Inescapable Escapism

I didn’t have to wait long to win the bet. Within seconds, Mrs Davidson let out an irritated sigh, which I could hear from even halfway across the room, and began storming towards the useless head of IT. A poor year seven student let out a squeal and scrambled backwards to avoid getting trampled, but Mrs Davidson didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on Mr Hodgkins, who continued to stare at the computer with a confused expression.

He jumped as Mrs Davidson approached before pointing back at the blank screen behind him, seeming to have no clue why it wasn’t working. I smirked as I watched Mrs Davidson. Her expression didn’t change at all, but I could feel the irritation rolling off her as her mouth opened and she said something inaudible to him.

“Do you think she threatened to make him run laps?” Nolan whispered as Mr Hodgkins leapt back, gesturing towards the computer with a concerned smile.

“Burpees,” I replied. “If she told me to step aside or do fifty, I’d probably move that quickly too.”

Nolan snorted, but I barely looked at him as I watched our PE teacher fiddle with the computer. After a couple of seconds, she looked back at Mr Hodgkins, shooting him a disbelieving look before reaching around the side of the computer and plugging it in.

Scattered laughter rang out around the room, but it was quickly drowned out by a deafening blare of sound that blasted from the speakers. I clapped my hands over my ears to block out it as complaints exploded around me. Mrs Davidson moved quickly, hitting pause and silencing whatever video had been playing.

“Quiet!” she bellowed over the continued chattering.

Most people fell silent, but there were a few who didn’t. I didn’t even need to look in the direction of the noise to know that the people talking were all from the netball team. Mrs Davidson wouldn’t say anything to them. She always had a soft spot for the people she coached and let them get away with anything.

“Yes, thank you, Mrs Davidson,” our senile head teacher said as he stood from the chair he’d been slumped in before looking up at us. “Take a seat quickly, please.”

A loud rustle seemed to travel across the room as almost every student turned to watch the last few students filtering into the hall. There wasn’t much space left, meaning that most of them had to stand awkwardly in the middle of the aisle.

“Another teacher is pregnant,” Nolan muttered under his breath. “That’s what this is about.”

I let out a soft exhale that wasn’t quite a snort. I didn’t want to risk making that much noise and have Mrs Davidson call me out in front of the entire school. She was glaring at the audience, prepared to start yelling again at any moment.

Usually, I wouldn’t have said anything, but my mouth opened before I could stop myself.

“It wouldn’t have made national news, though… would it?” I asked, eyeing the projector screen.

That’s what had started playing before Mrs Davidson had paused it. The image took up almost the entire page, making it impossible to see any headlines or hints as to what we were about to watch.

“I guess not,” Nolan replied. “Unless a teacher that got a student pregnant. That could do it. Maybe they ran away together. Wait a minute!”

Nolan looked around, craning his neck as his eyes searched the crowd.

“What are you looking for?” I asked him.

“Have you seen Ginny today? Didn’t she go home early yesterday because she was puking?”

I rolled my eyes at him, buying time as I searched my memories, trying to recall anything that had happened the day before. It took me a few seconds to be able to access anything.

“Probably, but she misses school all the time,” I said. “I doubt she’s pregnant.”

Nolan’s expression turned thoughtful.

“Maybe,” he murmured, his gaze returning to the front of the room as the head teacher stepped forward again. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

“Thank you all for coming down here so promptly,” Mr Stout called out, his voice wavering and frail sounding. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve interrupted your lessons, and frankly, I’m not too sure myself. An urgent press conference was called earlier today, and I’ve been instructed by the school board to share it with yourselves immediately. So… Mr Hodgkins, if you don’t mind?”

Mr Stout gestured towards the computer, looking back at the head of IT, but the man wasn’t even looking at him. His eyes were fixed on his phone, and it took him a few seconds to even realise someone had spoken to him.

“Oh, yes. Of course,” he said quickly as he rushed forward towards the computer again.

“Really?” I muttered, leaning closer to Nolan. “Mr Stout couldn’t hit play by himself?”

Nolan snickered softly.

“Go easy on the poor man,” he chided me playfully. “He’s probably never used a computer before. They weren’t a thing when he was a kid. He probably grew up using an abacus and got all his news from telegrams or something.”

I laughed quietly, but the sheer idea of growing up like that baffled me. It almost didn’t seem possible; it was so far removed from what I was used to, and I knew there were some worlds I’d been to where the internet didn’t exist, but I hadn’t really spent much time there.

Unrestricted access to the internet was something I was so used to. I’d always had a computer or phone in real life and the world I was in, and the thought of not having that made me so uncomfortable that I felt myself shuffling, despite the source being mental rather than physical unease.

I’d never not been able to immediately find out the answer to any question I had. That information had always been there, within reach, and I didn’t always do it. Sometimes, it was easier to ignore the nagging curiosity that demanded I uncover the secrets of the universes without hesitation, but that felt rare.

Mr Hodgkins’ expression became steadily more panicked as we watched him try and press play. It took him multiple attempts, and he refreshed the page three times before the video started once more.

“— no cause for concern,” an extremely concerned-looking reporter announced, beaming into the camera as a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his face. “The information revealed to the public by an unclassified source early this morning has caused uncertainty and concern to ripple through the country, but the Prime Minister is set to give a briefing shortly, and we expect that he will explain whether these documents and the threat mentioned inside are legitimate. For now, we go to Janet, who is standing outside one of the laboratories at the centre of this controversy. Hello Janet? Can you hear me?”

The screen split in half. On the left, the presenter stared expectantly into the camera, but the right side was far more interesting. A woman stood in a street, arguing with someone off-screen. There was a building in the background that was grand but unremarkable. I could have walked past it a handful of times and never really paid attention to it. It seemed to just blend into its surroundings.

No sound played for a few seconds as the woman continued to argue. Her expression was furious, and she waved her hands wildly as she spoke, pointing at the building behind her several times. I longed to know what she was saying, but she was moving too much for me to even try to read her lips.

The hall was almost silent. A few people whispered as we waited for something to happen, but most of us were just staring at the screen. More and more teachers were on their phones now, though. I realised that as I looked around. Their expressions were a mixture of confused, sad and angry, and I had no clue what to make of it.

Part of me was scared. I didn’t know what the reporter had been talking about when they spoke of a threat, but the way the teachers were reacting made me want to pull back from the world. I wasn’t sure if it was the kind of place I wanted to be in. It was temporary, I reminded myself. I wouldn’t be there for that long, so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, but the desire to just slip away before I even found out what was happening tugged at me.

I couldn’t do it, though. The curiosity was too strong, and I had to know more. I needed to know what the threat was and how bad it actually was. Then I could decide what I wanted to do, and it would be fine. If anything bad happened before then, I’d just go back to reality. I could do that. It wouldn’t be that hard.

“Uh, Janet? Can you hear me?” the first newscaster said, chuckling nervously as the woman on the screen froze, touching her ear. “You’re live.”

Her eyes darted towards the camera as a wide, clearly fake smile appeared on her face. She ran a hand through her slightly wild hair before reaching for something off-screen.

“Ah, sorry about that, Brett,” she said into the microphone she’d retrieved, her tone smooth and professional. “We were having some technical problems, but I can hear you now.”

“Fantastic,” the other reporter, Brett, replied. “Now, I know we’re still awaiting the Prime Minister’s briefing, but you’re currently standing outside the Simons Centre for Atmospheric and Solar Observation, the research laboratory at the centre of this scandal. What can you tell us about—”

“What the fuck?” someone shouted from the front of the room, their voice blocking out the rest of the question.

I craned my neck, trying to work out who had shouted, but it was impossible. Pretty much every other student was doing the same thing, and I was too short to see over their heads. Luckily, Nolan was much taller than me. He’d be able to see who it was.

My mouth opened as I glanced up at him, preparing to ask, but to my surprise, Nolan wasn’t staring at the person. He wasn’t looking at the screen or even at me. His eyes were fixed on his phone. Uncertainty washed over me, and I hesitated before glancing at his screen. I didn’t want to read his messages or invade his privacy, but I needed to know what was going on.

I couldn’t see anything, though. The angle I was sitting at made his screen nothing more than a darkened blur. That wasn’t normal. Did he have some kind of screen protector on or something? I wasn’t sure, but anxiety started to grow in my stomach. The feeling was distant, as if it didn’t truly belong to me, but it was sharp nonetheless.

“What’s going on?” I whispered as his expression became more and more worried.

A scream seemed to echo through the speakers before he could respond, and my head snapped up just as Janet’s side of the screen turned black.

“Oh,” Brett said, appearing shaken, but it was clear he was trying to hide it from the audience. “I’m not too sure what just happened, but I think Janet might be experiencing some more technical difficulties. Don’t worry, I’ve still got her on the line, and I’m sure we’ll get this fixed shortly.”

That was a lie. The slightly too high-pitched laugh that escaped Brett’s mouth made that clear, and I looked at Nolan again, hoping he’d have an explanation.

“Check your phone,” he muttered, unable to look away from his screen. “I’ll send you this…”

I fumbled, patting my pockets as I tried to work out where I kept my phone in that world. It took me a couple of attempts, but I found it. My hands were sweating as I unlocked it and glanced at Nolan, waiting impatiently for him to send me whatever it was that had captivated his attention.

The buzzing of my phone made me jump, and I had to tighten my grip to stop it from slipping out of my hands. I should have been expecting it. Nolan said he’d send me the article, but somehow, it still took me by surprise.

“The world is ending,” I read out loud. “This is a joke… right?”

My heart jumped into my throat as I looked at Nolan again, expecting him to be grinning, but his expression was scared.

“I don’t think so,” he replied, finally looking away from his screen.

I almost wished he hadn’t. The pure terror in his eyes made my heart pound. It wasn’t a joke. It couldn’t be one, but I didn’t get it. How could the world be ending?

“Ah,” Brett said, sitting up straighter and touching his earpiece. “I’ve just been informed that the Prime Minister is preparing to address the country. We’ll have to check in with Janet afterwards, but for now, we go live to Number Ten.”

The image changed again. That time, Brett wasn’t shown on the other half of the screen. The entire space was taken up with a shot of the podium outside the office of the Prime Minister in London. A quiet buzz of chatter came from the speakers, and I swallowed before staring down at my phone.

My eyes refused to focus on the words, though. It was impossible to make sense of what I was reading, and my head was spinning, but I wasn’t sure if the dizziness was normal or another world. Perhaps my mind was trying to protect me. It was trying to force me to leave the world before I heard anything else, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t satisfied yet.

The black door opened suddenly, and bodyguards seemed to materialise from nowhere as shouts erupted from the crowd waiting there. I barely had a chance to see the Prime Minister before they were blocked from view by the bodyguards, but they didn’t have far to go. The podium was close.

In less than a second, they were there. The bodyguards stepped away, staying at the edge of the screen as the man looked deeply into the flashing cameras. A jolt shot through me as I stared at his appropriately grim expression, my brain working sluggishly.

That wasn’t the Prime Minister. He was immaculately dressed, and he had the same haggard look about him that they always did, but he was not the man I was expecting to see. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to see a man at all. The current leader of the country was a woman, wasn’t she?

Doubt flooded me, and the temptation to return to reality so I could check flashed through me, but the moment the man opened his mouth, it was outweighed by the need to stay. I had to hear what he was going to say.

“Thank you all for gathering here today, and for those of you at work or home, thank you for tuning in,” he said, his tone low and sombre. “I wish I had better news to share today, but unfortunately, the information that was released online earlier this morning has forced me to make this announcement sooner than intended.”

Voices rang out from the crowd, but the questions were overlapping and impossible to understand. Whispers burned through the room like wildfire, and I watched them, unable to do anything more than just stare. I felt distant, detached from my body, and there was nothing I could do to slip back into it. I was just a spectator, forced to watch as everyone else began to fall apart around me.

“There will be time for questions later,” the Prime Minister called out over the shouting, holding up a hand to quieten the crowd. Once it had fallen silent once more, he continued. “As most of you may now be aware, a document containing classified information was leaked to the public in the early hours of this morning. We are currently working hard with law enforcement to identify the source of this leak.”

The man paused again, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. Why had he stopped rather than just spitting it out and telling everyone what was going on? Surely, he was just making things harder for himself. He was giving the reporters and whoever else was gathered there a chance to panic and interrupt him, which seemed foolish.

He didn’t seem particularly worried about it, though. His expression hadn’t changed from the composed, serious one he’d been wearing since he appeared, and that confused me. How did he do it? Was he not just as concerned as everyone else? I would have been. I hadn’t finished reading the article Nolan had sent me. I had no clue what was really going on, but if I had to stand in front of so many people and deliver the news, regardless of what it was, I would have been terrified.

But maybe he’d had practice. He’d probably given hundreds of briefings and announcements since he was appointed, so maybe he was just used to it. Or perhaps he’d been rehearsing that exact speech for ages. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given it hundreds of times in the mirror, marking sure every single phrase, every hesitation and pause, was perfect.

“Is it true?” someone shouted, their voice somehow cutting through the clamour.

The question caused the crowd to fall silent. Everyone waited with bated breath for the Prime Minister’s response.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, causing even more questions to rise up, but he simply spoke over them. “Several years ago, the National Solar Observatory in the United States discovered a number of dark marks on the sun, which was also verified by top British solar researchers. At first, we believed these marks to be nothing more than completely normal sunspots, which are a natural part of the sun’s solar cycle. However, the researchers soon came to the conclusion that this was not the case. They are areas of the sun which have cooled drastically, do not seem to be recovering, and most concerningly, they appear to be spreading.”

“What?” someone in front of me gasped.

My mouth fell open as I tried to understand what I’d just heard, but my brain wasn’t working. All I could do was look around, watching as Mrs Davidson stalked along the aisle in the centre of the room. I expected her to shout at the group of students sobbing loudly as they clutched their phones or to confiscate them, but she just walked past them without even pausing.

I craned my neck to see through the windows on the far side of the room, my eyes following her journey as she walked out of the building and towards the teachers’ car park. She didn’t even hesitate. The whole time I was watching her, she didn’t pause or look back at the school. She just got in her car and left.

Why? Where was she going? Was there anywhere that would be safe if the sun went out? Or were we all going to slowly freeze to death? I wasn’t sure, and I glanced at my phone again, starting to read just moments before the Prime Minister began to speak again.

“Leading experts from around the world gathered to analyse this data and discuss potentially next steps, and unfortunately, some of the information they compiled was heavily edited and released to the public this morning,” he said, his expression morphing into one of anger. “Key facts were left out, and others fabricated entirely in order to wreak havoc and fear. Yes, it was wrong of me not to share this information with you sooner, but I did not want to address you all until we had a plan and more promising information.”

Perhaps it would be a sudden process, my mind suggested. The sun did more than just warm our planet. Something else could happen as a result of the sun no longer burning, and our lives would just blink out. We might not even see it coming. One moment, we’d exist, and the next, we’d be gone.

Would that be better? My mind began to spiral. Would I want to know that the end was coming? Thinking back over my past lives, the other worlds I’d visited and died in, I was sure the answer was no. There were some where I knew my death was imminent. That one where I’d been raised for years, knowing that I’d be sacrificed to some cruel god. I knew it was coming then, had years to mentally prepare, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Bunkers?” Nolan repeated, his voice cutting through my panicked thoughts.

“Fully equipped subterranean research laboratories,” the Prime Minister said, seeming to answer Nolan’s question even though there was no way he could have heard it. “The previous Prime Minister began building them towards the end of his time in office as a way to ensure that our scientists can work without disruption, and I have expanded the programme over the past two years. We now have a number of these fully self-sufficient facilities all over the country, and many have teams already living inside. We plan to continue expanding this programme on a much larger scale over the coming months.”

“What does that mean?” someone behind me asked loudly. “What about the rest of us? Are they just going to leave us here to die?”

I couldn’t help but wonder the same question. How many bunkers did they have? Were there enough for all of us? I doubted it. Surely, if there were, everyone would have seen them being built, but what would happen to everyone else? Would they be able to survive above ground?

Would I be chosen? The question made my heart leap with something close to excitement or anticipation, but it quickly turned to disgust. It was selfish and horrible to hope that I would be one of the select few who’d been chosen to survive whatever would come, and I knew it was unlikely. I was just a kid. I wasn’t a scientist or anyone who could actually be of use. I wouldn’t be able to help out with anything; I’d just be taking up space. Another mouth to feed.

“Shortly, we will begin contacting those who have been selected for the initial rollout of the programme, and for the rest of us, life will continue on as normal. We will still all be able to live with our families and attend work or school. The usual day-to-day aspects of our lives will not change,” the Prime Minister announced.

“There’s no way he’s staying up here,” I heard someone grumble. “I bet he’s been living in a bunker for ages already.”

“Nothing is changing, and the planet is not at immediate risk. Contrary to the lies contained in the documents released earlier, the spots do not pose an immediate threat to the planet and will not for several decades,” the Prime Minister assured us. “This programme is just one of many that we’re trialling to ensure the planet continues to be safe and habitable for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Thank you.”