there was no time to put shoes on, you were woken to alarms ring;
It wasn't often that Ben Thorpe worked late at The Denver Post, but every once in a while he slipped behind through no fault of his own -- usually because several things came out at once and he got everything muddled accidentally -- and decided to stick around at the offices at his little cluttered desk in order to catch up without the distractions that were ever-present at his apartment. It was just his rotten luck that the one night that summer when he did fall behind happened to coincide with the unexpected attacks on the city. Unbeknownst to Ben, the best thing he could have done was stay up in the offices where the chances of tossed furniture and flying debris or other structural damage would have been less, but he along with the other reporters working late heard the booms that echoed through Denver and the more curiously inclined immediately headed for either the windows or the stairwell in order to head down to investigate whatever was going on. Ben was among the latter, telepathic shields already raised to the maximum to shut out the din of confusion and the hints of mental panic that were hugging in from all sides.

They stood just outside the door for some time watching the unnatural light hit the night sky over the rooftops of the buildings. When the downstairs front of a building at the opposite end of the street to where they stood erupted outward in a shower of glass and smoke, some of them screamed, some of them fumbled for their cell phones to snatch photos or videos, and others headed back inside. Again, Ben was among the latter. His own cell phone started to vibrate in his pocket, and it was as he was digging his hand down to grab it before it could flick to voicemail that the world turned upside down. A crack of sound and a flare of light were followed by everything not fixed down being tossed into violent disarray. One of the interns stumbled into Ben and he dropped his phone to the floor before there was an ominous groan from overhead. He and the intern only had time to glance upward before they, along with the others who had darted back inside the lobby, were hit and partially buried by the debris that suddenly rained down from the ceiling above.


[ narrative, closed ]