Blaring Red

"Wow! These things are practically ancient!" Zack shouted excitedly as he examined the arcade machines. Right after Jean's father had left, Zack immediately rushed over to the machines to check them out. And as Jean expected, it was something that interested him. "So, how do I play this?" Jean walked over to the arcade machines and quickly showed him how to play each one. Zack got the handle of it instantly and went straight into playing, losing himself in them.

"Is it really that fun?" she asked Zack. She usually played them when she was bored and had nothing else to do. The game that Zack currently was playing was relatively simple. He needed to collect fruits while his avatar while avoiding all the bad guys chasing after him. She already knew all the tips and tricks in beating the game after playing it so many times.

Zack shook his head no which surprised Jean. "The game really isn't that fun but it's still something, isn't it?" Jean watched Zack play a round. He cleared the first level with ease, along with the second level, along with the third, and then the fourth... He made it to the fifth level at lightning speed but got pincered by two bad guys and lost.

"Aw d*mn it... I knew I shouldn't have been greedy and went for that fruit." Zack started up another round and Jean left him to have fun with the machine and went back to Samantha and Jessie, who were having a conversation of some sort.

"-and I kept telling him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn't listen to me. In the end, he- ugh nevermind, forget it. I rather not remind myself about it again." Jessie sighed and took a sip from her mug and looked up when she saw Jean coming back over.

"What were you two talking about?" she asked them. It sounded like Jessie was telling Samantha about an anecdote from her life, and it sounded interesting.

"Oh, it's nothing much. Just people being dumb. In other words, just people being people," Samantha told Jean.

"I see..." Jean sat back down and looked at the two mugs on the table, forgetting which one was her's and which one was Zack's. "Hey, which one was mine again?" she asked.

"Not sure," said Samantha.

"I don't know either, but I think it might be the one further away from you." Jessie pointed at the mug that was sitting at the edge of the table to her right. She didn't remember putting it there but took the mug and looked at the amount of liquid inside. She drank a bit of it before putting it down and the contents of the mug seem to match exactly that. This mug was probably hers.

Worst case scenario, the mug wasn't hers and she was drinking from Zack's mug, which wasn't really that big of a deal. The three of them didn't mind indirect kisses from each other, so it didn't really matter anyway. Well, other than that time when all three of them shared a single water bottle when Samantha had a cold and none of them knew about it until a few hours after when she and Zack suddenly developed headaches for no apparent reason.

Jean took a sip of the tea from the mug and noticed that it was still quite hot despite a considerable amount of time having passed since it was served. She put the mug back down and sat back on the sofa and stared blankly at the table.

"You look really tired," Samantha noticed. "Are you sure you don't want to go home and rest?" she asked her again.

"No, I'm fine-"

The sound of alarms suddenly pierced through the air, startling everyone in the room and almost giving them heart attacks. Jessie dropped her mug in surprise and the contents spilled all over the floor. Luckily, there wasn't any carpet so it wouldn't be difficult to clean up, but that wasn't important right now. What was important was that they needed to evacuate.

Zack got off the arcade machine and ran to the three with a confused expression and asking, "What's going on?"

"How are we supposed to know?" Samantha asked back. They were just as clueless as him as to what was going on.

Jessie interrupted the two and said, "No time for talking, we better find the emergency exit and leave the building." She picked up the mug which somehow did not break from being dropped from that height and placed it back on the table before going to the door and beckoning for the rest of them to hurry up.

The three of them followed Jessie through the hallway. The entire place was flashing red and they bumped into several employees who were running around frantically, grabbing their belongings and doing other things. There were a few security guards doing their best to calm down everyone and direct them to the emergency exit but since everything was so chaotic, they were having trouble maintaining order.

"Hey you! Stop!" They heard a familiar voice call out as a tall man ran past them, almost knocking Jessie over.

"Sorry!" the man apologized as he hurried off and disappeared into one of the rooms. Just a second later, he came back out, carrying a bag with him and heading for the exit.

"Ugh, what a mess." Nick appeared in front of them. His hair was all over the place and his uniform was also crooked. "Anyway, are you okay Jessie?"

"Yes, I'm okay. More importantly, what's going on?" she asked him.

"Don't know. That's what we're trying to figure out. So far we haven't got a single clue. Anyway, it's best for you all to get out of the building right now instead of wondering about what's going on," Nick told them. Everyone agreed and followed Nick as he led them to the emergency exit which was crammed with people trying to fit through. Another security guard was doing his best to 'unclog' the exit and was pulling people from the door and telling them to go through one at a time but it was hopeless as there was only one him and like twenty of them.

"Nick, help me man!" he called out when he saw a fellow security guard come by. Nick ran over to the exit and tried to help, pulling people from the door and telling them to form a straight line. It was a little better but overall, it was still an absolute mess.

"D*mn it! This is why we need to have drills for f*ck's sake!" the other security guard yelled out loud in frustration. "Everyone just calm down! Panicking isn't going to help!" Despite him having yelled that it didn't seem as if anyone heard and they continued pushing each other while trying to go through the emergency staircase.

"Jean!" Jean heard her father's voice from somewhere in the crowd and looked around and found him pushing out of the elevator which was filled to the brim with people. He managed to get out after a bit of struggling, and the moment he did, a surge of people rushed to the elevator and tried to cram themselves into it. But since the elevator was already full, it was impossible for them to fit in and all of them gave up after a few seconds and went back to the emergency door.

"Do you know what's going on Mr. Rella?" Jessie asked Jean's father.

"I'm not sure but I heard an explosion go off in one of the floors above."

"A terrorist attack!?"

"I don't know, but it's possible." Just as he said that everyone heard an explosion happen from the floor directly above theirs. The entire place shook as pieces of the ceiling fell down. Jean almost lost balance and fell over but Samantha caught her and simultaneously pulled Zack away from the spot where he was standing as a huge chunk of debris landed where he was just at.

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