Read Online The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval by Erica Stevens - Free Book Online

an eclipse today?” Riley inquired.
     
    Xander frowned. He tilted his head back to search the pristine sky. And then he saw it. Over top of the library the very edge of the sun was beginning to vanish. It looked as if the moon was causing the sun to disappear, but he couldn't be sure as clouds seeped over the sky like insidious snakes. His arm fell away from Carol’s shoulders. Carol stopped to watch as he took a few quick steps forward. Riley was beside him, her chin jutting in the way he knew it did when she was annoyed or confused.
     
    “Was there?” The self-assurance in her voice had slipped as it trembled a little.
     
    Chills ran up and down his spine as he turned to face her. “No.”
     
    Her big blue eyes widened, her full mouth parted, and she visibly paled beneath her summer tan and freckles. Her dark, nearly black hair blew around her face as a gentle breeze wafted over them. When he was eight, and she was six, he’d enjoyed teasing his little sister’s friend, when he was twelve he began to realize why he'd always liked to tease her, and by the time he was fifteen he’d realized he’d been a moron and that she wasn’t an awkward looking, irritating child anymore. Though he had stopped looking at her as a kid, she still thought of him as Carol’s highly infuriating brother who had made her cry numerous times, and given her the hated nickname that still followed her ten years later. He still had a crush on her, and she still disliked him, a lot.
     
    “Well then,” she muttered.
     
    “Well then, what?”
     
    “It just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
     
    She turned away before he could respond and headed back to the group of elderly women that had stopped to look over the library. Riley touched one woman’s arm reassuringly, she gestured for her to move on as she slid her arm into the elbow of another woman. Xander started walking with the team again, their chatter had died off as soon as Riley came over, it didn’t return. This time it was Carol who slid her hand into his.
     
    “I don’t like this, Xander.”
     
    “Neither do I,” he admitted.
     
    He wanted to be strong for her, wanted to pretend he was still the big brother who knew all the answers, but Carol wasn’t an idiot. She was well aware of the fact that no one knew anything, at least not any of them.
     
    The growing darkness of the day set his teeth on edge. The more the sun was blotted out, the closer everyone pressed to each other. More animals filtered past, mice, rats, and what he thought might actually be a ferret ran ahead of him. Riley and the elderly women dropped back when only a quarter of the sun was still visible. Carol took hold of Riley’s free hand, squeezing it as the sun disappeared.
     
    As one, everyone stopped moving, they stood upon the street and sidewalk, looking indirectly to where the sun had once warmed the day. Though he knew it couldn’t be possible, it felt like the temperature of the day dropped ten degrees. Goosebumps broke out on his flesh. Carol was shaking as she pressed closer to him. After so much noise, chaos, and confusion, the silence was unnerving. Not a single person moved. The library was bathed in a golden glow that was nowhere near as beautiful as it appeared, for beneath the beauty he sensed something ominous.
     
    He stood, waiting, waiting, waiting, for it to move on if it was the moon that had swallowed the sun. It remained. He’d seen a solar eclipse only once, when he was a kid. They’d made special boxes at school so they could look at the sun. It had seemed so fast then, most likely because they’d been able to escape class for awhile to see it, but today it seemed as if time had completely frozen when the sun vanished. This couldn't be an eclipse, or at least not a regular one, it would already be ending if it was.
     
    For a strange, disconcerting instant, he felt as if he had just stepped into the pages of an H.G. Wells novel. That reality had shattered and