I waited a while for the object to move, or change, but it the LEDs continued to flash like crazy, so I slowly went down on my knees and crawled towards the object, waiting for it to jump up at me any second, but it didn’t surprisingly. So I moved even closer and lifted the object up in the air in my right hand, keeping it warily away from me at arm’s length.
After a while of observation, I looked down at my watch and realized that I had been downstairs for more than an hour now, so without even thinking abut the object in my right hand I made my way into the house, I locked the door single handedly and ran up the stairs, this time forgetting about the 7th step [Crrreeak!] I stopped in my foot, dead still, if my parents woke up now and found me here at this time with this strange object in my hand I would surely be grounded for a week… minimum!
I waited for any signs of my parents waking up, but after a minute or so nothing happened and so I carried on up the stairs and into my room.
I opened the door slowly, and headed for the bed with a little run up and dive. I lay there upside down for a good 5 minutes, just thinking about what I had in my hand, and about the events that had just happened to me in the last hour. What was this strange object and where did it come from? Was I keeping a dangerous weapon in my house? Was this emitting signals to other beings? Or was it a government-tracking device? I didn’t and couldn’t know what this thing was and I thought that I never would, so I decided to open the padlocked tray under my bed and put it away for good, and try and get some sleep. In this tray were all my precious belongings such as my savings, holiday souvenirs, and things that had been passed down to me from my parents and grandparents.
After taking a final look at the object, I decided to forget about it and sleep, so I dropped it in the tray and locked it, tucking the tray safely into the far corner under my bed.
I woke up early the next morning, as if nothing had happened the previous night, I decided that it would be best not to mention anything to my family and so I just headed downstairs for breakfast.
I kissed my mum a good morning, I went and sat down at the cereal strewn table, I could tell that my baby sister had just eaten here because there was not one part of the table that was clean.
I greeted my dad a good morning as he joined me for beans on toast at the table, I scoffed it down quickly so that I could go back up and get dressed.
On my way past the living room I heard the news reporter talking, and something caught my ear, I quickly turned back only to see the object that was upstairs under my bed on the news report. I made a dash for the remote control and turned up the volume, and listened eagerly. The news reporter spoke “This is what the missing UN nuclear activity detector looks light, as you can see it has a series of coloured LEDs, when these flash violently it signals that the area it is locked on to has dangerous nuclear reactive material present” the reporter then went on for a while and said “The specially made one of its type UN detector was made to carry out tests on Saddam’s mass weapons facilities to see if he is manufacturing nuclear weapons, it is known that this is the last destination that the detector was left locked on to, and some reports suggest that before it was lost it was flashing, signaling a presence of nuclear reactive material in Saddam’s weapons facilities, but this has not been confirmed by the UN as of yet”.
I sat there horror-stricken, I couldn’t believe what I had just heard! I muted the TV and sat there thinking what to do, then suddenly the image of $4,000,000 flashed upon the screen, I quickly un-muted the TV and sat there, to find to my horror that that was what the detector was worth! $4M!
Thousands of ideas and concepts where rushing through my mind at this moment, and without my even thinking I just ran upstairs to my room, only to hear my dad shout from behind me “DON’T RUN UP THE STAIRS! WALK!”. When I reached the box I didn’t dare open it, the lights were still flashing as I could see from the gaps in the opening, and I swiftly pushed it back, I decided to let it rest for today, and get on with the day gibing me some thinking time to make a decision on what to do.
I stayed up that night, just thinking, I had been all day already, but it was the only thing on my mind, and however hard I tried to move it out of the way and start to think about something else, the worse it got, so I decided to take it in the face and make a decision.
My choices where the following, either to give it up to the UN and hope for a reward, try to sell it off to a mate for a few bucks, or give it to dad and see what he thinks we should do with it. I decided to give it to dad, he was elder than me, and when he took it into his hands it was no longer my problem, and so he would have to sort out what to do with it, knowing dad he’ll probably take it down to the local police station, but that’s none of my worries, I just need to get it out of my possession and preferably out of my house.
I knew that this night would be one of the worse nights ever, but I just lay there motionless, trying to sleep, in the silence of the night.
“Hey get up! I told you already that we needed to leave early this morning, and look at you sleeping like a log! Get up! Come on, get dressed and go get ready to leave!” I couldn’t believe me luck, I had such a quite night’s sleep, no nightmares, no middle of the night crying, no sweating, it was such a good nights sleep that I even overslept holding back the whole family from starting the journey to my grandma’s house. It was a 3 hour drive, and I got bored the way there, while we were there, and all the way back, it was such a waste of time, and I hated it so much that it was starting to make me hate my grandma herself!
I got dressed and crawled under my bed, I unlocked the padlock on the tray, and hesitantly and very slowly tilted the lid up by about 5 mill waiting for it to explode any second, but to no avail, so I lifted the lid and looked and the flashing detector. I thought to myself wow… $4M sitting in my hand, and I was going to give it all up, but I had to for the best and so I slid it into my jacket pocket and closed my tray, heading downstairs towards the family waiting impatiently in the car outside.
In the car it was like a nightmare, my dad kept on talking to my mum about the news, particularly about the object sitting in my left jacket pocket, they kept on making comments like “Which idiot is it with now I wonder!” and “What the hell would whoever stole it want it for anyway!”, but I took all the comments in my stride and by the time we got back I was waiting to burst. I was the first one out of the car and into the house, and the first one to head to the fridge for a drink!
Later that evening I noticed my dad sitting alone watching the news, so I made my way to him making sure that I had everything planned out, and I sat down next to him. Fortunately they were talking about the detector on the news and as soon as it finished I had a chance, and I made my move… “Dad, you know that detector on the news?” “Yes son?” “Well dad, I have a problem, a very big problem, and dad I don’t want you to get angry with me because it wasn’t my fault! I just found it!” “Ok son, calm down, don’t worry I understand, what is it that you wanted to show me?” I slowly made a move for my trouser pocket, and I put my hand in feeling the metallic surface of the detector, I took it out and placed it on the table, and I waited. Suddenly my dad made a quick head movement and stared at the detector and then at me and all he said was “You found this thing?!” I was amazed that he didn’t freak and I answered his question straight out, he took it in his stride and picked it up and slipped it in his pocket “We need to head straight to the police about this! This may be dangerous!” I stood up with my dad, and followed him without saying a word, he went to the car and I followed, and as he started the engine and pulled out of the drive, he sped off in the direction of the police station.
When we reached the station I got out of the car, my dad went to the officer on duty and reported what I had found. The police officer looked at him in disgrace and said “Do you think this is some kind of joke?!” my dad got angry and told the police officer that hell show her the proof, but as he put his hand in his pocket his face went pale, and I could tell instantly that he had lost it! Inside my head my brain was crying out loud NO NO! HOW COULD YOU LOSE IT?! YOU IDIOT! And so my dad apologized to the officer and ran out towards the car, searching frantically for the detector.
Suddenly I heard I sound, I could tell that my dad had heard it too because he had stopped dead in his foot, it slowly got louder [Beep] [Beep] [Beep] [Beep] and suddenly [Beep Beep Beep].
I felt one of those feelings, that I used to have at night, I knew that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.
All of a sudden, before my very eyes the entire police department rushed out and jumped into cars, zooming off into the distance. We jumped into the car and turned on the radio to see what was wrong, and shock stricken we sat there listening to the news reporter… it had been confirmed that Saddam had released a nuclear weapon, and it was said to be heading towards the UN military base about 3km away from us, the news reporter then read on to say that all houses within the 40km area had 2 minutes to evacuate, as soon as the reporter finished saying this my dad turned the ignition on the car and revved the car loud, he put it into gear and stepped hard on the accelerator, with a loud screech we sped off towards the house, neither me not my dad had a cellular phone because of the radiation health risks, but now when we really need it its not here! Personally id rather have my brain cells fried than have my whole body radioactively mutated! We reached the house in what felt like 30 seconds, and my dad jumped out of the car and ran into the house shouting “SAMANTHA GET OUT! GET THE CHILDREN AND RUN!” within seconds my mum appeared with my 2 sisters along side her, it looked like she had heard the news and prepared for us to come! They all ran into the car and my dad sped off towards the state border in another screech of dust!
We had less than a minute to get as far away as we could from the UN military base that wasn’t too far from our house! My dad was driving like he had never driven before, but I knew that we needed to get as far away from the epicenter of the missile as quickly as we could!
In the sky above us it emerged, I gigantic streaking missile that looked like one of those meteors traveling into earth that I always used to watch on the TV documentaries, behind it was a roar of fire about 100 meters long, and the sound was deafening!
As I saw the missile approaching I realized that we had no chance, we where back to near the police station and there was less than 10 seconds left… suddenly the loudest explosion I had ever heard in my life happened, I dived down holding my eardrums, they where about to pop and I could actually feel it this time! I looked behind us to see an explosion miles high, that’s when I saw it! Exactly how it had appeared in my dream! I gigantic wave rushing towards us, I could see the houses and trees miles behind us getting sucked out of their foundations and roots, cars were flying and people were dying. As it approached us at lightning speed I didn’t even have time to get my head down, the entire car was lifted into the air and we started spinning at tremendous speeds, I had to watch as my baby sister fell out of my mothers hands, my mother’s face covered in tears! Screaming! Crying! All I could hear were tremendous wails and screams, I then made a jump for my mother to hold her but the car which was traveling at lightning speed now smashed into a house and I fell back on myself! Nails were stuck into me, and I was held back! I was watching my family die around me! My mother flew out of the car with a tremendous wail “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” and she was gone, I held on to the car for my life, but it was too much, the force pulled me back and I went flying away, I started to fall miles and miles towards the earth, I was reliving my dream, the only difference was that this time it was for real, my family had just been killed around me, brutally murdered in front of my very eyes, my whole life ran before me in my head as I fell, I twisted and turned and got battered and cracked, I felt how I had felt in the dream! I felt like I was being mutated being burnt alive, my skin melting before me, and my body changing into an abnormal shape! What was I becoming! These were my last thoughts… and with a final pain like a white-hot steak had been put through me, it all vanished, yes every single thought, I had drowned in my own feelings, I was heading to meat my family in the peaceful world, in the afterlife.