"Someone exploded."
"What?"
"Someone exploded."
The sound reached my ears again. It didn't sound like an explosion. It was almost like when you throw a huge rock into a deep part of a creek. Screams began to break out in the crowd and people were running in every direction.
"Fin, we've gotta get out of here!" shouted Codey. We wasted no time, sprinting in the opposite direction of the explosions. Sadly, this was also in the opposite direction of our apartment complex. Once we had ran for about three blocks, we ducked into an alleyway. Out of breath, we listened for more explosions. We'd heard tens more during our flight. We needed to figure some things out.
"What the hell was that? You're sure that sound you heard was someone exploding?" I asked.
"Saw it with my own eyes. Skin, blood, bones, and organs all rapidly protruded outwards. Then well... the remnants just disappeared."
"You're not making any sense. That doesn't sound possible. Is this a terrorist attack or something?" Another three "explosions" went off simultaneously. This time they were so close they shook the building we were taking shelter behind.
"I don't know man, it sure as hell didn't look like a bomb. I mean, a bomb would create shrapnel, unless it was powerful enough to vaporize the person. But a bomb that powerful would have to have a huge blast radius, wouldn't it?"
"I still don't believe what you said, but we should get moving." When we stepped back out into the street, it was still chaos, but there were less people. It was much easier to maneuver through the crowd. A few people were sitting on benches or the curb and weeping, while others were staring off into space, as if in shock. I looked towards where we had come from, but all I could see were people running this direction. We continued to go with the flow, but going home seemed like the best course of action. The news would surely have something on this. "Looks like we're going to have to take a detour," I said.
"You really wanna go back that way dude? I guess we would need our belongings if we're gonna flee the city."
"Hold up man, hopefully it isn't that bad, the cops will probably be here soon." I bit my tongue as I said that. Nearly every street was at a complete standstill, and people were leaving their cars unattended to run the opposite direction. (What is this, societal breakdown?)
We followed the alley to the other connecting street and began to go towards the apartment. People were still running away from our destination. "I don't understand bro, why are they running if the explosions don't do damage to the objects around them?" Codey asked.
"Probably because there's a loud noise and they just saw a person expand and burst, according to your account." People began to yell at us to turn around. The number of explosions we'd heard at this point was likely in the hundreds. (Could it really be possible the hundreds of people were suddenly meeting their demise, in the middle of the city?) I didn't have much time to ponder, as the goal was to get back to the apartment. After a block and a half, we slowed our pace down to a walk. Staying calm was my highest priority at the moment.
A stranger approached us. She didn't look very well. Codey ran up to her.
"Hey, are you all right?" he asked. She didn't respond. She looked at Codey, and then me.
Suddenly, a deafening sound hit me. My ears were ringing and I saw Codey holding his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched what looked like a sparkle land on Codey's forearm.