The Guy from the Insane Asylum

Chapter 28

"If I had known the last time I saw you would be the last time, I would have stopped to memorize your face, the way you move, everything about you. If I had known the last time I kissed you would have been the last time... I never would have stopped." – Mike Hannigan, F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

Chapter 28

Though Grandma Maggie's heart was thumping heavily at her chest, she tried to calm her daughter down. "Michelle, they're going to be fine. They're smart kids."

The Harlow kids and Zach had remained inside a building that was soon to fall to the ground due to a fire.

"Smarter than a spreading fire?" Michelle asked, angrily. "Mom, we shouldn't have left them. God, how did they even convince us to leave?!"

"Sweetheart," Grandpa Greg's soothing voice sounded. "They wouldn't have come with us no matter what we said or did."

"Just be glad they saw the fire before it happened. They're saving hundred of lives." Maggie held her daughter close.

"Let's just hope it doesn't cost them their own." Mr. Harlow slapped himself after saying that. He often said inappropriate things in stressful situations.

~

Adelaide's eyes shut when she saw an image being drawn out in her brain. "I see gas. It's leaking from—from some kind of tank." She said. She sounded confused and slightly unbelieving.

"It could be the water heaters." Zach pointed out.

"Damn it. Those are set out all across the building. I can't see which it's coming from." Joey groaned and pulled at his hair.

"It's close. It's the closest one near us, I can feel it." Bethany closed her eyes and pictured herself walking to it. Her eyes snapped open. "West wing bathrooms, theirs a custodian closet next door. It has to be the one in there."

"Okay, So well get everyone sitting at the West to evacuate first."

"Wait!" Bethany said. "The East heater on this side is leaking too," they stood at the East of the building. "Worse than the one on the West."

"Great, so we're surrounded." Zach sarcastically commented. "The best option we got, is to announce it at the podium. Even if it causes panic, it'll get people out, right?"

Joey scoffed, frustrated and panicked. "Okay, but at least one of us has to get back to Mom and Dad."

Bethany frowned at her brother. "We're all getting back, Joe."

"I'll go to the podium," Joey volunteered.

"No, I'm going." Bethany argued. "You have to get out of here. The three of you do." When they started bickering, wanting to stay, Bethany yelled at them to stop. "We don't have enough time to fight right now, okay? Leave!" Right before she turned around to run for the stage, the last she saw was her siblings and Zach walking away.

She ran into various confused people, they made it harder for her to reach the front. She kept saying excuse me, like she had time for manners. And she stopped a few times to tell some of her friends they had to leave. She wanted them to have a better chance at getting out.

120 seconds, read a timer in her brain. It was like a time ticker that gave the told Bethany how much time was left for the tanks to blow—but it was also just more of a feeling. She was at the front podium, teachers and the principal telling her to get off. She saw Joey and Adelaide leaving the building but she didn't get a chance to see Zach. She figured he was ahead of them.

107 seconds. There was no damn way all those people were going to be evacuated in less than two minutes. We're screwed, she thought.

Yeah, we are, unless you speak into the damn microphone. It was Zach. She couldn't see him but she could hear him so clearly.