The scream rips through his nightmare and drags him up out of the darkness of oblivion. It takes him an endless moment of panicked heartbeats to realize that the echoing sound is not in his head, but coming from within his own home. Adrenaline that has only just begun to
subside flashes through his system once again, and Jake does not remember getting from his bedroom to stand at his mother’s side on the front lawn.
His hand is on her arm, and there is the faint spectre of orange and black on his.
Jean’s hands are clamped over her mouth, her eyes white with fear as she
stares out the open front door. A year full of battles waged and commanded has the teenager scanning the immediate area for threats; yet when he finds none he can only turn to her in confusion, “Mom?”
“Jake,” she breathes his name, as though she is only just now noticing him but her eyes are still distant and on the horizon. “Jake, wake up Tom and your father.”
“What? Mom, why-“
“Just do it, Jake!” The teenager stumbles backwards into the house from the force of her shove. She slams the door behind them, and her body begins to tremble in response to her fear; even so, her grip on his shoulder is firm as she pushes him towards the bedrooms. He catches a glimpse of the TV on the way past; it’s playing some sort of monster movie. There is an all too realistic news broadcast showing a massive creature, hundreds of feet tall, in the midst of tearing through the Golden Gate Bridge…