Heartbeat Away from Death - Prologue
A/N: This is a fic about my OC, Grace Mason, Tom and Rebecca's oldest child. She is portrayed by Lyndsy Fonseca. You can find videos for her on my channel (jemmalynette) and a beautiful character study vid made for me by littletonpace over at her channel. I hope you enjoy this fic!
Difficult as it was to remember, she could still picture the streets of her neighbourhood as they were before the invasion. Those grey, desolate houses where her friends used to live. Those old, crumbled roads where she used to ride her bike when she was younger. It was hard to believe that there was ever a time when she and her family could walk through their own town without being afraid for their lives. But this was how it was now. This was war. And it wasn't going to end any time soon.
Grace and her brothers were in school when it happened. Another boring lecture from her High School History teacher was gradually sending her to sleep. She had a certain passion for history that was no doubt inherited from her father – in fact, he was quite fond of the idea of teaching her the subject at college once she graduated and finally left her silly High School days behind. But her current teacher, Mr. Ward, was far from being a great speaker, and Grace couldn't stand it when he went on a rant like this.
She wished she could pay more attention. Graduation was soon and she needed good grades if she was going to get in to college. She gathered that falling asleep in class would not look good on her application. Nevertheless, she was a good student most of the time and she was mainly happy with her life—she wasn't as clever as Ben, nor was she as popular as Hal, but as the eldest of the two, she felt a kind of complacency with her role in the family. She'd been ten when Matt was born, but having played the role of older sister to two rebellious siblings already, she was well-prepared for him. He was only seven, and still in that sweet little boy mode, so he and Grace got on the best. She squabbled with her other brothers and got into stupid arguments with them all the time. She hoped to make the most of her time with Matt before he entered that angsty, rebellious phase that she, Hal and Ben had all gone through. As for her parents, being almost an adult herself, Grace often found herself on their side whenever they were fighting with the boys. Other times, she was the one fighting against them. They had their fair share of arguments but she loved and appreciated them so much. Especially at this busy time when they had been so supportive. Her father had offered her extra tutoring to help get her grades up and her mother had helped her write her applications for college. They had been with her every step of the way.
But college would be a new chapter, she thought. A chance to really figure things out and find herself. She knew she'd love it. Not just for the parties (she never considered herself much of a party girl anyway), but for the opportunity to learn and strengthen herself as a person, without all the stupid distractions that came with being around immature High School students. Her father being a professor there would just be an added bonus; he always brought history to life. As a little girl, she'd listen to his tales from the past with such intent, as if the events he were describing were happening right at that very moment.
Sweeping a few of her brown curls out of her eyes, she realised that Mr. Ward was setting up the television set. "Finally, a change of pace," she thought with some relief as the older man blew the dust off an old VHS tape that looked like it had seen better days. The class waited impatiently as he fumbled with it for a moment, and Grace turned to Zoe on the desk beside her to roll her eyes. Zoe smirked and took out her phone. The way her fingers ran so quickly across the keypad told Grace she was probably texting a boy. Mr. Ward didn't seem to notice as the video's opening titles finally came up on the small screen of the television. She just had time to stifle a yawn and read "Theodore Roosevelt—His Life and Legacy" when the screen suddenly cut to black and gave off that horrible fuzzy static noise. Not only that, but the lights had turned off too, leaving the classroom in darkness. She heard Zoe give an annoyed huff beside her, mumbling something about her phone not working. The class started to murmur excitedly.
"Settle down, everyone. It's probably just a power-cut," Mr. Ward told them, but everyone had already taken out their phones to see if the same thing had happened to theirs. None of them worked. It was as if they had all just died.
Other teachers knocked to see what was going on. The same was happening in their classes—everything had died. Every electrical device had stopped working.
"What's going on?" Zoe muttered, but Grace could only shrug. She wondered if the same thing had happened in her brothers' classes. They were probably taking advantage of the situation—Hal, at least. He was probably at Rita's desk right now, reciting her his best lines and she was probably giggling and cooing in response. His way with girls was truly baffling. To Grace, he'd always be her dumb brother. She thought even less of Hal's choice of women. They were always the kind of girl Grace butted heads with, girls she couldn't trust. And then when they inevitably broke Hal's heart, Grace was always the one to help him get back on his feet. She figured Rita would be no exception.
The class had become rather rowdy by this point, sitting up on their desks and talking busily with each other. Mr. Ward tried to call for order but the class was well and truly out of his grasp now. He was still trying to talk over everyone when a student from another class came in and nearly knocked him over.
"Oh my God, have you seen it? It's huge! Have you seen it yet?"
Nobody knew what he was talking about, but everyone followed him anyway despite Mr. Ward shouting after. Half the school filled the corridors—they were all following outside into the quad to see what was happening. Grace was swallowed in the crowd, being pushed and shoved until the sea of students released her in to the spacious outdoors. The first thing she noticed was how incredibly dark it had gotten over the school. And then she heard the gasps and the cries of terror.
Looking up, she saw the ships hovering in the sky right above them.
TBC