S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T - 3. Skylight 3

Click Seven: "IMPACT"

It was something that Dorian had learned to both dread and enjoy at the same time. Even though the boys involved were 'faceless' as far as his affections were concerned, he couldn't help but find a cheap thrill in seeing his track team buddies getting undressed and watching them take a nice long shower before a meet or right after a work out. As Dorian waited for the last five to ten minutes to click by with the last bell, he fantasized about the wonderful sights he was going to see not long from now.

The soft, smooth, butts, wet and glistening. Their sacks hanging low from the relaxed heat of the warm spray. Slim bodies, sleek and toned, slippery with soap suds and water as hot as they could stand it. He had to hold his legs together to keep from letting his excitement 'show'. And yet, he also hated the attraction There was no fighting it. No fixing it. The more he tried to ignore the beauty of the other boys around him, the more the allure of their raw sexuality enticed him. It tugged at his emotions all day, every day. Dorian had invested so much into being a good kid. A decent student, a good runner on the team....he was actually becoming somewhat of an idol to the other people in that building. And isn't that what every teenager wants? To just be popular? To be thought of, and remembered, and maybe even 'loved' by the people around him? Dorian's father had spent so much money, so much time and effort, just making sure that his son had every opportunity to be anything that he wanted to be. But...the fact of the matter is...he was gay. It was becoming more and more obvious all the time, and it pained him to think that something so sick would end up making him such a shameful disappointment. The coach wouldn't like this one bit. Dorian's father would like it even less. And the other kids at the school? They'd eat him alive if they ever found out his true feelings for other boys like him. It would be the end....of everything.

Just then, as Dorian's thoughts began to darken, and he was starting to regret having to go down to the showers before the meet started...his attention was pulled away by one of his classmates hopping up on his feet and walking over to the teacher's desk. "Mr. Thomas? Can I please have a pass to the bathroom?"

"Kyle...there's only a few more minutes left until the final bell. Can't it wait."

"I'm afraid not, sir. I gotta go BAD!" Kyle said, dancing around a bit. Dorian watched the skater boy put on what had to have been a 'rehearsed' performance, designed to get him out of class early. And what do you know? It actually worked.

"Sighhh..." Mr. Thomas gave him a worksheet, and wrote down a few pages for him to study at the top. "...This is the homework for the night. No excuses."

"Sure thing. I got ya!" Kyle said. Mr. Thomas looked at him sideways for a moment, but a little extra dancing on his part insured him a hall pass. And that was all he needed to avoid security.

Kyle hurried towards the door with an awkward 'piss walk', making sure to keep up the act until he was out of sight. And then...he rushed down the stairs to meet up with his early afternoon 'activity' in the basement. He swiftly made his way to the 'magic door', and Rusty was already there waiting for him. Impatiently.

"Where the hell have you BEEN??? You were supposed to be here, like ten minutes ago! It's almost last bell!" Rusty scolded him with a whisper.

"Chill out, bro. I wasn't about to let you smoke this fatty all by yourself. Besides, man...I was falling asleep in class. I didn't even know it was that late." He then saw Rusty smile a bit, and asked him, "You got the stash?"

Rusty patted his backpack pocket where the bag of weed was waiting for them, and Kyle's eyes brightened up immensely. "Let's do it." Rusty grinned as the two boys tipped their way across the hall to the boiler room door. Rusty had gotten so good at picking the faulty lock that they were creeping their way inside almost as soon as he touched the door handle. They both crept down the stairs, feeling home free, and sat down in a dusty old corner to begin setting up 'shop'. "Dude, this is gonna be SWEET!" Rusty said, unrolling the potato chip bag and getting his papers ready. "Dino said that this was going to be some mind-blowing shit, and I believe him."

"Well don't keep me waiting. Let's get it blazed up before that bell rings. I don't really like the idea of being down here after school when someone could catch us." Kyle said. "I CAN'T get caught again! My pops said he'd send me to rehab if he ever caught me smoking again" Rusty instantly began to giggle at the idea.

"They can send you to rehab for smoking weed?"

"Parents can send you to rehab for pretty much anything. It IS a drug, you know?"

Rusty rolled up a healthy joint and licked it. "Weed is NOT a drug, it's a plant. It's no different than plucking a dandelion out of the ground and smoking that. Except weed has better effects. Hehehe!" He searched his pockets for a lighter, and was happy to have Kyle produce one for him. "Now...cocaine??? THAT'S a drug."

"Whatever, dude. Just hurry up and light it already, will ya? I'm in need of a good vibration right now." Kyle said, and the two boys spent the next five minutes indulging in their favorite pastime. Making themselves dizzy all over again. Escaping. Releasing. It wasn't long until Kyle felt right at home in the dark basement, and the two of them began giggling happily at one another. Then, he hopped up to his feet. "Hey, Rusty...dude, check it out." He reached behind a nearby table, and blew a cloud of dust off of an old AM/FM radio. The dust went right into Rusty's face, making him cough.

"Jesus, what the fuck, man? Put that nasty thing away!" Rusty said, fanning the dust from his face.

But Kyle was already inspecting it. "Hey...it's still got batteries in it." He turned it on, and found some soothing music to listen to as he sat back down and grabbed for the joint again. "Don't hog it."

"Shut up, hehehe, we've got more."

"We DO? Sweeeeeeet!"

And there they stayed, smoking and zoning out as the final bell of the day rang out, releasing the rest of the kids from their 'cages' for the day.

Jake Gordon nearly tripped over his own two feet as he hurried back to his locker after the last bell. He knew that this was where Dorian's last class was going to let out. And on days when he has to go to the gym locker room for a track meet or for practice...that placed HIS locker right in Dorian's path. And he NEVER missed his golden opportunity to spend a few awkward moments in time, just gazing into his eyes and wishing that he would close them long enough to sneak in a deep, long, kiss on those full...sigh-worthy lips of his. He nearly froze as he watched Dorian's unimaginably shy beauty emerge from the classroom and begin heading his way. Jake's breath got caught in his throat for a moment, and he attempted to work up the courage to say hello....if nothing else.

Dorian was caught completely off guard by seeing the mysterious boy from the gym field suddenly looking at him with a smile. Nervous, Dorian instantly put his defenses up so as not to look too 'goofy' in front of him. If only both boys knew how close their true feelings were to one another. Perhaps the fog of doubt between them is thicker than most would believe possible. It's often harder to see what is right in front of your face than what you can see at a distance. Such is the game of attraction.

Jake tried his best to calm down his excitement, straightening his clothes a bit, and trying to get his breathing back to a rate that didn't obviously give away the fact that he just an through the high school hallways in order to cross paths with him. "Hi..." Jake smiled, and soon found himself stuck with nothing else to say. Seeing Dorian was always a highlight of his day. But talking to him was a bit of a brand new development

"Hi." Dorian said, and he bashfully looked down at his feet as he tried to avoid the incredible rush he got from those sparkling blue eyes of his. He peeked back up for a moment, and couldn't help but smile a bit as he struggled for something to say. That little grin alone, nearly shook Jake to pieces.

"Um...I'm coming to see you run today." Jake forced the words out a little bit at the time. Happy to have made some kind of connection.

"Really? That's cool." Dorian replied.

"You're pretty good. I know you can take 'em." Good Jake. Keep going. He's listening. "I watch you practice sometimes..." Arrgh! Jake wished he could have cut the words short before they actually left his mouth, but it was too late.

"Yeah. I know..." Dorian was equally embarrassed, letting him know that he was aware of Jake watching him. Both boys clammed up immediately, and as the sexual tension began to build up into a storm of of worry and discomfort, the both tried to quickly look for a way to disconnect from one another. "Look...I gotta go..."

"Yeah, me too. I should..."

"You know...Coach says we've gotta get ready so..."

"I actually promised somebody I'd go and check out the comet with them in the computer lab, so..."

There was another awkward silence, where both boys tried to figure out the quickest way to detach without looking nervous or appearing rude. And finally, they gave one last goodbye and put enough distance between each other to be able to breathe again. It was the most frightening, and yet most adventurous, feeling that they had shared to date. And even if they never saw each other again, that one moment would live on forever.

Down near the front of the school, Mitch pushed and shoved his way through the students in the hall to keep his mandatory appointment with Mr. Wyman. He hated it! He knew that once the school called home, his father was going to jump into his truck, yank Mitch out of there by his ear, and probably beat the living shit out of him. He didn't need the trouble. Not today.

He navigated his way through the crowd, and saw Janitor Foley walk past. Mumbling to himself as usual. Why would somebody who hated kids come to work at a high school anyway? Then...Mitch spotted Darwin on the side of the main hall. Their eyes connected, and Mitch was almost forced to laugh. He would have thought that the weak little sissy would have jumped through hoops to avoid being seen after the threat he gave him in the stairwell an hour ago. But no....Darwin was standing right there on the left side of the hall. Almost as if he was...waiting for him. He stared Mitch right in the eye, and Darwin felt the urge sure enough He could do it right then and there. He could reach in his bag, pull out the gun, and let the metal fly right through the side of his head. But instead...he waited. There were too many kids in the hallway, and he didn't want anybody to stop him before he finished the job. Darwin had waited this long, he could fifteen minutes more.

The two boys glared at each other as the bully passed, and Mitch said, "Stick around, sweetheart. I owe you a beating. And if you run today, you're getting it TWICE as bad tomorrow."

Hearing the words, Darwin tried hard to keep from letting the wicked smirk spread out across his thin lips He wasn't going to run. Not any more. There WAS no 'tomorrow', not for him....and not for Mitch either.

Meanwhile, Rusty and Kyle were in the basement, giggling their asses off and not even remembering what the hell they were laughing about to begin with. A cloud of smoke was lingering in the air around them, and they were halfway through their second joint. More than the usual 'couple of puffs' they were used to taking before class, or in the park before the police rolled by. So they were definitely blitzed out of their mind, and Kyle turned the music up a bit as they got more comfortable with the idea of finally having a place of their own.

The thing is...this wasn't a place of their own.

By the time the boys heard the keys in the door, it was too late for them to react. Rusty had his lungs full of weed smoke at the moment, and the shock of hearing the door open caused him to gasp, creating a vicious coughing fit that he couldn't hold in for the life of him. Kyle knocked the radio over, trying to turn it off, and both boys scattered to try to hide. As if they had a chance. The radio was still playing, Rusty was still coughing, the air was full of marijuana smoke, and Kyle...forever the 'quick thinker'...was attempting to hide behind a pipe that was about as thick as a broomstick. Naturally...they had been caught.

Foley saw the boys, and was outraged. "You goddamn KIDS!!! What the HELL are you doing down here?!?!?!" He said, stomping his way downstairs. Rusty and Kyle were still hiding, unsuccessfully. Their brains unable to process an 'escape plan' at this point. "I asked you a QUESTION! And COME OUT from behind that pipe, kid! What are you, a goddamn idiot??? Come out here! BOTH of you!" Slowly, Rusty and Kyle emerged from the corner, and sheepishly stepped forward. Rusty was still coughing a bit, and Foley knew weed smoke when he smelled it. "Grass? So you boys like to smoke grass, huh? Is that it?"

Kyle raised his hand slightly, "If by 'grass', you mean weed...then, yeah..."

"DUDE! Shut up!" Rusty said, elbowing him in the side.

"This is YOUR fault! You said nobody would be down here!"

"QUIET! The both of you!" Foley shouted. "You have no idea how much trouble you are in right now, boys! Big time." The boys frowned a bit, and cursed under their breath at being captured by the school drunk.

Outside of the tense basement situation, Mrs. Ruschek and her son Geo were walking down to the main office. But it was Jenny that had Geo's mind enraptured the entire way. His mother smiled as he basically tuned out her conversation to lose himself in a daydream of being Jennifer Goodwin's boyfriend. She couldn't help but laugh. She recognized the signs, and he had it bad. They walked into the office together, and Geo sat down to wait for his mom to finish up whatever she had to do for the day so that he could get a ride home. He heard voices in the office behind him, and one of them sounded like the big ogre that had bumped into him earlier.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I DIDN'T DO IT, Mr. Wyman??? You can't just take one kid's word over mine and assume that I'm guilty! That's not fair!" Mitch yelled.

Not that Mr. Wyman gave him much credibility to begin with. "Ok, first of all, Mitch..lower your voice when you talk to me. Second of all, the sooner you admit to what you did, the sooner we can both go home and you can start dreaming up your next little 'prank' to disrupt and destroy the peaceful learning environment we're trying to create for our students." It was so infuriating, the way Mr. Wyman could just dish out punishments without even looking a student in the eye. There was a moment where Mitch didn't have any other way to convince him, and Wyman asked, "So you're not going to fess up to it? Is that it?" Mitch leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms defiantly. "Suit yourself. I'll just get your father on the phone, and maybe he can come down here and straighten this out..."

"He's not home!" Mitch blurted out. He didn't want his father being called. Not now. His dad worked as a landscaper during the day with a crew of other guys. If a teacher called Mitch's house at night during dinner, he might get off easy with a couple of slaps and some harsh language. But if he had to come up to the school straight from the job, he'd get it much much worse. "My dad...he's not gonna come up here."

"Well we'll just see if I can convince him otherwise." Mr. Wyman said, and picked up the phone.

Outside, Geo started playing a video game on his PSP, as his mother was taking longer than usual. Then she came back out and said, "Honey, you know what? I'll be right back. I left some papers upstairs that I need to grade before tomorrow morning. So I'll go grab them and then we can go."

"*I* can get them for you!" He said excitedly. He was already turning off the game and hopping up to his feet. But she already knew what his motivations were, and if she sent that boy back upstairs, it would be another hour before he stopped smiling and blushing around his favorite girl.

"Geo? Sit." She grinned, and then kissed him on top of the forehead. "I'll be right back. Promise."

It was about that time when Dorian Flynn finished getting undressed and was secretly eyeing the other boys in the shower. Part of him wishing that the feeling would just go away. Another part of him wishing that he could entertain it...just once. So many naked bodies. So many kissable, lickable, suckable, parts for him to fantasize about. The steam from the heated spray of the shower gave the whole room a dreamy quality, and Dorian was smart to always pick the showerhead in the far corner, just in case he needed to turn towards the wall to hide a growing erection. God...his whole body would tingle every time he saw one of those boys flop around in front of him. And it was extra hard to watch them playfully push each other around. That idea...touching another naked boy...wow. Even in a completely harmless way, it was like having his heart grow to twice its original size.

And yet...with this incredible feast of boy flesh being presented to him in all its eye popping glory...it was memories of Jake Gordon's timid smile that caused his semi-stiff member to rise to full hardness.

"Alright girls, we don't have all day! Let's GO! The other team is already on their way!" Coach Gedrick hollered, entering the showers with his clipboard in hand. "C'mon! Move it, move it!"

Scared for his life, Dorian quickly turned all the way towards the wall and tried desperately to get his boner to go down. He was was too stiff to make it to the towels without anybody seeing him.

"Flynn? What's the malfunction here? Am I not speaking loud enough to reach you over there in the corner?" Gedrick bellowed.

"J-J-Just another minute or two, Coach." He said, a tremble in his voice. "I...I got a bit of a cramp in my neck. That's all. The hot water's helping."

The coach waited for a second or two, but didn't have time to really investigate any further. "Two minutes, Flynn! That's 120 seconds, start counting. Then get your ass in gear." And with that, Dorian was left alone, to physically, mentally, and emotionally, battle his true feelings once again.

If only Jake could have shared that shower with him in private. If only Jake could make the pain go away, and replace it with a kiss.

It was the same thought that Jason Riley was thinking when he finally saw Jake enter the computer lab upstairs. It's what he had been waiting for. "He CAME!" Jason whispered anxiously.

Martin rolled his eyes. "Gee...I think you just 'came' yourself, goofball."

"I knew he would show up. I just knew it." Jason smiled, but Martin seemed to be more focused on the computer screen. Something was...wrong.

"Jason...dude...take a look at this." Martin said, pushing his glasses up and wrinkling up his forehead. "Jason?" But his best friend was too busy watching Jake Gordon check in to the computer lab by signing his name on the sheet. Lost cause. So Martin went back to looking at the rapidly changing trajectory of the 'Houdini 3' comet. Somehow, the calculations that they had earlier were now extremely off. By almost 75 miles, in fact. And it seems that the sun was heating the icy core of the rock, and melting it at a much faster rate than anybody could have predicted. The comet was breaking apart. And fast.

"Hey, sorry I'm late." Jake said, and Jason had to force himself not to stare.

"It's ok. Really. I'm just...happy to see you." Jason smiled.

"So...did you guys pick out a place for us to go?"

"A...a place for...for you and me...?" Jason began shaking from the idea of it.

"For the comet. You said you guys were going tonight, right?" Slightly disappointed from not catching the whole meaning, Jason got his thinking back on track.

"Oh! Right. Yeah...actually, we're kinda working on that. Something got all screwy some time earlier today. So our original plan is shot."

"What happened?" Jake asked.

"Well, nobody knows really. We keep refreshing the news pages and astronomer blogs to see what we can find out. But...it's basically a coin toss as to what's gonna happen at this point."

At the computer...Martin's eyes widened a bit, as he saw an emergency warning pop up on the blogs. It was bold in red lettering, and flashing with five to ten exclamation marks behind it. "Jason! I think you better come see this!" But before he could click on the link, there was a temporary power surge that shot throughout the entire school. Maybe even the neighborhood. The lights flickered for a moment, and every computer in the lab went blank. There was a round of sighs and frustrated curses shouted over students losing their homework and term papers before getting a chance to hit 'save'. But Martin had other worries. "Reboot the system! We've gotta get back to that blog!" He said, and saw Jason still blushing with infatuation as he stared into Jakes eyes. "JASON!!! DAMMIT!!!"

"WHAT??? Dude, what is your PROBLEM?" Jason asked him, figuring that this competition for his attention was getting really old, really fast.

"GET OVER HERE!!! Something's gone wrong!!!"

Outside...just to make sure that he didn't have any other possible 'customers' waiting in the wings for the drugs he had left over in his glove compartment, Dino cruised by the high school one last time for the day. Basically keeping the path of his Mustang just on the outside of school property...waiting for the kids to cross that line like a hungry shark. But as he got closer...he slowed down to let a squirrel run across the street. He wasn't planning to come to a complete stop...but two more squirrels darted out after the first one. "Great...it's a goddamn parade." Dino sighed as he lit up a cigarette. He took a drag from it, and then looked up again to see five more squirrels scamper across the street in front of him. Then, he looked closer...and saw a raccoon in the distance. Then two more. And soon, the whole street for as far as he could see had little critters running across it all at once. He leaned forward to look up, and there was a giant flock of birds flying overhead in a crazed and erratic fashion. There were almost enough to block out the sky, and as Dino looked in the rearview mirror...there were even more behind him. Where the fuck did all these animals come from???

And more importantly...where the hell did they think they were going?

In the main office, Mr. Wyman heard the phone go dead as the power surge rushed through the building. The lights blinked off momentarily, and he looked forward at Mitch. Who said, "I suppose you're gonna blame me for THIS too!"

Geo peeked up from his game, and saw the secretary at the desk testing the phone to see if she could get it to work again. The computers had gone out, and everyone in the office seemed to be confused as to what the heck was going on.

Darwin was patiently waiting outside, finding a certain level of peace within himself as he was preparing to bring an end to his torment. When the lights flickered, he took it as an omen. A sign that this was how it was meant to be. He would certainly be doing divine work today. All he had to do was wait. He walked further down the hall to look out of on of the nearby windows...and happened to notice an entire 'cloud' full of birds flying away from the school at top speed. He had never seen anything like it, and moved closer to watch the strange phenomena. And at that moment, he saw something fall right in front of the window, and crash down onto the cement. It was big, about the size of a basketball before it shattered, and sorta bluish in color. Darwin was startled by the sudden appearance of this...'thing'. But then he looked more closely...and it appeared to be...

...a giant block of ice.

Down in the boiler room, Foley was already reaching for his walkie talkie to get school security to come down and take Kyle and Rusty to the principal's office. "You two bastards are gonna get what's coming to ya, believe me. Bringing that shit in here...you deserve to get locked up. Punks!" He grumbled, and tried to contact one of the guards on duty. But they all seemed to be preoccupied. Or didn't bother to answer Foley's call. He was known for babbling about little of nothing at all times of day. Rusty and Kyle shared a secretive look with one another, and the thought of possibly making a break for it entered their minds. Foley hadn't taken any names, he hadn't asked for the school ID either. If they could just fake him out, get upstairs and out of the building before he caught them...it would just be his word against theirs. Rusty didn't have as much faith in plan as Kyle did, but when the power surge went through the school, Foley looked up at the lights. "What the hell was that?" And the boys took off towards the left! "HEY!!!"

They were fast, but Foley managed to grab Kyle before he could get passed him, and the two of them tussled for a moment, knocking his toolbox off of the table and spilling his tools and his flask of whiskey out onto the floor. All three of them froze for a moment...and by the time Foley had looked back up into the boys' faces...they were already smiling. "NOW who's gonna get what they deserve, Foley?" Rusty grinned.

"What...what are you talking about?"

Kyle pulled himself out of the older man's grip while Rusty continued. "Sure would be a shame to get security down here, wouldn't it? I'm pretty sure they know what whiskey smells like."

"Hey..." Kyle said, finally catching on. "...You really are an alcoholic! My DAD'S an alcoholic, so I know! SEE? Cough drops! My DAD uses cough drops at work!"

"You're not gonna tell them a damn thing." Foley snarled. "Not when I show them drugs."

"We'll just say they're your drugs, Foley. If you'd sneak liquor onto school property, why not weed?"

Foley, had unfortunately been cornered. "Or...I could just say that they're both yours. Nobody is gonna believe some punk kids over me."

But Rusty kept smiling. "We're minors, Foley. Minors can't GET alcohol around here. We can get all the weed we could ever want, but alcohol? Everybody goes out of their way to make sure that it's out of our 'innocent' little reach." The boys and the janitor looked at each other, locked in a temporary stalemate. And that's when the music on the radio cut out...and they heard a loud buzzer going off over the airwaves. It was enough to catch their attention, but they could hardly hear the message through the increasing static.

"This is a message from the emergency broadcast system. All residents of...zzzzz....counties and....zzzzz...MUST find a safe way to quickly evacuate....zzzzzz...danger....zzzz...breaking up....large chunks are headed directly for....zzzz....populated areas.....zzzz..if...cannot get out of the city limits.....zzzz....seek SHELTER immediat....zzzz....this is NOT a test! Zzzzz...I repeat..NOT a...zzzzzz!"

"What the fuck is that? What's going on?" Rusty asked.

"Dude...is this a joke?" Kyle asked. "Is this like...a 'Bin Laden' thing? Because I'm SO not up for something like that right now." Rusty took the radio from him and tried to straighten out the antenna, but there was nothing but static now. The signal had been totally blocked out.

Upstairs in the computer lab, Martin and Jason struggled to get the computers back online, but nothing was working. And then the lights began to flicker on and off again. A few students tried to cal out on their cell phones, but could get no service whatsoever. Jason asked Martin, "What was it? What did you see?"

"I don't KNOW! I couldn't get the information in time! But something went extremely wrong with the 'Houdini 3'! By the time people started freaking out about it, the power surge had knocked out the computer."

Martin and Jason went back and forth, trying to figure out what could have gone so horribly wrong...but Jake was suddenly drawn towards the window. Looking out at the parking lot, he could see the bus from Hillside driving up to arrive for today's track meet, but it looked like somebody was throwing stuff at it. It made him wonder if maybe some kids had gotten together to pelt the rival school bus with garbage or something at first...but as he looked closer..it looked like it was coming from the sky.

Then it got worse. Everyone in the room could hear something bouncing off of the windows as the lights went out. One of the girls in the back asked, "Is it raining outside?"

Jason and Martin stood up and moved closer to the window where Jake was standing. The rest of the kids in the room started to follow slowly. What they saw 'looked' an awful lot like rain, but much darker. And it was starting to bounce off of the windows. "Is it...like...hail? During this time of year?" Jason asked.

And Jake answered, "I don't think so." He looked closer. "It kinda looks like...dirt..." And as soon as he said it, a giant rock, about the size of a fist, slammed into the side of the window, nearly shattering it right in front of Jake's face! The shower of rocks outside got harder, and the stones got bigger...paving the way, and preparing for something...much less forgiving.

"GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!!!" Martin screamed, and soon the entire room exploded with noise as giant stones began attacking the entire room with a fury. Windows were shattered, desks were turned over, and the other kids looked up in horror as they saw burning rocks coming right through the ceiling and going right through the floor to the lower level!

In the main office, Geo lifted his head up as he heard what sounded like small explosions happening from outside. It felt like the whole floor was shaking with each 'boom'. Mr. Wyman got up and came out to see just what the hell was going on. And at that moment, while looking directly at his secretary...a speeding red hot ball of stone came right through the ceiling, and went right through her back...exiting her chest and lodging itself in the floor. The woman didn't even have a chance to feel the pain of the shot before she slumped forward and fell into a bloody heap on the floor.

Geo screamed out in horror, and jumped back as more of the burning rocks came soaring in through the ceiling. Mr. Wyman ran back in his office and slammed the door, hiding under his desk! Mitch looked over and said, "Dude...what the hell are you doing?"

"Get under something!!!"

"What???"

"*NOW*!!!!"

Geo noticed the barrage of stones getting more numerous, and he didn't think he was going to be safe in there for much longer. Instead, he jumped from his chair and tried to run out of the office, keeping his backpack over his head. He raced down the hall, dodging the falling rocks as best as he could. He ran until his legs were ready to give out, and that's when he saw a rock the size of a big screen television crash through the ceiling and slam into the soda machines in the hall way...knocking them through the wall and leaving a wall of flames in its wake! Terrified, Geo scampered into a nearby bathroom, and locked himself in a stall. Pulling his little feet up and keeping his head as well protected as he could.

At this point, Coach Gedrick had gotten tired of waiting for Dorian to get out of the shower, and had left the rest of the team to search for him. Dorian was still holding his head under the spray..trying to wish it all away. Trying to make the feelings stop. "Flynn? Where are you? Are you STILL in the shower???" He shouted. "C'mon! You can 'flog the pony' later! Save your passion for the track!" But as he walked further away from the rest of his team, he heard a thunderous crashing behind him, as though the whole school was caving in on top of them! And he looked back just in time to see a boulder the size of a VOLKSWAGON tear right through the roof of the gym like it was paper, and smash down on EIGHT boys from his track team, pancaking them instantly and splattering every wall within a forty foot radius with blood! The room burst into flames, and more giant rocks began to rain down on the gym, one right after the other. The unstable structure of the ceiling then began to cave in, and more debris came soaring through the rubble faster than the eye could see, leaving no one alive!

Dorian heard the noise from the shower and opened his eyes just as something big burst through the wall and went right through the shower room floor! Leaving a giant hole in the middle of it! Dorian, still naked and wet, tried to hold on to the showerhead in the corner. Thank God he wasn't standing at any of the other showerheads, or he would have been crushed. The big hole in the floor was spewing up dust and flames, and Dorian was almost sucked into it, the floor tiles, slippery and wet from the other boys' showers.

Darwin saw the chunks of debris getting increasingly larger as he looked out of the front window, and as the foundations around him began to collapse, he ran as fast as he could to get away from the destruction! The entire school was being torn apart, and there was nowhere to hide. NOWHERE!

The traffic outside didn't stand a chance against the sudden attack. Cars were separated in twos, buildings were brought down like a house of cards, and anyone unfortunate to be without shelter...found themselves being pelted mercilessly with jagged shards of burning hot rock and ice...flying fast enough to penetrate metal. There was no time for a warning. No time for a proper evacuation. And the world sat helpless as they watched the annihilation from their TVs at home.

Jake, Jason, and Martin, attempted to recover, and crawled back over to the window. What they saw outside...shocked them. The carnage and apocalyptic destruction was beyond belief. The parking lot and track field behind it had been reduced to a wasteland of fire and brimstone. There were large explosions in the distance, and gigantic rocks sunken in halfway in the Earth. But as Martin looked up and saw the sky get dark right before his eyes...he knew the worst was yet to come.

"My God..." He said, barely above a whisper. "...The 'Houdini 3'...it broke...it...it broke..."

Despite all of the hostile bombardment of the school and the surrounding area....it felt as if the entire world fell silent. For one eternal moment...all things, even time itself...came to a complete standstill. There was barely enough time to breathe...so the world took a deep breath for them all.

Darwin happened to have the best view of it The giant, spiraling rock...a mere 'fragment' of its mother...speeding towards the ground in silence. Breaking the sound barrier...no one would hear a thing, until after it had already hit. Behind it was a trail of fire and ice...streaming behind with a deadly brilliance that couldn't be described as anything less but 'divine'. A beautiful miracle...death manifested in the form of a mountain. A mountain that fell from the Heavens...to judge them all equally.

And then....IMPACT!