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infected with whatever killed that
librarian? Questions swirled in Ruth’s head. However, one question
began to pulse slowly in her head. It started quietly and thrummed
louder and louder. Why hadn’t she seen any of those odd bubbles
here?

CHAPTER SIX
    Walls
    Ruth’s legs burned from running all over town
looking for an escape. She was no closer to finding the truth.
People still behaved like people. Trees, sparse as they were, moved
in the wind. The sensation trickled down her back. What if the
world was the same and it was just her that had changed. What if
she had no place, no home to go to? That cold feeling stopped her
where she stood. Spotting a bench nearby, she sat down. What if she
didn’t belong in this world? Should she mask her emotions and
pretend to be like them?
    Did it matter anymore? Ruth felt hollow
inside. She was surprised to feel wetness on her face. The old her
would care who saw the weakness. After all, it wasn’t polite form
to be sad. Feeling as disconnected as she did now, Ruth no longer
cared for polite form. She watched the trees sway peacefully. The
grass danced back and forth on the rhythm of nature. In a state of
disconnectedness, she cried. Soon, her tears began to float
away.
    It wasn’t something she noticed at first.
Like little spheres of soap, one in five tears floated away from
her face. Each of these small bubbles reflected more light than was
natural. It was as if she were crying diamonds that floated away.
It wasn’t until she saw a black bubble that she panicked. She
immediately grasped her face and stopped crying. Was this
confirmation that her eyes had turned black like the rest of the
people in this town?
    As she stared into the black bubble, she saw
little floating dots. Her mind tried to understand what she was
seeing. It wasn’t like the specs floated in the dark bubble.
Instead, it was as if the bubble was a window into the night sky.
Ruth forgot her sadness and curiosity took over. It looked exactly
like the night sky. It wasn’t until she saw the moon in the image
that her thoughts were confirmed. She looked around the bubble;
clearly it was still day out.
    If she could reach in and grab a book out of
a bubble, what would this do? Would night suddenly occur? She
slowly reached toward the bubble, finger trembling. That finger
inched closer and closer to the bubble. It then pressed against the
bubble. The surface tension of the bubble held for a moment,
allowing her to push in slightly.
    The bubble then popped and a small circle of
night remained in the air. A giant wind immediately picked up from
all sides, all forward to the bubble. Ruth turned around and held
onto the bench. Trees, shrubs and rocks began to fly toward the
circles of night. As they hit, a small portion was suck through the
night, leaving a hole in the substance. It flew out, then twirled
back around getting another hole ripped out. Ruth held onto the
park bench with every muscle she had in her arms. Her legs were
dangling toward the circle of night. It was as if two tornados were
lined up next to each other, neither deciding to budge. Soon, the
circle of night had a small barrier of dirt circling around the
hole. Ruth didn’t have time to observe why this was happening.
    A tree from the edge of the park ripped out
of the ground. It toppled end over end and hit the park bench. The
jolt from the hit made Ruth lose her grip. She screamed, but the
sound of the circle of night quickly consumed that as well. When
she was an inch away from the circle, it vanished. The moment it
disappeared, so did the wind and the rings of debris. It all felt
to the ground. Thick tree branches and twisted metal landed near
Ruth. A small wire cut her near the side of her eye. If she had
been a quarter inch to the left, it would have sliced her eye open.
She felt the blood trickle down her dazed face.
    A man came running from a nearby building. He
ran toward Ruth, helping her up. The man had black eyes, like the
rest. He