It was a day like any other. Michael watched as his kids played on with the stray pup. Olivia was wrapping up her final orders, keeping a bunch of her beautifully baked caramel cookies for her babies. Across the street sat Mr. hoover, doing what he always loved - sitting pretty and watching everyone go about their daily lives.
The flash was brilliant, instantaneous. Whiter than the Sun.
A patch of spot so white that even if you closed your eyes, you still see that brilliant ,extreme white all around.
A slow rumble followed for the first few milliseconds, and then the deafening roar. A sound so monstrous that it was unbearable for everyone in the neighbourhood.
Michael had already kneeled over, clenching his teeth. His hands were pressed to the sides of his skull, almost crushing it with the sheer desperation of trying to mute this unending noise. He wanted to reach out to his kids a few meters away but his body knew that it could not let him stretch his hands out.
Then came the shockwave.
Mr. Hoover, sitting at his porch initially, was now flying outwards along with the rest of his house. He was painfully aware of his body being shred by the sheer power of the shockwave. In his short flight, he hadn't closed his eyes, as a normal person would before meeting his end. It was not like he wasn't petrified, but more so as a grasp of a dying man for a final bite of the feeling of being alive.
Olivia's end was dramatically sweet. As she was flung along with the shards of her walls, her chocolate filled, caramel cookies were also being flung out of their carefully packed ribbon boxes. Incredibly, right before her last moments , she actually got a sweet taste of her caramel crumbles in her mouth.
Michael unfortunately had the burden of being thrown off in front of his children. It had been seven exhausting but exciting years. His children had grown up to be some of the most curious little things in the neighbourhood, prying around anything and anyone in those 4 blocks of what they called home. He watched his children look at him while the shockwave carried him off, that millisecond stretched out like the cheese of a fresh pizza.
As he flew away, his children watched him bewildered , with not enough time for them to register this as a feeling of any emotion, anything at all. They saw it all, the people , the buildings, all shattered to absolute nothingness in an instant.
Michael woke up fresh on his bed. He walked out and saw Mr. Hoover sitting at his porch, looking at everyone going about their daily grind. Olivia was packing up her last cookies. His children, he saw them going after the stray pup on the sidewalk. Smiling to himself, he walked out calling them up " be careful babies, don't run after him."
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