The Charge

Chapter 2

        It needs to be like that if we want to escape the Floods. They get up to 55 feet high.
        And that brings us to one of the first things I learned: The Flood actually happened. When I say Flood, I’m talking about Noah’s Ark. Of course, it didn’t happen then. It happened now. The Bible just… predicted it. It didn’t happen exactly like the Bible said it did, though. There was no Noah, and it wasn’t caused by any god.
        It was caused by aliens.
        Which brings us to the second thing on the list: The aliens are helping us. They keep watch on Earth and help us if anything attacks, and we give them our smartest humans in return. My brother works - worked - with NASA, and so of course he was one of the ones to be taken. In case you’re wondering, no, he didn’t get sucked up by a beam. What actually happened was NASA sent their smartest scientists up in a rocket ship, which landed at the Control Pod.
        Then, the scientists told the aliens everything they knew about mathematics and science. The aliens kept them on the ship and made them busy doing important calculations and such. And since we did that, the aliens watched over us until something actually did attack - the Charge. That was the third thing on my list: Don’t touch anyone with the Charge.
        So basically, what happened was one of the nuclear power plants malfunctioned, and the radiation came into contact with the electricity supply. That made the electricity a hundred times stronger, and whoever touched any sort of non-battery-powered electronics got the Charge. It fried their brains, but the electricity inhabited their body in such a way that it was able to walk around. And if it touched you, you would get the Charge.
        The aliens would send out a Flood every week or so, and that was kind of a tricky thing. See, right after the Floods, the electricity in the Charge would be ruined for a day until it acted up again, and that was a good thing. But while the Floods were happening, the water would become electric, and so if you touched the water… you’d get the Charge. And that’s why our tree base had to be so high.
        So anyway, yeah, that’s what we’ve all adapted to. Maxwell and Pip both stay in the tree base 24/7, and Alexis and I climb down after every Flood to go scavenging for supplies.
        You’re probably wondering how we came to live in our tree base, anyway. Well, after witnessing my parents both get fried when they tried to get into our car, and waking up the next day to find my 8 year old sister missing, I packed a backpack and headed out. I rode my bike for miles, stopping only when I reached a forest. I found the tallest tree and began to climb. About 10 feet off the ground, there was a tree house, with a toolbox inside. I began to take the shelter apart, reassembling it higher up the tree. And then, when I was done, I set my sleeping bag out, and unpacked my bag, and collapsed with exhaustion.
        So now, I’m sitting here, next to Lexie, while Maxwell and Pip are sleeping.