For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 139: The explosion cut him off.
The explosion cut him off. The two of them were knocked off their feet. Penelope hit the sidewalk hard, falling to her knees. She felt the knee hit hard and her hands slid a little across the concrete but she wasn’t feeling anything. Behind them, car alarms, were sounding loudly but there was almost a well of silence in her head.
The silence dissipated slowly, and she shook her head, hearing people screaming, yelling. Penelope turned to look over her shoulder, back to where they left the car. The car was a burning wreck. She wasn’t sure it could even really be called a car. It was more the carcass of a car, metal bits were scattered and blackened.
They parked near what looked like warehouse. The car was in front of a solid brick wall. The brick looked scorched but it came through intact. The windows on the buildings to wither side of the car couldn’t claim the same. They were shattered and Penelope thought one of the alarms sounding was coming from inside the building rather than one of the parked cars.
Michaelson pulled into an empty spot that had a space both in front and behind. Ahead one of the other parked cars was peppered with shrapnel and would need both body work and a replacement back windshield but it survived. Likewise, there were no pedestrians out at this time of day to be cause harm,
‘We would have been the only casualties.’
Penelope struggled to her feet and looked over to Michaelson. He was pale and his face was grim but he recovered better than she had. He had his phone out and was talking into it. Penelope’s ears were still ringing and she felt slightly dizzy as she got to her feet. She paid little attention to what Michaelson was saying.
She assumed it involved the exploding car and authorities who needed to be notified. Which authorities those were she didn’t know. She somehow suspected this was beyond the local police. ‘
‘At least someone knows who to call,’ she thought.
Penelope looked back at the car. There were still flames coming from it but it looked more like the oil and gas the car contained were burning off rather than another explosion being eminent. As she stared at it, she realized it was perfectly placed to contain the damage.
Penelope looked at the light and where they parked. She thought about how long it took her to walk to the corner where she felt safe enough to stand, and how soon the car blew up after she reached that corner. She let her eyes follow the line of the street away from the light and towards where they would have been had she not gotten Michaelson to park.
The area of the street she thought they would be had an empty building lot on one side of the street. A gap where a building had been removed. On the other side of the street there was a park. It was a park with trees and benches and a trail winding through. There was open space she assumed people could use for picnics or for some sort of sport, but there was no play ground.
Ten til Midnight 