A Person You've Never Met [slow]

02:NICK

Someone shrieked and another screamed. The world was a blur as Nick twisted in pain on the cafe floor. Tears were fighting to escape his squeezed eyes.

There were bodies moving like shadows all around him. They were running and yelling. Tables were overturned and chairs were shoved away. Nine people, at the most, frantically searched for safety in a tight ball of fear.

A sharp pain tingled over Nick's shoulders. Reaching a hand to the pain, a warm liquid seeped into his knuckles. He fingered pieces of glass.

They jutted out of his back in jagged edges and broken splinters. Another wave of torment shook his body as he traced a deep cut. Nick gasped for air, blinking rapidly.

It felt like a dream. The pain, the noise, the rushing people. He would never have enough time to soak it all in. So, lifting his head, Nick stared at the madness around him, trying his best not to faint while examining his surroundings.

The figures still danced around him, almost as if they were birds. Arms flailing and voices screeching. Black shapes in his blurred vision.

Light from the shattered window above emitted down on him in bright rays. The memory of sipping his coffee flashed across his mind. That felt so close, but now he knew that the chair he had sat in would be nothing more than a pile of ashes soon.

Nick was listening to a ticking sound. It was quiet in the midst of the panic. But there all the same.

"BOMB!" was the next thing he heard.

Pushing aside his pain, Nick crawled to his knees and glanced around. He couldn't help but notice the agonizing feeling of the glass sliding deeper into his muscle.

It was a beautiful cafe. The kind of place love stories begin and children come for hot chocolate with their father's. It would all be destroyed.

Guilt crawled through Nick's body when his eyes landed on what he had been searching for. Or rather who he was searching for.

A girl. Her golden hair flew behind her as she ran for an open door. Averting his gaze, Nick knew she would be safe. The worry he felt would have to wait.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

All else faded as people began to disappear behind doors and booths. The instinct to run was stronger than he had ever felt it before. Everyone felt it.

"Everybody down now!" He screamed, voice cracking. "EVERYBODY DOWN NOW!"

Golden hair vanished behind a closed door as heads bent down and prepared for the heat that would course through them. Some were even crying.

Tick. Tick.

Nick forced himself up, legs flimsy twigs. With his last ounce of strength, he bolted toward the display case across the cafe. It was his last hope.

I have to survive, he thought, jaw clenching. I have to survive.

Tick.

Then, everything exploded. His thoughts, the people, the cafe and its paintings, the windows, the bomb. Heat reached out with flaming fingers to grab at its victims.

Nick felt pain like no other clutching himself under the case. He watched with horror as a girl with jet black hair was blown back, a cry escaping her cherry lips. Fire bubbled her perfect skin.

Soon, his own screams filled the air. Though they were swallowed by the explosion. Nick closed his eyes in desperation, tears evaporating almost instantly.

I have to survive, was the only thought that whispered across his vacant mind.

Just like every great catastrophe, however, there must be an ending. The whipping tongues of heat dissipated into the air like the losers of a great war. It was the contamination of smoke that followed next.