I was twelve when I discovered it. It was July 18th, 2043, the middle of another painfully hot summer. My friends and I had been in my backyard since midmorning, playing catch with a beat-up old football in desperate need of air. My mother had promised to take us to the park down the street, but the shootings had been especially bad the night before. She told us the summer heat made people crazy. It hadn't rained in over two months, and every adult I knew was short-tempered. Besides, it was hot enough in the sun without the protective clothing we were forced to wear. Tracy, my neighbor, had received a new Protector outfit from her grandmother a week before as a birthday present, and she was itching to show it off. Admittedly, I was jealous, and feigned boredom whenever the subject came up. Tracy was a beautiful girl with curly blond hair that she twirled in her fingers. I was always a little jealous.

So it was just as well that we were playing within the electrified confines of my yard. My mother worried, but she let us play unsupervised there. The gang copters rarely came out during the day, and we all assured her we would hear them coming in time to run indoors if they did.

Tracy's younger brother Tim had come along with her, much to her embarrassment. He was only nine years old, and a nuisance, as all younger siblings always are at that age. The three of us were tossing the football halfheartedly to each other when my mother came out of the house to tell us that Mrs. Henley had arrived unannounced, and had brought her son Michael.

Tracy instantly ran over to me, her hand slightly over her mouth to hide what she anxiously whispered to me. "Now I wish we were at the park," she gushed, "so Michael could see me in my new outfit!"

"I'm sure Michael wouldn't care, he has a new outfit of his own," I snapped back at her, pretending not to notice the pained expression on her face.

Tracy and I were pretty close, as close as two twelve-year-old girls could be. But Michael Henley was a sore subject. He was an "older man" of fourteen, and Tracy and I fought constantly over whom he liked better. He had soft blue eyes that made my stomach feel sick every time I looked at them. Tracy professed a weakness for his height, a full ten centimeters more than our own.

Needless to say, it was a scene when Michael stepped through our back door. Tracy and I still whispering with the "infant" Tim nagging us to tell him what the secrets were. Michael waved to us and smiled, and part of me melted inside.

"What's up?" he asked. He was wearing a light Protector jacket, the one that had become very fashionable in the last year. I had begged my parents for one, but they were expensive, and they said I had enough overpriced Protector garb already. Michael's family had more money than we did.

"Playing a little football," Tracy answered, jogging lightly over to the discarded ball. She looked like we did that all the time, though neither of us knew the rules. She was trying to impress Michael. I could feel the anger rising to my cheeks, and I pretended to tie my shoe so Michael couldn't see my face.

"Let's make teams," Michael called to us. "I'll take Tim, cause that's only fair. The girls against the boys!"

Michael explained where the goals were, as I shared a quick look with Tracy. It was obvious that she had little idea of what he was talking about, as did I. Michael tossed the ball to Tracy,calling, "You toss the ball to Candice, and she'll try to run it by Tim and I, to the goal over there,"pointing to an area near the fence furthest from Tracy and me.

"I can't believe we're doing this," I muttered to Tracy under my breath, and she covered the giggle with a hand over her mouth.

"Do I just throw it, then?" Tracy called to Michael, "This isn't the way we usually play, y'know."

Michael looked at us with an irritated expression. "Just say Hut-one, Hut-two, Hut-three' and throw it to Candice."

I had seen football games on the viewer in my father's den. He watched sports on Sundays,sometimes. I thought I knew what to expect. "Throw it to me, Tracy, I can get it by them!"

Tracy called out the Huts, and tossed it awkwardly toward my outstretched hands. Unbelievable to me, I caught it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael running toward me, and I spun around to run for the opposite fence.

"I'm right behind you," Michael laughed, and I looked over my shoulder. It was in this position that I didn't notice the root from the maple tree, at least five centimeters above the grass.

I felt my ankle turn, but that wasn't what hurt. The pain was Michael, landing in a sprawl on top of me. I felt and heard the breath suddenly expelled from my lungs in a rush. It was this sound that probably masked the sound of my blouse ripping completely in two down the front.

"Oh, umm," Michael stammered, looking at the front of my torn blouse. I looked down, and all I could see to the top of my pants was my own skin. Michael floundered to get off of me, and get his hand off of one of my breasts. They weren't fully grown, as yet, but they were mine. I was mortified.

I looked up, and saw both Tracy and Tim gawking at the situation on the ground, and I saw the look of amusement in Tracy's eyes. I wished, I prayed, to be anywhere else but there.

And suddenly I was. Well, I was still there, but not really. The first thing I noticed was the silence. And the darkness. It was suddenly nighttime in my backyard. The sounds of the big Army vehicles from the highway had gone. The birds in the huge tree had quieted. And Tim had stopped squealing. All I could hear was the sound of my own labored breathing.

Michael's leg was still over mine, and I looked at it. I looked at Michael's face in the light of a huge full moon. He was completely still, his mouth open, left hanging in the middle of a sentence.

"Is this a joke?" I demanded. My words sounded odd, like I had spoken them facing a brick wall. No one answered. In fact, no one even moved, not even to breathe.

I went to move Michael's leg from over mine, and it felt odd. The skin through the denim covering his leg was hard. It wasn't pliable like flesh should be, and I jumped, flinging my hands away from him. "Michael?" I said in little more than a whisper, less than a meter from his ear. He was still frozen as he was before. I could see the saliva wetting his tongue, and I could feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle.

In a panic, I scrambled out from underneath Michael's heavy leg, and crawled quickly away from my friends. I stood, waving my arms to regain my balance, and noticed that even the air was different. Heavier. It was more difficult to breathe, but not very noticeably so. I thought of the vacation with my parents last summer, to the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. My father explained that the air was thinner than the California air I was used to, and it made it more difficult to breathe. The thought of my parents made me turn and rush into the house.

I saw my mother at the sink in the kitchen, washing lettuce for our dinner. "Mom!" I cried,tears springing to my eyes in relief. I knew she would explain it to me, make everything clear. She didn't move. The lettuce didn't move. Oddest of all, the water from the faucet didn't move. There was water draining slowly from the bottom of the sink, and I noticed the faucet was turned on, but no water came out. I gingerly touched the handle, turning it off and on, over and over, but water never came out. I slowly turned to look into my mother's face, and she had the same frozen look as my friends outside. I think that's the first time I've ever truly been afraid.

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