Morning all and welcome to the middle of the week. I am uncommonly awake this morning, even pre coffee. No idea why and to be honest it kind of creeps me out. But I will ignore it and push on. So to the prompts!
This is one I kind of want a few more minutes on the timer just to see where it will go. I may set the timer for another fifteen and just see what happens.
Wednesday, January 24th: The glass in the windows exploded.
The glass in the windows exploded. They all turned towards the sound. Another explosion sounded.
“It’s hit the gas line,” someone yelled. He didn’t know who. “Run.”
Dan still didn’t know who spoke but it seemed like a good idea. The entire crowd moved, their lunch forgotten on the picnic tables in the courtyard. While the group of them ran towards the exit placed between two buildings, once through they angled away from the rst of the building complex.
‘The gas line would run through all the buildings,’ Dan thought, even as he moved with the crowd. He didn’t know who was in charge of direction or if it was just instinct driving them away from the gas line and future explosions, but he was grateful the panicked herd of people he was running with was smart enough to angle. As he was in the middle he doubted he would be able to break free even if he wanted to go in another direction. Changing course would just get him trampled.
Another explosion sounded behind him and he saw Alex in the front of the crowd, saw he wasn’t panicking or simply running away from the gas lines. He was running towards the guard station at the edge of the property.
‘The guard would have called it in,’ Dan thought. Still it wasn’t a bad destination. They slowed as they approached the station. Explosions still sounded behind them, but they were far enough away to be out of danger. They stopped at the station, all of them panting and trying to catch their breath. Natural runners they were not. Dan looked over and saw Gary still had half a sandwich clutched in his hand. His fingers made permanent dents in the bread, mashing it flat around the cold cuts inside but he kept it as he ran.
Dan heard Alex speaking to someone and turned to see him on the guard station phone. As all of them had to turn in their cell phones when they arrived, no one had a phone on them. At the moment all of their cell phones were locked up in secure little drawers located at the main entrance foyer. He had the key for his drawer in his pocket.
To Dan’s surprise there was no guard present. As there was always a pair of them, he found this strange but not overly concerning. ‘Maybe they went to investigate the explosions.’ While Dan and those on their lunch break with him were stampeding out here, they might have been racing inside.
There were a total of twenty people with Dan standing by the guard house, but there were more than 200 people working in this facility. ‘They would have been in the buildings.’
Even the others technically on lunch break with them would still be inside. The day was brisk and really too cold to eat outside, but the thought of sitting in the sun for just a little while tempted Dan and the others outside. They had so much rain and gray cloud filled skies that the bright bleu bowl and golden orb beckoned him out despite the chill. Dan weighed the thought of eating with his coat on against staying inside and opted for outside. Looking around, Dan didn’t see anyone else running out of the building. No one moved near the exits. ‘Maybe they went out the other side.’ Unease began to grow.
Ten til Midnight 