Endgame: The Calling Read Free Page A

because I allow myself to be happy. I learned young that being active breeds more activity. That the gift of studying is knowledge. That seeing grants sight. That if you don’t feed anger, you won’t be angry. Sadness and frustration, even tragedy, are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that happiness isn’t there for us, for all of us. My secret is that I choose to be the person that I want to be. That I don’t believe in destiny or predetermination, but in choice, and that each of us chooses to be the person we are. Whatever you want to be you can be; whatever you want to do you can do; wherever you want to go you can go. The world, and the life ahead, is ours for the taking. The future is unwritten, and you can make it whatever you want it to be.”
    The kids are quiet now. Everyone is quiet.
    “I’m looking west. Behind you, above the bleachers, is a bunch of oaks. Behind the trees are the plains, the land of my ancestors, but really the ancestral land of all humans. Past the plains are the mountains, from where the water flows. Over the mountains is the sea, the source of life. Above is the sky. Below is the earth. All around is life, and life is—”
    Sarah is interrupted by a sonic boom overhead. Everyone cranes their necks. A bright streak breaks over the oaks, scarring the blue sky. It doesn’t appear to be moving, just getting bigger. For a moment everyone stares in awe. A few people gasp. One person very clearly says, “What is that?”
    Everyone stares until a solitary scream comes from the back row, and it hits the whole assembly at once. It’s like someone has flipped a switch for panic. The sounds of chairs tipping over, people screaming, total confusion. Sarah gasps. Instinctively, she reaches through her gown and grabs the stone around her neck.
    It’s heavier than it has ever been. The asteroid or meteor or comet or whatever it is, is changing it. She’s frozen. Staring as the streak moves toward her. The stone on the chain changes again, feeling suddenly light. Sarah realizes that it’s lifting into the air under her robe. It works itself free of her clothing, pulls in the direction of the thing that is coming for them.
    This is what it looks like.
    This is what it feels like.
    Endgame.
    The sounds of terror fall away from her ears, replaced by stunned silence.
    Though she has trained for it for almost her entire life, she never thought it would happen.
    She was hoping it wouldn’t. 742.42898 days. She was supposed to be free.
    The stone pulls at her neck.
    “SARAH!” Someone yanks her arm hard. The fireball is riveting, terrible, and suddenly audible. She can literally hear it moving through the air, burning, raging.
    “Come on! NOW!” It’s Christopher. Kind, brave, strong Christopher. His face is red with alarm and heat, his eyes watering, spit flying from his lips. She can see her parents and her brother at the bottom of the steps.
    They have seconds.
    Maybe less.
    The morning sky darkens, turns black, and the fireball is upon them. The heat is overwhelming. The sound is paralyzing.
    They are going to die.
    At the last moment Christopher vaults off the stage, pulling Sarah with him. The air fills with the smells of burning hair, wood, plastic. The necklace pulls so hard in the direction of the meteor that the chain digs into the skin of Sarah’s neck.
    They shut their eyes and crumple onto the grass. Sarah feels the stone pull free. It sails into the air, seeking out the meteor, and at the last minute the huge fireball changes direction, stopping a thousand feet short and skipping over them like a flat rock on a smooth lake. It happens so quickly that no one can see it, but somehow, some way, for some reason, the ancient little stone has spared them.
    The meteor flies over the cement grandstand and impacts a quarter mile to the east. The school building is there. The parking lot. Some basketball courts. The tennis courts.
    Not anymore.
    The meteor destroys them all.
    Boom.
    They’re