Giving {H.S Vampire Fanfiction}

Brave to the End

I was reminded of something I had read long ago, probably in a book of names when I still had hope for a future or family. I had passed the name 'Valerie' and the meaning had stood out to me more prominently than others had. Valerie meant bravery and the look on her face told me that she wasn't named that for any other reason.

"Okay," I choked out. "You got any idea how to do that?"

Val held up her hand that still clutched the scissors I had brought down with me and grinned. "Exactly how they do it in the movies."

I gave her a half-smile before snatching the shears from her outstretched hand and approaching the daunting collection of wires. If it was anything like the movies, that meant that there was one wire that once snipped, would keep us from being incinerated into dust.

"Alright, from my vast knowledge of films," Valerie started, narrowing her eyes and sizing up the problem. "I know that one wire will stop this whole thing, but any other will cause it to blow up in our faces. Literally."

"Yeah, all we're missing is the timer," I scoffed. I could feel my fingers shaking as I stroked one of the wires in a hatch on the side of the bomb. I could feel my anxiety building and I did not want to be the cause of eight million deaths.

I shouldn't have touched it.

Almost immediately after I had retracted my hand, the metal rocket began to hum louder and quake subtly. Steam began to start hissing from beneath where it connected to the floor and suddenly my heart was beating too fast to still be in my chest.

"What the hell did you do?" Val screamed as I jumped back, and the situation suddenly felt too real. This couldn't be happening.

"I have to cut something!" I shrieked, and hesitantly tried to get back closer to the contraption that could kill me in a second. I needed the world to just slow down enough for me to think, but time was running out and the seconds were ticking by before this thing would be airborne.

"You have to make sure you cut the right wire though!"

"NO SHIT." Okay, maybe it wasn't the time for sarcasm, but the stress of dealing with a bomb really gets to you in moments of crisis.

But then it was as if everything fit together like a puzzle as an idea came to me. I didn't think, I didn't hesitate, I didn't stop to consider the consequences. I discarded the scissors without thought and gathered every single wire into a bundle within my arms.

Then I yanked every single one of them.

It was like flicking a switch off when all the mechanisms began to power down and the noise finally ceased. I hugged the cables in my arms long into the silence that filled the room before finally letting them all slip from my grip and coil to the ground in a final thud. I felt myself come off of the adrenaline high in a flash that made every muscle in my body feel weak and the stress I got from that experience would last me into the next year.

"Oh my god." Valerie's voice was high, as if it had been caught in her throat and she was clutching her chest with a quaking hand. Her previously tamed waves were now in a tangled mess from running a mile underground, her jacket was falling off her shoulder, and a glisten of sweat was across her forehead. Everything about her normally combed appearance was gone, but she was beaming like there was no tomorrow. "Dude, you just disarmed a motherfreaking bomb!"

And I think that's when it really hit me that I basically just stopped myself from blowing up. I glanced down at the cords that I had just yanked out and then back up at my friend who was looking at me like I was the moon. "I guess I did."