The Hero Wears Pajamas [Paused]

Chapter One: The Terrors of Cheese

Ah, mornings. The warm rays of sun shining warmly across windows, the happy birds chirping cheerfully at cars, the huge explosions blasting completely through walls.

I woke up to exactly that as my apartment wall blew up with an ear-splitting boom.

Without opening my eyes, I brushed a piece of rubble off my hair, groaning quietly. "Patricia, Patrick, I swear I'm going to - "

I stopped midsentence. My neighbors certainly would've been crazy enough to do this, but they had just gone off to vacation the other day, so even though the loud wailing of police sirens and occasional crashes of more explosions sounds like the usual noises I heard next door, there was little chance that they were the culprits.

Groggily, I sat up in annoyance. The light was unusually bright today. Did I sleep until afternoon again? If so, I was going to miss the majority of school anyway, so it totally sucked that I was woken. I gave the light a sleepy glare as I let my eyes adjust to it.

That was when it dawned on me why the light was shining so harshly.

It was because my apartment wall really had been blown to pieces.

I stared at the piece of rubble, which had still been in my hand, and let my gaze wander to the rest of my room. Chunks of plaster were scattered everywhere, and little flecks of dust were rising from the rubble. The spot where my desk had been, just a few inches from my head, was now a smoking crater, and the many patches of my remaining walls were either smoking, burnt, or both.

Also, I was vaguely aware of the fire starting slowly in the center of my room.

As I drowsily got off my bed and reached for my glasses, which was miraculously intact, a new wave of sirens, screams, and explosions burst from outside, along with an evil voice that was yelling distantly, "Yes! Fear my cheese!"

Groaning, I slid the glasses on my face and sluggishly made my way around the remains of my room to stick my head out of the newly formed gap in my wall and glanced outside.

I immediately regretted it.

Three stories down, where the parking lot used to be, a figure, barely discernable in the rising dust, danced maniacally between the fires, cackling as he lobbed strange, round objects at the policemen shooting after him. When they made contact with other things, the round objects would explode, flipping over police cars and causing more sirens to blare.

As I watched people down below scramble for cover, I recognized many of my neighbors in the crowd, which meant I definitely had slept through the initial explosions. Amid the chaos, cameramen scuttled without fear around the cowering police and fragments of cars, setting up their equipment while a reporter hastily applied her makeup.

What made the police seem to quiver the most, however, were the round objects that the man was brandishing. I squinted past the dust as it cleared from the recent explosion, realizing that what the man was holding was a terrifying, deadly... wheel of cheese.

"Behold, another cheese!" He shouted victoriously, leaving the people around him to wail with terror.

"Not another one! No more!"

"Stop in the name of the law! Put away that cheese!"

"Then let me take the bag!" He yelled. A chorus of voices rose up again.

"No, stop taking the bag!"

"In the name of the law, give back the bag!"

The figure stood in still contemplation for a while, allowing most of the civilians to escape as firemen timidly began to put out the blazing fires, which seemed like a lost cause. I wondered if I should've also left. However, when I turned around, there was a huge chunk of the wall completely blocking my door.