The Solar Apocalypse

Chapter 2

   Light flooded in my room. I opened my eyes and scrambled out of bed. I walked downstairs and ate an orange and drank some apple juice. Then, I dashed outside. I had a long day ahead of me. Sure, when my family found out that I was building a shelter to survive the heat they would think I was a crazy psycho but I don't care. The walk to the junk yard wasn't far but I called two of my friends to help carry stuff. We would need a car and James, my friend who was a month younger than me, and I could not drive yet. But my other friend, Celeste, was in high school and could drive. While I was walking to the junk yard someone grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back. It was Zev, the school bully.

 "What do you think your doing, Pines?" He asks in his usual, jerky way.

 "Taking a walk, do you have a problem with that?" I reply.

 "You won't be able to walk when I'm done with you." Zev mutters.

 Then, out of the blue his fist flies at my nose. It hits me and I fall  on my stomach. My nose is bleeding. He calls me a few names and the kicks me in my left leg. I role over onto my back and then trip him as walks towards me. He socks me right in the ear. I stand and run as fast as I can. Zev runs after me. I take a left past the junk yard. A dead end is right  up ahead. I spot a bus pulling into the bus stop just a few feet away. As the doors open I jump on and run to the back. Luckily, Zev was a few meters behind and I was the only passenger. The doors close and we start moving. I watch Zev struggle to keep up with the bus. He disappears into a crowd. 

 Now I am behind schedule to get to the junk yard. The bus took me all the way across town and I had to take another one back. When I finally get there James and Wendy are there. I tell them what happened. Then we get to work. At first, we couldn't find the special glass. But in the very back many shards lurked in the shadows. We grabbed it all and loaded it in Wendy's car. Then she drove it to my house. Since my house was right next to the river it was handy so I could get water easily. I watched closely as Celeste drove. I memorized everything she did on every turn. She turned on the radio. 

 "It is confirmed that a solar apocalypse is beginning!" A female reporter said.

 "You have only 35 hours left to live!"She finished.

 Music then began playing. Surprisingly, it was happy and tuneful. The rest of the ride seemed long because of the fact that we basically knew we were going to die. When we arrived we unpacked and I got three pocket knives. We began to whittle the shards into window panes. It took us a three hours to finish. 

 "Well how do we build these into a shelter?" James asks.

 "They should be magnetic." I answer.

 I shove two together. Nothing happens. But when I try to pull them apart I can't. We begin to piece together the panes. It takes us another hour to build them into a dome. We have to use our knives to cut them unstuck from each other. Once we're finished I run inside to get a role of duct tape.

 "What are you doing?" Sarah asks.

 "Nothing." I say.

 "Aren't you supposed to be doing homework?" She says with an accusing smile.

 "No, I don't have any."

 "Why did you run inside then?"

 "Because..." I'm looking for a lie. "I um, I need to pee!"

"EW!" She screams. "Go quick! Or you'll be cleaning my shoes!"

 I run to the bathroom. Then I can hear her running out the front door.  I run into the kitchen and grab the duct tape. Outside my friends are waiting patiently. We all help tape down the shelter. We supply the shelter with enough food to last us a month. This all took up yet another hour of our life. That meant only thirty more hours.

  "Now that these are our last thirty hours to enjoy earth, let's make this the best day of our lives!" Celeste said.

 And so we did.