The Explosion

*Beep, beep, beep, be-*

Jean smashed her hand on the top of the alarm clock, grunted, lifted her head up, and looked at the clock. The fingers pointed at 6:45 a.m.

'Five more minutes,' she thought to herself as she put her head back down on her pillow. She shifted a little in her bed to get herself in a more comfy position and closed her eyes again. Some time passed and Jean fell back asleep.

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Jean was woken up again by another sound. This time it was her phone vibrating. She reached for the phone while staying and bed and brought the screen to her face. The screen displayed the name, Samantha. Jean swiped her thumb across the bar on the bottom and brought the phone to her ear.

"Yes?" she murmured, still half asleep.

"Hey, guess what time it is?" said a cheerful and energetic voice.

"Isn't it 6:40 something?"Jean said, unaware of how much time had passed by when she went back to sleep. She rubbed her eyes with her other arm and sat up. She wasn't sure why Samantha was calling her this early in the morning.

"No, it's 8:20. You better get your *ss here now," said Samantha in the same cheerful tone.

"What!?" Jean yelled. She dropped her phone in a panic and immediately looked at her alarm clock It read 7:00. Jean left out a sigh in relief.

Jean picked up her phone which fell on her lap and said, "Haha very funny. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"No, I'm serious," Samantha replied. "It's 8:20. Actually, make that 8:21 now. You got nine minutes, good luck!" With that, the phone call ended.

Jean stared at the alarm clock confusedly. It still pointed to 7:00. She watched as the red needle slowly ticked past the number 12 and the long black needle clicked to 7:01, and then realized what had happened.

She quickly jumped off her bed and ran straight to the bathroom, grabbed her toothbrush, took her clothes, and turned on the water for the shower.

'How can I be so stupid.' Jean thought to herself. Her clock died yesterday and she had to change the batteries, and she had forgotten to recalibrate the clock. She hastily washed while brushing her teeth, and then ran straight back into her room in her underwear. Her hair was still wet and droplets of water were spilling everywhere. She quickly dressed herself up, grabbed her phone from her bed, and shot out of her apartment.

She pressed the elevator button several times in rapid succession and then noticed that she forgot her backpack and quickly ran back to her apartment to grab it. She opened the door and ran back to her room, grabbed her bag, shut the door to her apartment, and ran back to the elevator.

Huff, Huff. Jean was out of breath and she followed the light on top of the elevator door with her eyes until it highlighted her floor. There was a small ding and the elevator door opened.

She entered the elevator before the door can open completely and press the button for the lobby and then smashed the close door button repeatedly until the door started to close.

Luckily for Jean, the elevator did not stop by any of the other floors and swiftly descended to the lobby. She took this time to catch her breath. The moment the elevator door opened again, she sprinted out of the lobby and towards school.

***

"You actually made it in time? D*mn girl, and here you are, always talking about how unathletic you are," Samantha said while patting Jean's back.

"Please... stop... hitting... me..." Jean wheezed out, taking deep breaths in between the words. Surprisingly, she had managed to take a shower, brush her teeth, dress, and get to school all within eight to nine minutes.

"You look like a mess," the boy next to her said.

"You're one to talk," Jean muttered.

"Sorry, what was that?" the boy asked. "Couldn't hear you."

Samantha chucked. "Ha, you're talking about Jean's appearance when you look like you've been hit with a wrecking ball Zack."

"Hm?" Zack took out his phone and turned on his camera to take a look at himself. "Really? Isn't this how I always look?"

"Yeah, it is. Do you get hit by a wrecking ball daily?" Samantha joked.

"I suppose I do," said Zack. He put away his phone and went back to laying his head down on his desk.

Jean looked at the two. She had known the two since they were around six or seven years old and they were her best friends. She hadn't expected them to be at the same high school or even the same class. Samantha was tall, athletic, and overall very intimidating looking. Zack, on the other hand, was almost her polar opposite. He was about average height for a boy at his age, hated sports, had a baby face which made him look like a doll, and was very good with computers.

And then there was her. Jean was short, a little smart, and was average in terms of appearance, or that was what she thought. A number of boys had asked her out before but she had turned them all down since she thought it was too much work to be in a relationship. She couldn't even figure out why they had asked her when there were so many other girls prettier than her in the class.

'Well, at least I'm not Zack,' Jean thought to herself, smirking. The girls in the class were constantly bugging him because of his face. It wasn't that they wanted to date him, but rather that they saw him like a little brother. They would always ruffle his hair and at first, he tried to stop them but eventually, he gave up since they couldn't take him seriously.

Jean turned her head towards the front of the room where the teacher was getting ready to start class. She had to shift her body to the side of her desk in order to see the board since Samantha was a giant. She was a little over six feet tall and had a somewhat muscular body. She would always block Jean's view and made it so that she would constantly have to angle her body to see different parts of the board.

***

School ended and Jean walked out of school with Zack. Normally Samantha would be with them as well but she had practice today.

'I hate mornings,' Jean thought to herself as they walked.

"Don't worry, I hate mornings too," Zack said as if he were reading her mind.

Jean looked at Zack with her eyes wide opened. "Are you-"

"No, I'm not, though it would be cool if I were a psychic. It's written all over your face. Your hair is in tangles and you look like you want to murder somebody," Zack said.

"Do I look like the guys whenever one of the girls is playing with your hair?" Jean asked while smirking.

"Ah, crap. That reminds me, we better go home early today," Zack said. He suddenly hurried up his pace, causing Jean to speed herself up.

"What, are there people after you or something?" Jean asked.

Zack scratched his head and said, "No, my sister is going to kill me if I don't get home early today."

"Why?"

"I don't know, he didn't tell me but I would rather not get plummeted by pillows while I try to do my homework." Zack paused for a moment before saying, "It must be nice to not have a younger sibling. Anyway, see you."

Zack turned the corner and walked towards his home.

"Okay, bye!" Jean called out as she continued down the street to her apartment building. As she was walking she suddenly an explosion go off somewhere in the distance. She turned to her left and saw that the giant laboratory where her father worked was on fire.

Jean immediately pulled out her phone and called her father to see if he was okay. The phone rang for a few seconds before someone picked up.

"Are you-" Jean was interrupted by her father before she could finish her sentence.

"Uh, hey sweetie, not a good time right now, call you later," her father cut her off and said in a hurry before hanging up.

Jean looked at her phone with a worried expression before looking back at the laboratory. There was smoke rising from the building through a huge hole in the middle.

'Did an experiment go wrong?' Jean asked herself. Well, at least her father was okay. She was relieved that he didn't get hurt by whatever happened in there.

With her worries out of the way, Jean jogged down the streets to her apartment. She had a lot of homework today and needed to get started on it right away if she wanted to finish. The streets were empty today so it made it a lot easier for her to jog.

Along the way, Jean passed by an alleyway and saw something unusual. She stopped jogging and entered the alleyway to take a closer look. It was a person. Jean jumped back in surprise and then slowly approached the person again.

"Are you alright?" she called out to them.

They didn't respond.

She walked closer and carefully turned the person over. It was a boy around her age. There was a small cut on his head and blood was running down his face. Jean took off her backpack and checked if the boy was still alive. She placed her fingertip on the side of his throat and felt a pulse. He was alive. Should she call for help?

'No, the police and medics were probably too busy dealing with the explosion in the center of the city,' Jean thought to herself. She gently placed the boy back down and picked up her backpack and wore it in front of her then bent down and lifted one of the boy's arm and put it over her shoulder. She tried to stand back up and almost fell over. The weight of the boy and her backpack was very heavy.

"If only Samantha were here," Jean grunted. After some adjustments, she started to walk very slowly to her apartment building.

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