“Mike, hurry and help move this lid. The bomb’s in the sewers,” I said.

“Oh my god!” Mike panted. “This crazy guy, that a—”

“Help me move this lid first, then you can curse him however you want!” I interrupted.

So we removed the lid together and looked into the manhole. It was really dark inside, we couldn’t see anything.

“It’s so dark! How on earth will we be able to see the bomb?! That crazy is so f—”

“Mike, look behind you. What’s that?” I interrupted him again. We were in such a hurry before that I only noticed something behind Mike just now. He turned around and picked it up. It’s a flashlight. That crazy guy is actually pretty thoughtful. Mike shone the light into the sewer opening and we saw that there’s a ladder for us to climb down. Just as we were about to climb down, a voice came.

“Matthew, Mike.” John had finally arrived.

Mike happily exclaimed, “It’s great you finally got here!”

“Nevermind that. I bought you guys some water. Here, drink it.”

“You’re a lifesaver, John! I’m very thirsty after all that exercise. You’re the best!” I happily took the water from him and drank my fill. “Mike and I will go down there to disable the bomb. You stay here and keep other people away.”

“Okay. Be careful guys.”

Mike and I carefully climbed down the ladder. The sewer is really dark with poor air, perhaps due to lack of oxygen, and it smelled really bad, which is normal for sewers. Mike shone the flashlight around us randomly. Then we suddenly saw something tied to a water pipe. We ran over to take a look at it. It turns out to be the bomb, and it’s a very powerful bomb too, not to mention how complex it is as well. I took a deep breath.

“Matthew, can you handle this?” Mike asked me worriedly.

“I hope so,” I replied.

“Your answer is making my hands shake,” Mike muttered.

“Then hope my hands don’t shake like yours.”

It became really quiet, almost completely silent. Almost. The only sounds left were Mike’s heartbeat and his sniffling from his allergies. The bomb has only one minute and twenty seconds before it explodes. This bomb is very complex. It has two alarm clocks with two clusters of wires each. Each cluster of wire has four wires in the colors of red, yellow, blue, and white. I’ve deactivated a bomb similar to this one once. It had taken me almost three minutes back then, but this one only has about a minute left. I’m under extreme pressure right now and I can’t guarantee that I could do it. But I have to have confidence and courage because I need to save my wife and best friend, Mike.

“Matthew, how is it? Do you know how to disable it?” Mike asked me, his face covered in sweat.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I’m not sure.”

“How can I help you?”

“You can really help me if the hand holding the flashlight stops shaking so much. Have you seen this kind of bomb before?”

“Maybe...or maybe not...or maybe…”

I really shouldn’t have wasted my time asking him. I had been trying to figure out this bomb. The time left is one minute ten seconds.

“Mike, I’ll be working on the first clock now.”

“Good luck,” Mike told me in a trembling voice.

Using my memory, experience, and the fact that I have no choice, I took a risk and I cut the red wire on the left side of the clock and the white wire from the right. SNAP! There was a loud snapping noise as I cut them, as if I had cut a major artery. I had succeeded in deactivating the first clock, but I can’t celebrate yet as I still have the second clock and only forty-five seconds left.

“Good luck. Good luck.” Mike kept muttering repeatedly.

I stared at the wires and began to think that I probably shouldn’t use normal methods to disable it. My instincts told me that this crazy guy didn’t use normal methods to create this bomb. So I took the blue wire from one side and yellow wire from the other side and took a deep breath. I also thought to myself, Good luck. I used a trembling hand and placed the two wires on the pliers. Then I closed my eyes and cut the wires with a SNAP!. After that was silence, with the exception of my beating heart and Mike’s tensed breathing. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard Mike yelling.

“Matthew, you’re amazing! It’s no wonder you’re a bomb specialist!” Mike complimented me with a, literally, shining face. But he didn’t know that we were just lucky.

We immediately climbed out of the manhole, with me behind Mike. As soon as I was outside, I took a deep breath. This breath of air is very nice. John was really happy to see us come out. He hugged the two of us, making me feel like we just rose from the dead. At this time, my phone rang.

“You have such good luck,” came the hateful voice.

“Crazy guy, you must so disappointed,” I told him.

“Of course not. Quite the opposite actually, I pray for your success, especially for the next bomb. You’ll be a much larger danger for the next one.”

“Stop wasting my time. Hurry and tell me the next location.”

“Relax, relax. Don’t make your blood pressure rise and cause it to affect you. Drive west and when you see Soto and Hill, get off. There will be train tracks, at your right side walk about fifty feet and you will see the bomb tied to the train tracks. But I need to tell you, the time the train arrives is the same as the time when the bomb explodes. I wish you good luck,” he said once again before hanging up.