Sally Jackson was tired. She was tired of losing all of her dreams, and the people she loved. First, it had been her parents. The best people in the world, destroyed along with many other innocent people in a freak lightning storm. She was supposed to be on that plane.
"Sally's really sick…I don't think she should be travelling." Sally heard her Dad's muffled voice through her door.
"I could call up Steve. She hasn't seen her uncle in a while. I still wish she could come though."
"I know honey. Me too. But we don't want to make her even sicker."
Sally heard a sigh, then sounds of feet thumping down steps. She sat up in bed and groaned. Sally had been bragging about this trip to Florida all year to her friends. She wasn't about to miss it because of some stupid cold. Sally grabbed her suitcase from the top of her closet. It fell with a defaening THUD.
"Crap!" Sally cursed under her breath. Hurriedly, she tried to shove the suitcase back into the closet. It wasn't working out. Sally stumbled back into her bed and cocooned herself back into the covers.
"Sal? Are you awake? What's happening up here?" Her mom walked into the room. The huge polka-dotted suitcase that was wedged in between the closet door and the frame gave away what really happened.
"Sally. You know what we said. We want you to come on this vacation, really. But baby," She sat at the end of Sally's bed. "if you're sick and you travel, lots of other people could get sick too. Plus it wouldn't do your condition any good either."
"But mom, I'm already feeling better! I could walk- no run 20 miles and-"
"Sally, Uncle steve is coming over to watch you while were gone. No arguments ok? Don't worry, we'll bring you back something from every place we visit!" Sally's mother leaned down and placed a kiss on her daughter's forehead. " You may miss this trip, but there'll be plenty of other epics in your life."
The next two days were painful, but they were nothing in comparision to the days after the flight went down. Freak lightning storm they said. It was like magic the way that storm had appeared. There wasn't even time to alert the pilots.
After months of mourning and years of help from her uncle, it was time for Sally to go to college. She was gonna major in English lit, of course. Sally Jackson was excited, it was time to start a new stage in her life. Go to college, get her doctorate, become a teacher, and then start a family. But once again, fate screwed her over. Her uncle came down with a severe case of cancer. And just like that, Sally dropped out of college and went to aid her only surviving family member. After two years of intense chemo and forking over her college fund to pay for all this, her uncle died. Defeated and lonely, Sally decided it was time to go back to Montauk. Maybe there she could rebuild her life. Finally after hours of driving, she parked the whining tan Toyota next to small cottage.
Sally Jackson had always loved Montauk. She loved the seasalt encrusted outside, the spiders that moved in when nobody else was living in there, the mushy mattress, the blue curtains, and most importantly, the ocean. Especially sunrise. She would and did stay up all night just to see the sun slowly bleed over the horizon. The way the sun painted the ocean gold and the way the light blasted the darkness away gave sally hope.
Once all the spiders had been shooed out of the bedsheets and the pot of water was boiling on the stove, Sally relaxed. She grabbed an Adirondack chair and pulled it onto the front porch. It was about 2 AM. The hot coffee's steam lazily twirled upwards and intermixed with the mist from Sally's breath. She pulled out her notebook and began to write down her grocery list. " If I'm gonna be a hermit, I gotta do it right". She scratched down a few of the basics, milk, coffee, chips, soups, and snack foods. Then she looked up.
As the sun broke over the horizon, a massive figure exploded out of the water. It was made out of water, but it seemed to be golden water. Like, liquid gold. Sally muffled her scream. The figure had to have been at least 100 feet tall. It burned her head to look at it, but her eyes couldn't let go. It crouched down, and waved it's mammomth sized hand over a huge area of water. Then it whipped around towards Sally's direction. Sally froze. It seem to stare at her for a few seconds. Sally dared not even breathe. Suddenly, the thing exploded like a water balloon and fell into the ocean. The frightened girl put her hands over her eyes. Oh god, she needed some Excedrin. Sally managed to stumble into the bedroom before the screaming began. It was awful. It was like thirty thousand hungry, tired babies were using her brain as a megaphone. Then the explosions began. 5000 atomic bombs went off in succession. Sally clenched the sheets and cried out. No one would be around to hear her though. It was the down season. Even the retiree's were gone. Her legs flailed, flying up and then violently slamming down on the bed. The springs squealed in protest, they were drowned out by Sally's feeble cries for help. Soon, Sally didn't know how long this had been going on. Her brain felt like it was melting, that was the only thing she was aware of. She might have been screaming for hours, days, maybe even a week. But she couldn't tell. She couldn't even tell when there was an urgent knock at her front door.