concealing ➸ tomlinson

Lx

| “with our backs to the wall, the darkness will fall. we never quite thought we could lose it all. ” ‘ready, aim, fire’, imagine dragons  |

zayn was one of many staying back and awaiting word on what was happening above.

he sat in his end of the ugc, too restless to properly do anything. his mind felt wrecked with anxiety. at least one of his friends were out there, probably getting hurt. at risk of getting killed, perhaps. and he was doing nothing but sitting still.

after a while, zayn at least began to pace the floor. in most instances of panic and fear, a person stayed in place. he couldn’t stop moving. if he worried a lot on a good day, good god. a pit had settled in his gut, making him feel painfully hollow. the extent of his knowledge was that jacob, for certain, was one of those gone. and there was nothing in their reality to convince him that he was anything but the problem. all he'd been doing previously was useless now. for nothing.

zayn wondered if he'd get to tell louis or harry that he'd been helping jacob. how they'd react, especially after the events currently going on. restlessly, he twirled a pencil between his fingers, desperate for something to distract him from these thoughts. it felt like being consumed.

then, zayn stopped the pencil between his middle and ring finger and exhaled very shakily. he had to do something. he would probably start walking up the walls if he didn't. thus he began to hurry out of the ugc, and the building started shaking again. zayn braced himself against the wall until it stopped. he didn't know what that was, but it had to be connected to the situation and it made him that more paranoid.

after it stopped, zayn paused, then went back to collect some finished drawings he had yet to use. he felt like he was going to end up using them. as he stood, flipping through a stack to find one particular, something in the edge of his vision caught his attention. zayn glanced up. a large crack had formed in the crevice where the wall and ceiling were joined. the pit in his stomach grew further.

zayn quickly fanned through the papers until he found the specific one, all the while consistently checking up at the growing crack. he folded the others and shoved them into his jeans against his waistband, before finally taking the drawing from off the paper. kicking his pace off to a moderate jog, he wrapped the device around his wrist as quickly as he could. the focus of the device was the knob, visually similar to a watch. equipped with completely different features.

once secured, zayn glanced back at the growing crack in the building. he hadn't realized it, but it had spread across the ceiling. a low groan echoed through the room. zayn swallowed slowly. moving felt like a bad idea, but staying in place would be worse. keeping one hand on the dial of the device, he took long strides to the exit. the eerie silence made the situation feel even more surreal and tense.

probably close enough to start running into the halls, something happened. it sounded like dozens of firecrackers being set off right above his head. without even a second thought, zayn clammed the dial to the highest setting and dropped to the ground. he put his head in his hands, closed his eyes tight, and prayed, prayed, prayed this would work.

and not seconds later, the rest of the building collapsed in on itself.

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stats;

date- january 6th, 2015
words-  622
reads-  4,418
votes-  173
comments- 41