MATTHIAS’S MIRACLE
CHAPTER ONE

- Susan

“Everyone is going to love these brownies! Chocolate and peanut butter, right?” Lisa’s chatter next to me is only interrupted by our sneaker noises cutting through the damp grass. I hate how early it gets dark now. It’s only seven thirty as we walk up the stairs to the old building, but in the November evening, it’s full dark.

“I hope everyone hates them because I’d like to have two.” Holding the door with a smile, I inhale their scent as the basket she’s carrying them in goes by my face.

“I know! Maybe nobody else will show up. You never know. I plan to think positive!” Lisa’s infectious laugh echoes in the stairwell as we start up the stairs. We’ve been meeting with this small group of other girls for a little over a month now, once a week. As second year students, we have banned together to try and figure out our physics class.

It’s an informal study group. Shelly is the coordinator who set it up on the meet-up website. Most of the college study groups have use online platforms to get their groups together. Shelly’s appealed to me because of the amount of detail she included. Women only, on campus and she even had this time slot and room reserved for us to use at the school. Much less distracting than a coffee shop.

My first year, I had a math study group that started studying in a coffee shop. By the end of the semester though, some of the guys had decided to change the spot we met to a bar. Who does that?

Oh yeah, horny-ass guys at college!

My mind wanders as Lisa goes over the brownie ingredients. She was able to make them up between a hot plate and her toaster oven. She doesn’t remember that she showed me how to do it about two weeks ago. “I love them. I don’t even care what they have in them. You showed me how to make them, or at least the hot plate part, remember?” Reaching our study room door, I smile as I hold it open for her again.

“Oh yeah! I was thinking it was Stephanie, but it was you.” Stephanie is her room mate and I’m right next door with Jill. “Damn! Are we late?”

Following her in, I see that there are six other girls already spread out in chairs at the round table.

“No. You guys are right on time. Especially since you have food.” Beth waves us over and pulls out a chair for Lisa. She drops gratefully into it as I pull off my hoodie onto the chair next to her. By the time I settle into my chair, the basket is circling around the table with everyone chattering away.

“How are ya?” Shelly, the organizer of our weekly group, is to my left and I smile noncommittally.

“Can’t complain really. I wanted to thank you for coming out for the rally yesterday. It really means a lot to all of us. Every person counts.” The campus MeToo movement is picking up speed. She waves her hand at me like it’s no big deal, but I can tell I’m embarrassing her so I change the subject. “I’m a little stressed out about the test next week. Do you feel prepared?”

“Fuck no. But let’s do this.” Clapping her hands wildly over her head, her blond shoulder length hair flies. “Ladies, ladies. Oh yeah! Brownies.” Grabbing one from the basket that stalled in front of her, she slides it over to me before continuing. “Let’s break into groups for our specific issues. With eight of us here, that should make it, so we can cross reference our strengths and weaknesses for each other.”

She stands and starts pulling out some of her own paperwork. Everyone starts talking quietly again.

A bright light pulls my attention behind Karen. She's directly across the table from me with the window behind her.

What the hell? The light has lit up all the windows on the wall behind her. Even with the lights on inside, it’s easy to see that it’s super bright. My first thought is a helicopter. We are three stories up, so it can’t be someone on the ground or a car or something. What the fuck?

“What is that?” Lisa’s brown curls bounce as she stands up next to me and Beth quickly jumps up too. I don’t even realize I’m on my feet and moving to the window until I’m around the table and almost there.

The light isn’t like a normal light. It’s like rays of the sun, beaming through the window in individual strands. As I stop at the window, it’s so bright, there is no way that I can look and see exactly where it is coming from. Using my hand, I shield my eyes a bit and try and get a fix on the actual source.

Angling my body away from the light, I see Lisa, Beth and Karen are just behind me. Still around the table, Jo-Anne, Jenny, Shelly and Rachel are standing. Their mouths are hanging open. We’ve all gone silent.

Pulling my hand away from my face, I feel the strands of light prickling my skin! It feels like static electricity. How is that possible?

“Can you feel this…” My voice dies out. All the individual streams of light dance with iridescent colors around me. They don’t seem to be coming at me anymore. It’s the prickling on my skin that makes it feel like they are attacking me. I can actually see the individual strands of light and all the colors of the rainbow. It makes a waterfall of light color around me. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’m about to say that and see if they see the same thing when I realize that I can no longer see anything.

How is that possible?

Now I’m freaking out but afraid to move. The light is everywhere. Did you ever see those old oil lamps that beads of oil are like rain coming down in a circle around the lamp figure? That is what it reminds me of only millions of them as fine as a strand of hair. Every color in the rainbow and some of them are so mesmerizing that you don’t even want to move.

“Lisa! Can you hear me?” Where is everyone? Is just my vision effected? What the hell is going on?

“Yes! Susan! I can’t move though.” Lisa’s voice sounds much farther away than it should, but I’m relieved knowing that she is there. She sounds as scared as I feel.

Unfortunately, her words register, and I realize the same thing. I can’t move. I can’t even seem to close my eyes and now my mouth won’t move to even respond.

So, is this it? Am I dying?

Are we all dying?

Is this the end of the world?

That’s my last thought before my eyes mercifully close and my brain shuts off.

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