Last Second

Chapter 7

        The explosion knocked Ryan off his feet, hurling his entire body into the concrete ground. He sat up immediately and looked upwards, catching sight of a Ferris wheel cart that was flying over his head. It landed onto a mini hotdog stand a few feet away, the collision setting fire to the booth. Heavy puffs of gray smoke rose to the sky, as those lucky enough to avoid the sudden projectile escaped. Screams from the people could be heard over the ringing in his ears from the explosion. Intense waves of heat drifted towards Ryan, to which he crawled away from and shielded his eyes against. He tried to stand up and run, but realized that his left leg had become immobile. Upon observation, he noticed a long, jagged piece of metal had found a home just below his knee cap.

“Darn it,” he cursed, pain finally registering in his brain. He hadn’t even winced until this point of realization.

A woman placed a hand on his shoulder and caught his attention. “Hey, are you alright?” she asked. Ryan looked up and saw the ride operator. He hadn’t gotten a chance to see her properly before, but now he came to realize just how pretty she was. She looked to be around sixteen, the same age as him, and had flowing chestnut hair and a delicate face. He started to lose himself in her baby blue eyes. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” she added. “I had a bad feeling about this day.”

“Yes,” Ryan breathed, mesmerized.

“Lay down. I’m going to help you.”

He complied. She didn’t break eye contact with him when she began to run a steady hand over his left leg. It brought him a mysterious comfort, and Ryan relaxed from the relief his leg was feeling. The stinging heat in his leg slowly dissipated.

“What’s your name?”  Ryan was curious.

“I’m Kaitlyn, but you can call me Kate,” she replied. “And you are?”

“My name is Ryan.”

“So that’s your name, huh?” She brought her hand upwards and drew her fingers into a fist, and Ryan found that the coolness disappeared.

Ryan examined his leg and saw that his wound was completely healed, while the jagged piece of metal now lay harmlessly on the ground. "How'd you heal it?"

“I'm a hybrid, just like you are, and Jasmine allows me to heal almost any injury."

Ryan smiled blissfully. But in the middle of drowning in admiration, he realized he’d forgotten an important conflict from before. A surge of worry overcame him.“Did you see the fight up at the Ferris wheel? My friends were there just then! Do you know what happened to them?”

“I saw a group fly away in that direction. If you want to save your friends, we should get going now, Ryan.”

He frowned. "But how will we fight them?"

“Don’t you know I’m on your side now?” She extended a hand in front of him. “Come on, let’s go.”

Ryan slowly straightened out his leg, testing to see if it had truly healed. He found out that it was good as new. "Thank you for healing my leg.”

She shrugged. “No problem.”

Everyone had fled the scene and the park became eerily quiet. The only exception was the police sirens that could be heard in the distance, drawing closer by the second.

"I suppose you can't fly yet," Kate assumed. "Your angel was just awakened so you probably don't have full control over it."

Angel? Ryan asked himself. Javeken didn’t seem like an angel. But what did he know about angels anyway? Only a few hours ago he didn’t even know that angels existed. In that moment he realized how much his life had changed in such a short amount of time. What an insane day! I don’t deserve this. All I wanted to do was watch anime.

Ryan grasped her hand and stood. “We got this.”

The duo carefully weaved their way through the wreckage, following the path that Vince’s team had traveled on.

"Vince will probably choose to go to a dark and secluded place if he’s trying to awaken the entities inside of your friends. The angels are very unpredictable when they are first awakened, so they need to be kept away from humans and restrained."

"I know a warehouse he could’ve gone to. And it's in that same direction they’re going towards too! They must be headed there."

The two hurried into the forest, soon arriving at the entrance of a worn down building.

Kate ran up to the entrance door and tried to open it.

“It’s locked,” She announced.

Ryan leaned back and drove his heel into the door. The lock began to break and fall out of place. Several more kicks later, the door fell open.

They stared down the dark hallway, hesitant to go in.

“Ladies first,” Ryan said nervously.

Kate glared at him. “Whatever you say, Mr. Courageous,” she said sarcastically before stomping in first. Ryan followed after her, flustered. Each of them cautiously made their way down the hallway, watching out for any traps that Vince might’ve left. They made it safely to the door at the end. Kate grasped the handle and turned it, opening the door inch by inch. She squinted at the huge space before her in the newly introduced darkness. They were on an empty second level so she looked down to the first, witnessing a huge garage with no parked vehicles. Instead, there were three figures crowding around what appeared to be two stretchers.

“Hey let me see too!” Ryan said indignantly.

“No, don’t be stu-” She was cut off as Ryan pushed into her, throwing her off balance. She leaned against the door for support, but it swung open and crashed into the metal railing nearby. The sharp clatter caught the attention of the figures down below.

“Who is it!?” one of Vince’s men shouted.

Another pointed towards the direction of the sound. “Quickly, they’re coming from the front! What should we do?”

“Evacuate the building. Leave those two here. Our work is already done.” Vince replied calmly.

They started to gather up the syringes splayed out across the table into a briefcase.

“Hey wait! You can’t just run!” Ryan shouted. He quickly climbed down the stairs and ran towards the trio as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Go on, and take the briefcase” Vince commanded. “I’ll take care of this.”

        Vince’s men scurried towards the back of the building and climbed out of the window, careful not to shatter any of the glass tubes.