The Sacrifice

Katelyn stretched in the morning sunlight that streamed through her childhood bedroom window. It was going to be a beautiful day. Not only that, it was going to be a momentous one. She was marrying the man of her dreams at 4:00 p.m.

She was somewhat surprised that her mother hadn't awakened her already. Glancing over at the clock on her bedside table she noted that it was after 9:00 in the morning.

Jumping out from under the covers, she ran to the bathroom to shower. Her maid of honor and bridesmaids would be arriving shortly. They had to supervise the florist and caterer when they arrived. Then Katelyn had to get to the beauty salon to get her hair and nails done. She had everything timed down to the second. There was no room for error.

With her shower finished, Kate quickly dressed and raced down the stairs to grab something from the kitchen. "Mom, why did you let me sleep so late?" she called out as she jumped over the final two stairs.

She stopped for a moment wondering how the house could be so quiet on such an important day. Then she proceeded to the kitchen. Her mother had her back to her at the sink when she entered.

She repeated her question, "mom, why you let me sleep so late?" The question went unanswered once again. Katelyn stepped forward to shake her mother's shoulders. That's when she noticed that something was very wrong.

Turning to face her mother, she soon screamed in absolute panic. Marcia Millner looked like a beautiful store mannequin. There was no expression on her face; no warmth in her eyes and absolutely no sign that she could see or hear her daughter.

"Daddy, come quick. There's something wrong with mother," Kate screamed as she continued to shake the woman in front of her. "Daddy, where are you?"

That's when she caught a glimpse of a red out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to look out the window, Katelyn saw her father in his favorite red shirt. He was holding the garden hose as if he was watering the rose bushes. But he was also frozen in place. Even stranger still, the water coming out of the hose didn't reach the ground.

Another scream tore through Katelyn's throat as she ran out the front door and over to the Smith's who lived to the right of her parents. But before she reached the porch, she saw that Joe Smith was caught in mid air as he bent to pick up the morning paper. His dog, Skipper, was near Mrs. Smith's prize geraniums, poised to relieve himself.

That's when Katelyn Millner finally fell to the ground in a dead faint. She didn't know how long she laid there but when she came too, the same scenes greeted her. It wasn't the dream she had hoped for. Something had happened to the people in her neighborhood. They were all frozen. Kate wondered how far the malady had spread.

Running to the phone, she called her fiancé, Michael. There was no answer. She got the same response with every phone call she made.

Flipping on the television, no picture greeted her. There was nothing but dead air. The same applied to the radio.

Grabbing her keys, Katelyn jumped into her red sports car and began driving. That proved no easy task with dozens of vehicles stopped dead in their tracks all over her small hometown. Nothing and no one was moving. Every person she saw was frozen. Every animal; every insect; everything but her.

Pulling her car over, she let the hot tears blind her. She gave into the growing panic, letting it wash over her. Only then was she able to gain control of herself and think clearly once again.

Driving to the church where her wedding was to take place, she walked in to find the florist had begun setting up the flowers. She was frozen as she tried to adjust the white roses around the altar.

Kneeling there, Katelyn did the only thing she could think to do. She prayed.

With a new calm taking over her body, she got back in her car and drove to Michael's house. She let herself in with the key he'd given her. Without saying a word, she ran up the stairs, hoping to find Michael was alive and moving. But she knew he would not be.

As she suspected, he was caught in time as he'd began shaving for his wedding day. The only consolation Katie could get from the picture was the huge smile on his face. He'd been happy at that moment.

Touching his bare chest, she knew it would be cold and lifeless. There was no warmth in his skin. Still, she put her arms around him and held him for as long as she could stand it. Then spent, she plopped down on his bed to decide what to do next.

She didn't want to go on without him; without her family or the other people that she loved. But suicide was against her religion. She believed it was a mortal sin. That left her not knowing what to do. Once again, she fell to her knees to pray.

That's how Michael found her 24 hours later when he suddenly snapped out of the frozen state that held him. He had no idea how Katelyn had gotten to his house or why she was there. Nor did he understand what had happened to his beautiful bride-to-be.

He knelt beside her and tried to take her in his arms, but he could not. She was stiff and nothing he said or did elicited the tiniest reaction from her.

Calling 911, he waited for the ambulance to come, wondering if she could possibly still be alive in her frozen state. It was a question that the greatest minds of the world would never answer. It turned out that there were 12 people on the planet, all caught in the exact same position.

Weeks and months passed with no hint of what had happened to the individuals. What they had managed to discover; however, was that on August 15, 2011 somehow the whole world lost 24 hours. No one could account for what happened during that time period. All they could determine was that when the rest of the world awoke, 12 people took their place.

There was a 25-year-old medical student and a 30-year-old seminarian from the United States. There was 13-year-old Indian boy and 16-year-old Ming Lei from China. The others consisted of a 60-year-old Spanish nun in the Belgian Congo; a 52-year-old British barrister; an 85-year-old holy man from Tibet and a 41-year-old witch doctor from South America. The remainder of the 12 included a 29-year-old French monk; a 35-year-old mother from Canada; a 19-year-old artist from Ireland and a 58-year-old nurse from Germany.

Each one was frozen as they knelt to pray. People who knew them had a feeling what they were praying for. Katelyn Millner had scribbled the words on a pad near her fiancé's bed. "Lord, let this plague pass to me." Her words were eventually engraved on the base of each statue. Every year, on August 15 ^th , people gathered everywhere to celebrate their renewed lives. And in that moment, the statues seemed to alter. A smile crept onto each face as the statues wept tears of joy.