Fog rolled through our streets, a cloud of despair engulfing everything.
I couldn’t see my neighbour as she cried from her balcony.
Someone in the street was seeking shelter, but all we could do was call out to him blindly.
I don’t know what became of that man.

When the siren began, no one was sure they even heard it. A wail so low—both in tone and volume—most of us thought it came from inside ourselves. But as its crescendo shook the walls of our homes we heeded the warning. We took any cover we could find.

Me: I overturned my couch and hid under my padded triangular shelter.

The onslaught came on so fast. And those sounds it brought drove many of us mad. Sounds of crunching car doors, trees ripped from lawns, glass windows shattering, and doors battered in.

But the destruction didn’t give us nightmares. What haunted our dreams were the sounds of a million skittering footsteps in the streets and on our roofs, and a gurgling hiss-and-click from countless throats as a horde of—something—flooded by. We were swallowed whole, and our tunnel to hell was lined with a thousand vicious and hungry mouths lined with chattering razorblades.

They swarmed all around us. A wave crashing upon what was once a peaceful neighbourhood. My own screams were drowned out by whatever raced around the outside of my walls.

I prayed for it to end. I prayed for my own door to give in and for my house to be flooded. I prayed for the strength to reach my window so I could jump out into the street.

But I stayed in my fort. And I waited. And I slowly gave my sanity over to those who visited us that day.

And then it ended. And no one knew what to do with the silence. We’d only known the madness for a few minutes, but it became our world.

The news reported a storm: stray winds, property damage, a handful of missing persons. A tragedy; the nation mourned for us. But no one mentioned the horror. Most of us didn’t want to correct the story. Though we’ll never forget, we all try.

And yet I write this for you now because I fear we were not alone. How many times have we been visited and overrun? How often has the world been transformed into a feeding ground for some unseen stampede? And how many times have we ignored it?

It wasn’t a storm that day, however much I wish it were. But we are not safe. We are not alone. And we are not ready.