thunderstruck - zac efron and vanessa hudgens

chapter 4 - zac

[tw: mentions of death]

"Excuse me, everyone." The loudspeaker booms to life in the hallway outside, and Vanessa and I both jump when it happens. We lean against the closet door to try to hear better as our principal continues to talk. "The tornado has passed, but it unfortunately has done major damage to the C and D buildings. We are still trying to figure out what to do now, but it seems that everyone is safe, because the damage mostly just hit the upper floors. We have decided to let everyone go home early today, and we will email your parents later tonight on our plans for the rest of the week. Thank you. You're dismissed."

"We made it," I choke. "I don't think the tornado killed anyone, either. Oh, my God, we survived another day."

"What if the universe sends something else later today?" Vanessa asks.

"I don't know," I reply. "Do you think it will?" She shrugs, and then looks at the door.

"We should probably leave," she says, putting her hand on the doorknob.

"Yeah," I reply. There's no way for this conversation to not be awkward, considering we're two people who hate each other discussing the logistics of how we're going to die together. We're going to die. I haven't thought about it a lot, but there's no way we're going to survive much longer. People die from natural disasters every single day, and I guess Vanessa and I have just been lucky to make it this far. We walk out of the closet and into the hallway, which still has some kids talking in clusters and calling their parents, so we're not alone. A couple of the kids give us a weird look when we walk past them, heading down the hallway and out of the building.

"Holy fuck," Vanessa marvels, looking up at the building behind me. I turn around to see, and the upper floors of the building are completely destroyed. There's rubble and concrete on the ground behind it and on its right side, and I can see the demolished remains of my fourth period classroom up there.

"We all made it downstairs, right? I don't think anyone got hurt," I say to her, and she just nods silently.

"We did this, though," she tells me, motioning at the building. "This is our fault."

"I know," I half-whisper.

"Zac!" someone yells, and I look up and back towards where the voice came from. Sam runs out of the building and over to where Vanessa and I are standing, holding up his phone. "You haven't texted back at all since yesterday, man! I can't find Ben, and now I thought I wouldn't be able to find you either!"

"You can't find Ben?" Vanessa asks. Sam nods.

"I tried to text him, and I looked around for him after we got let out, but he didn't reply. I

don't know where he is," Sam says, showing us his stream of 5 unreciprocated messages to Ben. Vanessa and I look at each other, both of us thinking the same thing. Before we can say anything else, all 3 of us look up as we hear the siren of a fire truck driving to the school and onto campus, and some teachers yell at us to clear out of the way for it, which we do.

"He's probably just on his way home and on the phone with his parents or something," I suggest, trying to be as hopeful as possible. Vanessa looks at me, seemingly admonishing me for potentially lying.

"I hope so," Sam says as the firefighters begin searching the upper floors.

"We should probably go home, too," I say, turning away from the building to face Vanessa and Sam. Vanessa slowly nods, her eyes still locked on one of the firefighters. I begin walking towards the hill that I walk home on, but before I can get too far, I hear a firefighter yelling, "I found one!", and my heart rate shoots up. I turn around, briefly making eye contact with Vanessa as I shift my vision, and see two firefighters in the damaged building trying to lift up a chunk of concrete to get someone out.