The Charge

Chapter 1

        Of all the things I’ve learned, three of them are the most important:
        1. The Flood actually happened.
        2. The aliens are helping us.
        3. Don’t touch anyone with the Charge.
        And I’ve learned something on a more personal level, too: Adapting isn’t the same thing as adjusting. They may seem the same, but they aren’t. You learn what to do, and how to do it, and you go through the motions, but it might take awhile to get used to it. To actually think, This is how life is now.
        I have adapted, but not adjusted. Not fully. There are still times when I instinctively look around for the door, before remembering to look down, where the trapdoor is - more on that later. Although most of the time, I don’t remember all by myself. Alexis will remind me. She’s the only one out of all of us who has adjusted.
        Oh. Right. I forgot to introduce us.
        I’m Taylor. I’m 15. My parents are dead, my brother was abducted, and my sister is missing. That’s really all that’s important.
        Alexis is 16. One day, right before a Flood, we heard a knocking on the trapdoor. It was Alexis, begging to be let in. She had Pip strapped onto her back.
        Pip is Lexie’s 6 year old brother. He’s terrified of everything in the outside world, so we keep him up here with Maxwell.
        Maxwell is 14. He’s in a wheelchair. We found him rolling along the streets, in a panic. Fortunately, we were able to use our pulley system to transport him and his wheelchair to our base.
        Our base is in a tree, 60 feet off the ground.