I was sitting in a room next to the meeting room, hidden as I listened to the adults. It was necessary, as if even our parents were included, this was an important meeting.
'I have to get as much info as possible. Dad and mom won't tell us anything about it so as to protect us, but it'll only hinder us.'
Normally I wouldn't have done something like this but between losing my memories and the lightning, I wanted to know what would happen to those who were unnatural. So, I listened.
"First things first, we need to discuss the biggest problem. The lightning... seems to have magical properties, if it is magic, it could be that the entire storm is magic and we wouldn't be able to deal with any of it... magic is something that used to be fantasy but now? If it's real, we are severely unprepared and the least ready. But, that's a later discussion. Back to the lightning."
Most of the conversation was difficult to pick out even with the thin wall, I could only catch some parts of the whispers at times.
"From what we've observed, the purple lightning seems to displace whatever it hits. For now, whether by purpose or an unknown reason, it hasn't hit anything big but a piece of concrete landed in the café yesterday. Should it hit a larger building and into ours or god forbid above us. There wouldn't be time to evacuate."
The husky and coarse voice stopped as a clearer and deeper voice began, "Evacuate? In this storm? Impossible. We'd need a bunker and that's if nothing happened to the bunker and nothing teleported in. Also, with most of the town's population here, how would we fit everyone in? Let alone the adults, fitting all the children in one bunker is near impossible."
Another new voice, feminine and high-pitched, entered the conversation, "Well, that's true but for now, let's go back to the other two lightnings, if you will."
The first voice began once more.
"The other two are more dangerous in my opinion, the silver lightning seems to. It seems to turn back time or do something similar. I saw it hit a tree and turn it into a sapling. The black lightning did the opposite, it hit a different tree and the entire thing wilted. If the black one were to hit those who were old, it'd be severely difficult to predict their survival. Same with the silver lightning and the teenagers."
"What do you mean? It would be a good thing, no? More people to help."
I recognized this voice as the idiot who screamed at the person screening us.
"Well, think about it like this. A Black Lightning bolt caused a tree to wilt. A tree can live for hundreds of years and that was one of the newer ones we'd planted. If it caused that to wilt? I don't want to know how much it ages us by. As for the silver lightning bolt, the same thing but this was the oldest tree we had, records date it back to 1734, it's roughly 284 years old. 284 and it became a sapling again... I, again, don't want to know what'll happen to a human."
A voice I knew as one of the greediest amongst us spoke up.
"That's problematic, even more so if another lightning appears. Who knows what that one would do..."
It went silent for a little, allowing me to process the information before the first voice spoke again.
"The second bit of information is... troubling. It involves mostly adults but a few children also exhibited it."
My breath caught at their next words.
"They seem to be losing memories of their earliest points in life. If this continues, they'll lose all memories by the third month since the storm's beginning. And, I fear what happens after. If it's anything on the scale of the lightning, we can expect something insane."
I thought on his words as I absentmindedly listened in.
"The worst thing I can think of is zombies. The best is they just lose their memories. If it's like the storm though, it sure as hell won't be simple."
"I agree, it'll be difficult trying to sort out the problems that'll rise if something happens when they lose all memories. But, is there anything else?" - deep voice person.
"One more thing. The birds are gone, the pets are restless... something big is coming and I'm not sure we'll like it."
{We should just put them down, it'll...}
I couldn't breathe. Specks being put down? I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't at all. It restricted my mind, filling my thoughts with pain and fear.
"Now then, what should we do?"
Tens of voices spoke up, bringing all types of opinions.
"The first is to warn everyone to stay away from objects with lightning attracting properties." - First voice.
My father spoke, "Some are attached to their iPads and novels, my 3rd son included, are you sure about doing this? It might do more harm than good."
"No, we need to do this, the risk of them dying outweighs their opinion in this case." - Random person 1.
"Haa, I'll break it to my family." - Random person 2.
"The next reasonable thing to do would be to cut down on the expeditions, less exposure to the storm and less chance of getting hit by a bolt." - Random person 3.
"What happens to the food supply then?" - Dad.
"It'll dwindle, but we can ration it slightly more and it's not like we'll stop the expeditions, there are just less of them." - Random person 2.
"What'll we do about the people losing memories?" - The greedy person.
"For now, we observe them." - The deep voice.
"Prepare yourselves, because if we need to... we'll terminate them." - The first voice.
Silence reigned before the conversation started back up, brainstorming safety measures and ideas one after another. I just sat and listened to it all. Patient and when I heard the conversation starting to slow, I left and went to the makeshift library. I sat in the beanbag corner and read a novel on my iPad so my parents could warn me, I needed them to do it after all.
they are afraid of being struck by colored lightning, when the normal ones are just as dangerous ＼（〇_ｏ）／
XD
You are the first to realize that lmao. Here’s a cookie!