Chapter 1: The First Shock
The day had seemed normal enough. School, work, down time at the Base. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary—that was shy it was so much of a shock, the lack of warning.
The first shock hit Jackson Darby and his mother, June.
It was the middle of the night. Jack was already in bed and June had just gotten home from a late shift at the hospital. On her way in, she noticed a weather worn by plain off white envelope amongst the junk mail on the table. There was no return address. When she tore it open out of curiosity, she found it wasn't a letter but a small folded note. Opening it, her eyes instantly widened at the first line. After reading the two short sentences of the messages her heart was pounding and she'd broken out in a cold sweat. After reading the signature at the bottom she dropped the note and bolted to Jack's room.
It flinted to the floor, where it read:
Karen,
They found you.
Get out now.
-A. Holmes
"Ryan, get up! We've got to go!" she shouted to her son's half-asleep figure from the doorway.
The sixteen-year-old shot up at the sound of the name—almost unfamiliar—in his mother's frantic voice, quickly pulling on a pair of jeans and his running shoes before hastily grabbing his in-case-of-emergency gym bag and backpack out from the closet. He rushed out into the hallway, where his mother soon met him, also dressed in traveling clothes and towing a bulky backpack.
They quickly ran to the back of the house, where they yanked open a trap door hidden under a thick dusty rug. They promptly tossed in their bags as soon as it was open wide enough before crawling into the dark hole themselves, sealing the door shut behind them.
And it was a good thing they did too. Because just ten minutes later, the house burst into flames in a violent explosion.