Because The Sky Is Falling

7/9 BLUE (1)

The walk wasn't far which is exactly why I chose the location. I had only been on my way for five minutes before being joined by Shinn.

"Thanks for showing up," I said appreciatively as she jogged up to my side.

"No problem, dude," she said with a shrug. "But D—not everyone thinks it's necessary to live through this, you know?"

I felt my eyebrows furrow slightly at this statement. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Surely you are not one of those people."

She shrugged again. "No I mean I'd like to live through this, but if the end is near and it turns out there's nothing we can do...I'm gonna surrender and spend the last bit of my time doing things I love with people that I love."

I sighed. Her thinking was incredibly logical and made me angry with myself for not being able to accept my destiny as she has. I had my shoulders and neck muscles tensed for quite awhile and just now realizing it, I un-tensed them and tried relaxing. "So what do you want me to do? Treat this day like any other and slide finding the solution for saving the world somewhere into my schedule?"

"No, just..." she started to trail off but then started again "Just take it slow. There's no use in going fas—"

"But we're running out of ti—!"

"Yeah maybe, but no one really knows how much time we really have. Nobody even knows what's happening."

That was when I remembered she had been in bed all day and probably hadn't seen the video nor heard any news of it. I sighed once again and pulled my phone out to show her. "Walk while you watch," I demand as I began walking once again and she had started to follow me. However, she didn't follow for long because the information had her shocked. She stopped in her tracks and gasped, then looked up at me.

"Okay, but we still don't know how much time we have. For all we know, we have years," Shinn said again.

And then—the wind picked up, the sky grew darker, and we stared at each other in fear of what would happen next. However, the staring only lasted a few seconds before we took off running to the junkyard on the corner of Gallberry and Maple. Something told me she was a little bit more on my side now.

x

The Junkyard was deserted except for the rats and cockroaches hiding in the corners of abandoned cars and pieces of scrap metal. Yet, the presence of someone other than these not-so-friendly creatures seemed to be approaching. The sky was now a dark blue, though it shouldn't have been considering it to only be 10:45ish. It's not like the sun has gone down, the color of the sky had just...changed. With barely any warning, too. Shinn and I heard a car's engine becoming near and looked out at the road. A big, red pick-up truck with a trailer and a tarp covering the thing on the trailer, pulled into the junkyard in a manner that was not very cautious.

It was the kid from school—the one that harasses everybody, including Shinn which he has been doing for years—named Darian. Apparently, he was really smart, but that didn't excuse him from treating people, in particularly women, the way he has.

"Darian?!" Shinn shouted at him and with the least bit of kindness in her voice, and continued to do so. "What the frick are you doing here? Get out, leave, you total Richard Cranium!" Except frick is not the word she used.

(Richard Cranium is code for something because I don't curse even if my characters do.)

"Well, crap, I didn't know you would be here," He responded, except crap was not the word he used.

I stood in front of Shinn so she couldn't tear Darian's head completely off and asked for him to leave in a not-so-kind tone of voice. "Darian, you perv, leave. We don't need your help."

He took a moment to look hurt and then with an irritated voice said "Excuse me, but you two must've forgotten that my parents are rich and I'm in a Robotics class."

"So what, Darian, a lot of people are. You're nothing special."

"Well I wouldn't be if I didn't have this rocket-ship."