Chapter Two: I fall into the Pages of Sleeping Beauty
"Meredith! What are you doing? Come on, Mermaid, we're almost there!" Trent pulled me forward. He dragged me into the crowd toward the museum. I peered back over my shoulder expecting to see the creepy man in black retreating down the block, but he was nowhere in sight.
The rest of the day went rather smoothly. We ate our brown bag lunches in Central Park, and finished our audio tour of the museum afterwards. As it was starting to get dark, we decided to go back outside to eat our brown bag dinners. Yeah, eating in the city is expensive, so we packed our meals to save a few bucks.
We sat on the steps in front of the museum. I watched my brother tear into his sandwich and cringed. He had mayonnaise on all over his lips. He must have noticed my expression because he opened his mouth to show me all the chewed up food on his tongue.
"I think I'm going to be sick." I stuck my sandwich back into my bag.
"Trent! Chew with your mouth closed, no one wants to see your food." My mom scolded. She didn't miss much, and was easily embarrassed when we did dumb things in public.
Trent frowned and turned his gaze back toward the busy street.
I followed his gaze and sighed as I decided if I was still hungry.
The traffic below us started to slow down. Cars came to a complete stop while their drivers collapsed over their wheels. Pedestrians knelt down on the ground, curled up on their sides, and fell asleep.
It was as if we had fallen into the pages of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. The world as we knew it grew calm and quiet. "Please tell me I'm daydreaming again." I turned toward my mother.
Her mouth gapped open as she turned her alarmed stormy gray eyes toward me and my brother. "Back into the museum!" She grabbed her bag in one hand and my brother's arm in the other one. "Meredith, now!" She skipped steps as she sprinted towards the door. My brother started to complain as she dragged him behind her. "I can run too, ya know!"
I grabbed my bag, my brother's bag and followed them inside. There were people curled up sleeping on the floor, on the stairs, and against each other in all directions. "This can't be a daydream, it just can't!" I turned toward my mother as I hoped that she would validate what I was seeing was real.
Trent pulled his arm free from my mother's death grip. He rubbed his arm he spun around, "everyone is asleep! This is wicked!" He bent down and poked the person next to him. "HEY WAKE UP!"
I bent down and poked a different stranger, "so this is definitely real?"
Mom nodded, "yeah, this is real." She started to pace back and forth, "Think Sophie, what would Mother do?"
"She'd call 911," Trent suggested.
"Not, her, Trent... My real mother..." She shook her head. "Stay on guard, analyze the situation, form a plan, protect my family, retreat if necessary..."
"Everyone is sleeping, that's the situation." Trent stood as he replied.
"The question is why are they sleeping?" I responded. My thoughts drifted to what happened that morning. What if he was real too, and was he trying to warn me? Then why not just say, 'leave the city at once, go as far away as possible, don't look back.'
My mother noticed the features on my face change. "Meredith, did you have something you want to say?" I told her about the creepy guy and what he said to me. "I wish you had told me this sooner..." The worry lines wore paths in her nearly perfect complexion. "But what is done..."
"Is done." I finished.
After thinking for several more moments she finally suggested, "Let's see if we can find an employee bathroom."
"Why?" Trent moved closer to us.
"We need to find some odor neutralizer spray to cover up our sent."
"But we have car fresheners sewed into our clothes already, why would we need to spray ourselves even more?" He complained as we moved across the lobby.
"Trust your instincts, Trent. Do you honestly think we are going to be able to move around the city without anyone noticing us? We need a plan." Mom bent down and took a ring of keys and a slash card off of a security guard.
Trent's brows knitted themselves together, "It's a big city... but the grid pattern... we'll stick out. You're right Mom. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She ran her hand through his sandy colored hair, and gave him a reassuring smile. "I want you go to the food court and start packing at least two days' worth of food for us." She turned toward me. "I want you to go back to the gift shop. See if they have any backpacks and extra clothing." She took out her wallet and pulled out a few twenties. "Leave the money on the counter with the tags."
Okay, so one might think, why just take what we need and be done with it. Oh no, not my mom. She is always thinking about her Karma. You steal something; something will be stolen from you. So, I didn't argue, I just did what I was told to do.
The night unfolded without any big events taken place. We took turns standing near the entryway keeping watch. While Trent was on guard some strange stuff happened.
"Mermaid, you have to see this!" He called over his shoulder towards where I had set up a make shift sleeping bag of old coats that looked like they were left behind by tourists over the years.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and jogged passed the zonked out tourists.
Trent pointed down the block. "Look at them, they're awake too!"
I squinted my eyes, in the distance there was a group of ancient Greek warriors running down 5th Avenue. "Wake mom, she should hear about this."
"Right!" He turned and ran over to our mother.
I felt an odd tugging in my gut, like I should be doing something more than just standing here. It wasn't long before I heard some fighting in the distance. There was no machine gun fire or bombs dropping, but there were screams along with roars. Sheets of metal clang together and echoed off of the buildings from multiple directions.
