exactly is my life going to be affected by this? As the meteor grows closer to the atmosphere, a slight apprehension grows in my body. I feel more and more tense as the celestial body gets closer. There are cameras from satellites in space, news crews near the projected site of impact.

“Are you okay?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah?” I wasn’t sure why he was asking that question.

“Well, you don’t really look like you are.”

“Oh.” I must have been grimacing. I straighten my expression. The more we watch the meteor coverage, the more tension I feel, like something was constricting my body. And, when the meteor finally strikes the atmosphere, my eyes fly open. It feels like a shockwave. My ears are ringing and I can feel myself let out a scream, but I can’t hear it or Jamie frantically trying to figure out what’s wrong. I fall to the ground, holding my head. I almost miss the meteor splitting off into five parts. The reporters are speechless for a moment, gathering what to say before reporting what is happening

Between the pain and the awe at the meteorites, I don’t know what to do with myself. However, my body does: everything goes black. I awake less than an hour later, feeling fine. Jamie greets me with a glass of water, an expression of mixed relief and worry on his face. He tells me where the meteors landed; there was coverage from all over the globe. One in Antarctica, Africa, America, Japan, and Turkey.