"Beth, did you hear the news?"
It was my roommate, Megan. She grabbed my arm in the lunchroom-- not a good time. "News?" I said hurriedly, walking quickly to the deli. "No," I slapped three slices of bologna on my white bread. Spreading the mayonnaise on thick, I asked, "What's up? All I know right now, at this moment is the Boxer Rebellion, the Great Depression..."
"That's history, this is the future." She got my attention.
"What?"
Megan looked at me. "Everyone's talking about it. These three guys, nobody knows where they turned up from, but they were at Hall today and they said that there is going to be a nuclear..."
Megan spread her hands up in fire-cracker-like motions. "You know, boom, holocaust... what the heck. We're all going to be fried meat in thirty somethin' hours."
I stared at her and furrowed my brows. "Megan..."
"Beth! No heck, this is serious!"
"Megan, it's just some loonies, looning away some old loon tune..." I pressed a couple of tomato slices into my sandwich and pushed my way over to the drink line. Clearly Megan was not the only one who was agitated by the news. The other students were all talking about this as well, some with my reaction, some with Megan's.
"Beth..."
"Megan, take it easy, okay? Nobody just walks up to a college campus with this earth shattering news that the earth is going to be shattered in forty eight hours, okay?" I sighed, but continued for the sake of my sweet, gullible roommate. "Look, politics of war just doesn't operate this way, okay? If anything, it'd be on the news or something, not by word of mouth by... who are these people anyway? You know what I'm saying?"
"Beth, they say there's a cave..."
"A cave? Oh come on, Megan, for crying out loud..."
"Those who enter the cave will be saved..."
I placed a hand firmly on my roommate's shoulder. "Megan. I've got a major exam coming up in... Cripes... three minutes. I really don't have time for... look, I'll see you back in the room later on, okay?"
She took my hand and held it tightly. Her eyes looked troubled. They reminded me of pools of water. Her hand was shaking.
"I know, Beth, but there's something inside that tells me..."
"Megan... something inside? What is this something inside? Is this something you can feel? Something you can explain to me? Look, later ok?"
I literally ran out of the lunchroom, a sandwich in one hand and my notes in the other. As I ran over to the history hall, I glanced up at the sky. It looked perfectly normal. Everything was perfectly normal just as it should be. It was not that I did not trust my roommate. It was just that she had the habit of being a little emotional at times. That, perhaps, was something I was more suspect of. As long as the professors thought it still appropriate to give an exam, I was going to take it and do well in it.
I ran up the stairs and into the building. I sat down in the last row, as I usually did. It was noisy in the auditorium. I got out my notes, put on my glasses hastily, and tried to do some last minute revisions. The three results of the Industrial Revolution...
"... a nuclear war!" Someone screamed. I looked up, snatching my glasses off. There were a couple of big guys standing towards the front of the auditorium and they were shouting at one another.
"Why don't you just go get your head screwed on right!" One of them shouted. I noticed at that point that there were fewer students in the auditorium than I had expected. I looked to the person sitting at my right, but he was pouring through his notes as well.
"If I were you," the guy standing up front was shouting, pointing his finger at a couple the of other guys. "I would pack my things this moment."
Someone else said something which I could not catch, and then a group of them burst out laughing. I shook my head and looked back at my notes.
All of a sudden the auditorium became quiet. There were about three hundred of us in there. My notes slipped off my lap and I bent to pick them up. Someone was waking on the stage, and from the quiet in the auditorium and the click of his shoes, it was not Professor Dietrich, the history professor.
"Ladies and gentlemen."
I looked up. Just like me, all the students were mesmerized into silence. And I couldn't say why. The three men standing before us were dressed in white. It almost looked like the white navy uniform, except the collars were different. They reminded me of clergy-type collars. They were tall and very serious looking. Kind of cute too, but somehow that seemed inappropriate to say at this moment.
The guy in the center spoke. He did not have a mike, but his voice carried across the entire hall.
"We have come to give a very important warning. We have information that this entire country is going to be consumed in a nuclear shower in approximately thirty hours." He paused. There wasn't even a clearing of throat in the auditorium. It was that quiet.
"In thirty hours, the nuclear fallout across this nation will be so immense, nothing will be left standing. The entire population will be wiped out. This is not a joke. It is as serious as any warning of this magnitude can ever get. This holocaust will be unlike anything the history of this world has ever seen. Once it has hit, nothing will be left standing. Do you know the power of one nuclear bomb? They are going to fall like rain."
It was amazing that no one, not even one of those guys up front who had been making a row, said a thing. No one challenged them, no one made a sound, no one laughed, no one moved to clear them off the stage. Where are the school authorities? I wondered, where are the professors? Why isn't anyone doing anything? Everyone just sat locked in their seats.
"There is a cave, north of here, twenty miles. You will not miss it. If you go there, you will be saved. The radiation cannot reach you there. Remember, you have thirty hours. The choice is yours."
And then they walked off the stage. Just like that. Nobody moved or said a word for what seemed like too long after the three men had left the stage. And then as if a spell was gradually losing its power, a scent growing faint, the noise began to build up in the auditorium, people shouting, talking fast, agitatedly. Some began to leave the hall. I had half a mind to leave as well. I did not know where my mind was at that point, but it was certainly not on my history facts. I had been taken in. For that moment when they were up there on the stage, I almost believed them. I almost did! And that confused me and made me worried. I did not know what to think.
I continued sitting there for another half an hour. When the professor did not turn up, I finally decided to leave. I was one of the last to leave the hall.
Outside it looked normal, I saw some students still lying out in the Quad, soaking in the rays of the sun. Someone was skateboarding down the stairs of the Memorial Library. I turned towards the dorms. I saw at least two people packing their belongings into their cars. One of them was a girl I knew vaguely.
"Susan?" I walked up to her. "Hey Susan? What's happening here?"
She looked at me as she hulled her guitar case into the back seat of the car. Her boyfriend stepped out of the building carrying a box. "We're going to the cave, Beth. We're driving home, Mike and me to get our folks and then we're going to the cave."
I stood there for a few seconds not saying anything, but a smile on my lips. I shook my head. Finally I said, "That's crazy, Susan. You're going to quit school and go to this strange place you don't even know, just because three men, and heaven knows where they came from, said that the world is going to burn up? Come on, surely you can't be serious?"
Susan pushed the box into her car. She looked straight into my eyes. "Oh yes, I'm serious. I'm very serious about this. I believe those men. I know they were speaking the truth..."
"The truth? How do you know it's the truth?"
"Well, you can stick around to find that out," she said as she turned back to her car, slammed the door and opened the driver's door. The smile was still on my lips as I waved good-bye, but it didn't have the same confidence as before.
I turned my head to look towards the direction of the library again, just to reassure myself. As I had seen earlier, people still lay out on the lawn. The kid was still skateboarding. I kept on saying to myself, the world is not coming to an end.
I opened the door to my room, half expecting to see Megan inside. The room was empty. I threw my bookbag and notes on my bed and looked over at Megan's bed. It was just as she had left it this morning-- the covers thrown off, half of it piled up on the floor. I sat at my desk and tried to think about all that had happened that day. The sky was a clear blue, but I noticed something different about its appearance. Woah... time to recollect. How could the sky be any different? I shook my head.
Thirty hours. What if? But then everything from logic to common sense to my own pride said, I just won't believe this. I turned around and wished that Megan would come back. Having conversations with myself in my head was driving me crazy. Maybe, just in case they were right... twenty miles where? North? ... they could be telling the truth, I had almost believed them in the hall. But that was for Megan, the gullible one. Not me. Who knows, those men might be part of an organization that needed human guinea pigs to experiment on. So they would frighten us and tell us to go to this cave and then...
But who knew? What was the truth?
And then since I was not sure of the answer, I decided to take out my advance calculus and try working on that instead.
I was woken up by the sound of the phone ringing. I blinked. It was dark outside and it took a minute for my eyes to focus.
Dring. Dring. I glanced at the clocked and yelled. Cripes. It was nine o'clock. The last thing I remembered was working on my calculus in the afternoon.
Dring. Dring.
"Hello?" I muttered.
"Beth?" It was Megan. I looked at her side of the room. She had not been back. I shook my head. She had not been back! Wait a minute.
"Megan? Where are you? What's going on?" I had never felt so drowsy before. I let my body fall to the floor like a beanbag. With one hand still clutching my heavy head, I held the phone with my other hand.
"Beth! What are you doing still in the dorm?" Her voice was very high.
"I don't know. Studying. Sleeping. Studying, actually, I just fell asleep..."
"Look, Beth, I don't have much time... I have to call my parents and... there's so much I have to do. Please just listen to me, Beth..."
"Wait, wait, Megan. Wait." I shut my eyes. Wait a minute. I was way out of focus here. "Where are you?"
"At the Cave, Beth. It's for real. Please believe me. There are already so many people here..."
"What's for real?"
She sighed deeply. "The nuclear holocaust. It's happening. It's for real. We'll be safe here, Beth. Anyone who comes will be safe." I heard someone talking to her hastily, and she replied quickly.
"Beth?" She was back on the phone. "Please just come, okay? Please?"
"Wait, wait... I..." my mind was still feeling cloudy and dazed. It was hard for me to think.
"Beth?" She said urgently, "I have to go soon. Please, please. I don't want you to burn up. North of the campus. There are so many people coming, you won't miss it. Just get in your car..." Again another voice called to her and I heard her reply. I heard a lot of noise in the background.
"Tell me one thing," I said, standing up. It helped me to think. "Who were those guys?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "They... they are not from this world... they are spirit beings..."
"Oh come on, Megan, spirit beings? Do you expect me to believe that?" That was it.
Megan's voice was soft. "No. I know what you choose not to believe." Her voice sounded sad. "And there's nothing I can do to convince you this is for real. But will you please think about it?"
And then there was a beeping on the phone before it went dead. I was left holding the silent phone in my hand, staring into the dark room. I tried to think about the information I had just received, but began to feel the pull of drowsiness again. I decided to have a shower to wake myself up.
After I had wrapped myself up in my comfortable bathrobe, I made myself a cup of hot cocoa, and sat by the window, staring out at the distant lights of the downtown area. Lights twinkled in the darkness. Further out, on the horizon, there was a faint red glow. Due north? I sipped my cocoa. The glow was coming from the north. I saw cars driving by on the road right outside the dorm and wondered where they were going. That was the first time I actually wanted to know.
Why? Would a majority count make it right? Was that how I gauged the truth? Stick around and find out, Susan had said. I wondered if I should tell my family. But what if this was all a hoax? They would simply laugh at me. Yeah, right, Megan's the gullible one. But you? You? Spirit beings. Well, if they were real...
I reached for the wall switch to turn on the room light. A bolt of electricity hit my palm and I screamed as I withdrew it in pain. I pulled my hand to my body. I felt a grinding pain in my palm that was accentuated with the dull throbbing of my heart. My palm. I looked at the switch. I looked at the light that had not gone on. I thought I felt a presence in the room. It was the weirdest feeling. It was just for a moment and then the pain in my hand disappeared completely.
I am not sure why. Exactly. But I have decided to go. To the Cave. Yes, me. I will call my parents from there, if I see that it is for real. Maybe I can even go and get them, if there is enough time. I am not fully sure if what I am doing is right, but I have been sitting here for the past few hours thinking, and now I have made a decision. We all have to. It is still dark outside.
So what is this? A memoir? Will anyone even be around to read it?
Maybe you're someone I know, or maybe you just saw this lying in the student lounge and decided to pick it up. If it isn't yet three in the afternoon, then you might still have time. To go to the Cave too. It might be the truth. You'll have to decide. Or you could just stick around and find out.
by Maeli Wong
