Chaos In The Flesh

Chapter 28 (Part 1)

Thursday, January 26, 2023: 10:24 am

Math is horrendous. Pre-Calc is horrendous. If Jonathan were to ever choose a career, it would be something involving English or History. Fuck STEM. He'd rather live the rest of his life with a mediocre job or degree in a non-STEM field rather than suffer within its grasps. But alas, he still had to wait a year and a half to have those dreams.

Barely able to keep his eyes open, Jonathan began forcing his leg to bounce to keep himself awake. He was sitting closest to the door and the clock, which mocked him endlessly. Still 20 freaking minutes until he could go to his next class.

As he felt himself begin to nod off again, a blaring noise echoed in the classroom, startling everyone, even the teacher. Miffed, all the students prepared to keep learning, expecting it to be a shelter-in-place, where students would still be able to learn, just not leave the building.

But when the principal came over the loudspeaker, Jonathan realized this would be a little more than a shelter-in-place.

"Attention faculty, staff, and students," The robotic voice repeated over the loud speaker. Students glared at the grating voice that screeched in their ears. "This is an emergency announcement. Please, all students remain in their classrooms and under their desks until further notice. Staff, please conduct head counts–"

The entire building shuddered and dust fell from the ceiling. Jonathan could hear students from classrooms surrounding his screech with shock. Chairs and desks began shifting as students slid and hid. Jonathan's teacher attempted to close the blinds of the room, but when the building shuddered again, this time cutting the power, he just gave up and began helping students comfortably sit under their desks.

Jonathan felt his bracelet grow warm. He took a glance at his wrist with a raised eyebrow. Looks like Wonder Girl was going to be on the call for this one. Maybe he should be too. As his teacher turned his back on the class, without much further thought, Jonathan slid out the door into the hallway.

The blood red emergency lights used for tornadoes were on and blinking rapidly, sending Jonathan's head into a serious light overstimulation. But there he was: out of his classroom and out of his other options. He had to go check out what was happening now.

"Jon?"

Jonathan spun around and saw his brother behind him, exiting out of his own classroom. What class was that again? AP Chemistry?

"What are you doing out of class?" Jordan asked, despite also being out of class. His jeans, beat up sneakers and CROWS sweatshirt almost made him look normal.

"The bracelet was growing warm," Jonathan said, showing his glowing bracelet that was pulsing the beats of a heartbeat. Maybe it was his, or maybe it was Wonder Girl's. He didn't have time to think about it. "I think with whatever's going on, it's going to need our powers. What're you doing out of class?"

"I heard something in the world crack," Jordan blinked as the building shook again. People screamed in fright in the surrounding classrooms. "I was going to check it out myself."

"Well, let's go together. Since we both have powers now." Jonathan mumbled, as his brother walked past him down the hall. "Alrighty then."

At the farthest point down the hall, the doors were shut tight and locked. Despite the alarms blaring above their heads, both brother's walked as quickly as possible without any sound to censure no one would catch them.

When they finally reached the double doors, Jonathan could see the crops and pieces of snow blow aggressively through the sky. At first, it would've looked just like another tornado. But the farther down town Jonathan scoured, the more his heart dropped. Even so far away, Jonathan could clearly make out a large giant wrapped in ash and silk bindings, as though it were a corpse.