(Octavian 25, 59 / 7:32PM)

A month after the events of Lagefor.

The city of business and growth still shined and busied even after the hell that it was bestowed upon. Glass shards, little bits of debris, and some buildings still being reconstructed from the base up; the entire city had half of its population cleansed by fear.

Their way of life halted, every civilian or pedestrian helped with the effort in rebuilding the aftermath of the intense counterattack against the zompires and bringer of death. Some of the civilians whose homes were harshly damaged, they ended up living in shelters scattered all over the city.

The south and north sides were the only ones in which minimal damage was reported, as ordinary houses and businesses were mostly unhit from the attacks of the crazed liches. As for the west and downtown districts of the city, damage was still visible as cranes and construction workers were a common sight.

But for the eastern side of the city, some say that it will never be fully up to speed, as many of the buildings slowly started to rot and crumble under the burnt scars and ash caused by the bringer of death. As well as a large lake that was recently formed by a large crater.

Now deep in the eastern part of the downtown district which was several blocks away from the industrial district that may never be recovered, was a regular two-story building. A building so basic, yet so structurally stable, that—

A loud boom was heard.

Deep inside the building, the walls shook with intensity as bits of dust scraped off against the wooden door frames that accumulated unneeded dust. The walls shook with so much intensity that even a man wearing a brown cowboy hat was startled when eating his nightly ice cream.

(David) What in the world?

(Jenny) I wonder who that could be.

(David) There’s only one—no, two men that could’ve done that.

Already standing up, David made his way as he wrapped his ice cream cone with his right hand while licking bits of melted vanilla from the edges of the cone. Jenny, who was also eating ice cream with just a spoon and cup, walked alongside him as the two of them made their way toward a white door.

A white door that was already surrounded by a group of men and women.

(David) Luna, care to tell me what’s he doing in there?

(Luna) How should I know? Those two messed up my evening nap.

(Hope) You shouldn’t even be napping in the evening.

(Luna) Shut it you—

The white door swung open, allowing a large cumulation of black smoke to be poured forth into the hallway. Luckily for the group, the hallway they were standing on was part of the outside, with a little roof covering their heads.

Out of the door, were none other than two young men who wore white lab coats, safety goggles, mask ventilators, and latex gloves. The two of them elegantly walked out of the smoke-filled room with their hands at their sides, keeping their heads straight toward the garden.

At the same time, both men took off their masks, while wiping away an abundance of dark smeared smoke from the outside of their goggles. Moving their goggles so that they were placed onto their foreheads, the light brown-haired man slouched forward.

(Luke) Hehe, sorry about that. I was trying to make Manganese heptoxide into a weapon that I could use.

Everyone folded their arms as they let out a unified sigh.

With his right hand, Luke scratched the back of his head while letting out a wry smile, avoiding eye contact with two particular girls who were side by side with each other. Since he had his right eye blocked by his side bang, it made him seem as if he was a nervous little wreck.

(Hope) You should really stop doing those experiments.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

(Luke) I know, but you know me. I love chemistry.

(Luna) And your little hobby ruined my evening nap.

(Luke) Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you by owing you a stack of donuts.

(Jack) What about us, huh? Me and the boys were doing an arcade tournament.

Behind Jack were Miles, Stan, Gary, and Diego; all staring into Luke with slanted eyes.

Jack, who walked close to Luna’s left shoulder, pointed his finger toward Luke while taking a step forward with his right foot. Following, many of the men had their hands inside their pockets as they started to parade right behind Jack. Luke being Luke, a bead of sweat rolled down his left temple as he placed both of his hands right up to the level of his ears.

(Luke) Well, uh…

(Jack) I was this close … this close to winning …

(Luke) Okay?

(Jack) 'Okay,' what? That’s all you got to say?

(Luna) Shut up, Jack. Just restart your dumb tournament.

(Jack) Ass kisser.

In one swoop, Luna gripped Jack’s black leather jacket, digging her fingers right onto his collar. Having a firm grip, she beaded her eyes upward onto the well-groomed man who puckered his mouth to keep himself safe.

His arms motionless to his sides, he turned his head away from the enraged woman as he looked toward David himself.

(Luna) Got anything more to say, dumbass?!

(Jack) … no.

(Luna) Hmph, that’s what I thought.

Luna let go as she placed her left hand into her leather jacket, looking down. She turned her body around to not let anyone see her face.

(Luna’s thoughts) I’m not an ass-kisser!

She stomped toward the inside of the building, heading toward the door that would lead to the rest of everyone’s rooms and dorms.

Seeing that Luna wanted to spend some time alone, it just left the rest of everybody to look at Luke once again. Rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, Luke closed his eyes as he wryly smiled his way out of the stares he received.

(Luke) So uh … yeah, I promise not to go overboard when doing experiments.

(David) You better. Remember the last time you invited Jack to help out with an experiment?

(Luke) But that was Jack’s fault. He made helium explode.

(Jack) Hey, helium is a pretty dangerous gas alright!

(Luke) It’s almost impossible to make helium explode though.

(Jack) Hey, guess you could say I have bad luck.

(Miles) Yeah, really shitty luck.

Luke let out a simple sigh as his fingers started to twitch from the memory of many months ago during that experiment.

Clearing his throat, he put both of his hands into his leather jacket’s pockets. With just both corners of his lips, he let out a big and grinning smile that barely reached the height of his nose.

(Luke) Alright, well I should probably take a break for today. Fred’s been working on my rocket boots this past month, and he was working on it while I was messing with the manganese.

(Stan) Yeah, the man always looks tired when working on it anyway.

(Gary) Hold on, manganese heptoxide releases just a small combustion when exposed to organic matter, so how come you made an enormous explosion that rocked the building?

Everyone went silent as they all stared into Luke once again.

Placing his right hand underneath his chin, Luke looked down as he slightly tapped his right jawline repeatedly with his pointer finger. Puckering up his lips, he then soon began to tap his right heel on the ground while occasionally glancing at the group in front of him.

While all Fred did was just stare at the garden in front of him.

(Luke) I uh … decided to try out what happens when I put that mysterious liquid that I and Fred were tapping into when analyzing the boots.

(Stan) I heard about that. Is the liquid gasoline or any sort of compound similar to it?

(Luke) No, it’s a different compound, like a different element altogether… anyway, when I put a single drop of it onto the heptoxide, well…

(Gary) It led right here.

(Luke) Yeah, pretty much.

Stan, Gary, and Diego nod together as they then look toward Fred.

Being right beside him, Luke placed his left hand onto Fred’s right shoulder, his palms feeling the burning smoke that still lingered on his now black-smeared lab coat. Tilting his head to the right, Luke continued to have a grinning wide smile that could rival Hope’s.

(Luke) Hey Fred, you okay buddy?

Almost like a cartoon, Fred plunged face-first into the floor.

Making a loud thump, smoke, and ash scattered across the wooden hallway as Luke and the others took a step back. As silence deafened everyone’s ears, Luke slowly walked forward to where he went down on one knee, while placing his right hand onto the side of Fred’s right face.

But as soon as his right hand made contact with Fred’s partially visible face, a loud snore rang across the hallway.

(Luke) Fred…?

(Miles) How much you wanna bet that the sleep deprivation knocked him out?

(Diego) Nah, probably the explosion that Luke did.

(Stan) I bet both.

David, who also knelt right along Luke, used both of his hands to pick Fred up from the ground. Having the silver-haired young man continuing to sleep with his miner hat still neatly tucked into his head, David looked toward Luke as he also now stood up from the ground.

(David) I’m taking him to his dorm, the kid barely gets enough sleep.

(Luke) And I’m the one always telling him to take breaks…

As David headed toward the door that led to the rest of the dorms, Luke glanced back at the group of males as he then let out a little smirk.

(Luke) So about that video game tournament.