Three minutes?

People paused in their tracks, looking up in confusion as a booming voice echoed from the sky, declaring, "Three minutes remaining."

Frozen.

Not a single breath could be heard . But that was before the noise started. Some ran for shealter, pushing and shoving those smaller than them out of the way. Others started crying and scremaing unsure of how to react.

But one particular lady felt a rush of calm flow over her. She wasn’t scared. Her mind raced to the winding path of her childhood. It eventually found one, specific, memory.

Little Elara sat at the base of the bed fiddling with the fringe on the side of her grandmothers quilt.

“Grandma im bored!” Her high pitch voice whined.

“Well, little one, how excactly can I help you with that?” The grandmother called from the next room over.

Elara flopped onto her back liking the way the mattress bounced around her body. “Hmm. Maybe I could go play outside? Or you could tell me a story, could make me food?”

“Ih I just love stories! Come here, I have one you will want to remember until the end of time!”

She eagerly jumped off the bed and roudned the courner, tripping on the doorframe.

Her grandmother rushed in at the sound of the bang and carried her off to the kitchen to treat her bleeding knee.

“Ledgend has it,” Granny said as she got out the supplies needed, “we all live in a storybook. A story book written by someone with the power to talk to people from the land of the fictional. But this author wrote one specific character that was born to be the protagonist. And none of us truely know who the main character is, but we all have to act our very best, just in case it is us. There might be a reader reading about our thoughts and actions. But once every few years, we get a warning. A warning that our chapter is ending and a new one is starting. They do this to let us know that a new scene is setting and we need to mentally prepare to start somewhere new. Now we tell our young this because if you arent ready, then you will be stuck in your chapter and your story will end. A loud voice will say, ‘Three minutes remaining’” she turned her voice as low as it would go and tickled her sides lowering her off of the counter top back onto the ground.

“Is that a true story Grandma?”

“I do not know little one. I have never seen it before, but deep down I believe it is.” She booped Elaras nose.

“Then I do too!”

Elara was brought back to the present. The booming message repeating every few seconds.

She just closed her eyes and felt every inch if her body, her legs and arms. Her back and her shoulder. How she felt in her heart snd in her stomache. What she smelt and heard was all extremely peacefull to her.

Even though the chaos was enough to break anyone’s brain, she knew that wherever she was going, or whatever was going to happen to her, she would be okay.

Elara felt the light cover her, but she was not scared, because deep down she knew.

Her chapter was starting.