Authors note:
This is the first part of an intended multi-part story and includes a lot of world/character building and limited sex. Future parts will be much steamier after the scene is set. This work includes elements of incest within the context of a fantasy/sci-fi story.
Huge thank you to Volunteer_ for helping me edit and format this story.
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It was without a doubt the most significant event in human history. I was 16 at the time, a Sophomore in High School and it started just like any other day. I was sitting in third period English class, absentmindedly daydreaming, when everything seemed to go red. One look out the windows to the side of the classroom showed that all of a sudden the sky seemed to have been painted blood red. The whole class rushed to the windows to look, no one saying anything at all. The clouds were still there, and the landscape hadn't changed at all, but the entire sky, sun included seemed to have turned red. More than just being red, the sky seemed to be pulsing with energy. Streaks of crackled white, almost like lightning but much more subtle, streaked across the horizon. The following weeks seem to be a blur looking back, but I will always remember staring silently at the landscape with my classmates on that day.
When I got home that day, I found my father, John, home from work calmly packing supplies into our camper while my mother, Molly, was talking on the phone. My dad paused his activities briefly to say "Get some stuff packed up. Enough for a couple of weeks at least and help load the camper. No questions right now, we need to move, your mother is on the phone with your older sister and as soon as she gets home, we are leaving."
That night an emergency declaration was issued for the whole country, the whole world as far as I knew. I remember standing in the living room with and arms laden with canned food I was supposed to be taking to the camper, as the emergency warning system blared, and the screen flashed the message "PLEASE STAND BY FOR AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT." After a few minutes the screen changed to the president sitting in the oval office of the white house with the red sky fading to night clearly visible through the window behind him. "My fellow Americans. I come to you today in the face a worldwide phenomenon, the likes of which we have never seen. While I cannot provide details for the cause of these events currently, what I can say is that we are monitoring the situation closely and have the top minds of our great nation looking trying to determine a cause. Thus far there appear to be no malignant effects of this phenomenon and I would urge you all to do your best to remain calm. To that end, I am declaring a state of emergency, nation-wide, instituting a nation-wide freeze on prices and wages, effective immediately, as well as imposing quotas on key consumer staples. In addition, I am deploying all active and reserve forces of the United States military throughout the country to maintain safety and order. I urge each and every one of you to pull together and support one another in this difficult time ahead. The only way we can overcome this challenge is together. I will of course provide updates as new information comes in, but for now I say goodnight and God Bless." The screen returned to the emergency system logo and went quiet. My mom turned to my dad as the screen went black and asked "What does that mean?" After a long pause, my dad said in a somber tone "It means they have no idea what is happening."
Scientist and journalist would shuffle through several names for what happened that day before landing on the Crimson Awakening. Stupid name, I know, but even I had to admit that it fit. No one had any idea what was going on, and news show after news show put baffled scientists on the air to talk about theories. Of course, religious leaders of the world were quick to jump up and declare it the end of times, riling people into hysteria unless they repented. The day after the emergency announcement it was announced that the last week of classes had been cancelled in light of recent events. I suspected that regardless of the school's decision, parents were not going to be sending their kids to school anyway.
My parents had told us that as soon as Steph, the eldest of my three sisters, had returned from her college, we were going to spend a couple of weeks at our large plot of mountain land we called "The Outpost." This land was in an isolated area of the Rockies, at least 30 minutes away from the nearest development. The nickname came from the fact that the only structure or sign of civilization that could be found was a large old wooden lookout tower which we assumed had to go with a matching outpost in the past.
The next day, everyone's phones seemed to be on the verge of exploding with news alerts and messages. Social media and news were filled with images unrest and protests around the world. I was invited to at least 3 end-of-world parties as I scrolled through my phone waiting. There was a determined urgency about my dad that I had never seen before as we waited. In general, he was a stoic and quiet person, someone you could count on without knowing or caring why. A little after noon, Steph finally arrived, to the obvious relief of my Dad. "It's getting bad out there Dad" she said quietly after hugging my parents. "I know" my dad replied simply, "The only thing that matters is that we are all together."
As we loaded up into the camper, I saw my dad silently pass a small handgun to my mother in the passenger seat, and clip another on his belt. His quiet determination was the pillar that held us all together as we made our way out of the city. Despite the emergency orders from the president, there was a panic in the air driving people to desperation. Large trucks full of solders seemed to be appearing everywhere as roving groups of people assaulted grocery stores, gas stations and public buildings. We saw more than one shop being looted, and most busy corners seemed to have at least one person with a megaphone declaring it the end of times. Through it all, my dad maintained a calm, confident demeanor as he wove through traffics and roadblocks, never stopping. My three sisters and I sat transfixed to the windows, rarely talking except to point something out or exclaim about the state of the world.
Eventually the crowded and chaotic city streets gave way to open highways through the foothills which then became dirt roads through the mountains. Driving through the quiet trees as the sunlight faded, I let out a breath of relief, feeling the tension I had been carrying for the last day and a half flow from my body. I was not the only one relieved we had made it out of the chaos, in fact the whole mood of the camper seemed to pick up.
"Dad, how long are we staying at the outpost?" Lilly asked after bit.
"Probably only a week or two this time," My dad responded in a neutral tone "things should calm down relatively quickly."
"What do you mean this time?" interjected Tara.
"Don't worry about that right now, it's getting late, and we still have to set up camp when we get there. I will explain everything tomorrow, ok?" Responded Dad.
Getting to the outpost, which was normally about a four-hour drive, ended up taking twice as long because of all the traffic. It was almost midnight by the time we passed over the small bridge and parked in the open meadow with the lookout tower. Everyone was emotionally and physically exhausted, so we quickly set up the camper and our tents and passed out.
The next day after having breakfast my dad gathered all four of us to tell us the plan. "I know you all are scared with everything that is happening, but we need to focus and be ready for the worst. I can't say for sure that society is going to collapse but there are warning signs and I want to be prepared." We all sat and listened as he explained his plan for the outpost. He wanted to create a self-sufficient hideaway, protected from the outside and capable of sustaining us as long as necessary. He detailed what types of buildings and shelters we were going to build, improvements we would need to make to the land, and what self-sufficient systems we needed to install. He also told us that him and my mother would begin teaching us some essential skills to help survive in the long-term. I was going to work on scouting, navigation, hunting, etc. as well as providing muscle in the construction process. Steph was going to help buy install and maintain the engineering systems necessary for survival, such as solar panels, water purification and supply, etc. Tara was going to focus on food rationing and storage, including planning and farming. Lilly was going to apprentice with my mother learning health and medicine as well as livestock care.
I remember sharing an incredulous look with Tara as dad laid out the plan. For years, our running joke had been that even dad didn't know what he did for work. Every time we asked, he would respond in a vague way like "I work in an office" or "don't worry about it". We had run through several increasingly fantastical jobs from treasure hunter to secret spy in a perpetual contest to come up with the most outrageous profession. As he calmly laid out what we would need to do, I realized that despite all the jokes and number of times I had asked, there was a lot I didn't know about my father. How did he know how to navigate and map unknown terrain? Where had he learned how to build solar panels and septic systems? The contrast between the dad I knew wearing a suit and working an unspecified job in an office, and the one calmly explaining how to package and store food so that it lasted through the winter, was shocking. Despite all of this, however, he always had this presence to him that you knew you could depend on him without needing to know why. He was just so solid that when he spoke you took what he said for granted and did what he asked. So, for the next couple of weeks we set off on the tasks dad had assigned as the world outside of our outpost churned.
Eventually the outside world began to calm down. Sure, the sky was now red, but there didn't seem to be any other effects. After about a year, everything seemed basically back to normal with the world when the reports of strange discoveries began. It started off as fluff pieces on the news "Farmer claims alien vines swallowed his horse" or "fairy dust puts train passengers in a trance", that sort of thing. As time went on more and more of these reports started to pop up and the leaders of the world were forced to acknowledge that something was going on. Leading scientists from around the world gathered in the largest cooperative summit in history with the directive of coming up with a theory that would explain what was happening. The highly publicized gathering was constantly on the news for that week as the world held its collective breath to hear what they came up with, all while strange new things happened all around the world. At the end of the week a spokesperson stated that the summit was ready to release its findings and there would be press conference the next day broadcasted to the world.
