He stumbled into the hospital and went straight into one of the bathrooms. He leant against one of the sinks while he got his breath back. His face was black from the smoke, his clothes weren’t as bad, the dust could be mostly brushed off. He ran the water in the sink and washed his face. He found it easier to breathe afterwards because there wasn’t so much dust round him. His skin felt fresher, he felt healthier. He coughed to clear his throat; he wasn’t coughing as much now. He dusted his clothes off as best he could.

“I thought you were going to get some stuff from the warehouse.” Peter said to him when Michael entered the waiting room nearest to Christine.

“I decided that I don’t want to keep anything from that place.”

Peter nodded silently.

“Well ive taken your friends’ stuff to my house already, they’re going to stay with her. Is that ok?”

“Yeah that’s fine, I’ll just go and see Christine before we leave.”

Peter moved out of his way and Michael walked into her room. She was sitting eating a bowl of cereal and talking to Chris. Chris excused himself and kissed her forehead. He gave Michael a reassuring smile before he left and gave him a pat on the back.

Michael went and sat in the chair by the bed.

“Your eyes are all red Michael, are you ok?” her voice full of worry.

“Yeah I’m just tired that’s all. I’m going to go and stay with Peter tonight. Ok?”

“That’s fine the others will keep me company, you look like you need some rest.”

Michael nodded. He stood up and kissed her cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said softly stroking her face with his hand.

“Bye bye.” She said with a smile, in her cutest voice. Michael smiled as he turned for the door. He paused halfway through it.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” She beamed

Michael waved and walked back into the waiting room.

“Let’s go.” He said to Peter. He didn’t know how much longer he could go without sleep.

Michael had been asleep from the second his head had hit the pillow. Michelle had asked if she cold stay with Peter as well. She was worried about Michael and wanted to keep an eye on him, although they were made to sleep in separate rooms.

Michael woke suddenly as the ground shook around him, it stopped quickly, and Michael dismissed it. He knew that he needed rest, his head throbbed and the room seemed to spin. He dropped down onto the pillow again and was asleep.

It was the screaming that woke him the second time.

He sat upright in bed trying to clear his head. He could see flashes of light on the wall. He sprang over to the window and threw open the curtains. He looked out and saw more flashes of light. He also saw smoke coming from the city. There were cars jammed on the roads trying to get away. There were people running alongside them screaming. It took time for him to take in what he was seeing. He tried to see where the light was coming from. There was a big dark cloud over the city, which was flashing, what looked like lightning, own onto the buildings. The cloud turned. There were lights around what was the front of it. Michael got scared. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that it was doing a lot of damage. There was fire everywhere; buildings were crashing to the ground. A sickening reality hit him. Christine was in the city.

He threw his clothes on and flew out of the room. Peter, Susan and Michelle saw him but knew not to stop him. They had seen what had happened as well, Michelle though was too scared to go with him. She was cuddling into Susan, trying to hide from what was going on outside.

As Michael ran down to the city, fighting his way through the crowd going the other way, the cloud over the city turned and disappeared into the distance with amazing speed. Michael got to the edge of the city centre and paused.

All of the buildings had been reduced to rubble; there were no people in the streets. He lost his bearings for a second. He didn’t recognise this place.

Michael climbed on top of a ruined building to take a closer look. He could see people further on looking through the ruins, obviously for loved ones. He spotted where the hospital was and ran down to it, taking no notice of the obstacles in his way. He started to run up the pile of what used to be the hospital. He had only taken three steps when he was tackled from the side.

Michael started to fight back as he hit the ground; he was desperately trying to get the figure off him. He was hit hard on the side of the face.

“If you hit me again it won’t just be one.”

Michael recognised the voice. His vision became clear again. Chris was holding his arms flat on the ground so Michael couldn’t get up.

“You can’t look in there.”

“Chris we have to find them, they’re in there somewhere.”

“Yes, they are.”

“So help me get them out.”

“It won’t do any good Michael.”

“What are you saying?”

“They’re dead Michael.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Look over there.” Chris pointed over to the people Michael had seen before. He allowed Michael to sit up so he could see. They weren’t looking through the rubble. They were crying, praying or holding on to the people who were around them. Tears ran down the side of Michael’s face. He turned to face Chris, they sat opposite each other. Michael wiped the tears from around his eyes.

“What happened?”

“I was sitting with Christine; we were talking about what was going to happen when she got out of hospital. You know, you two were going to get married and have a family, how we’d all get jobs and live happily ever after. She asked me to go and get some of her things from the warehouse. You know we all got our things, but we forgot she didn’t have anything with her. So I went to the warehouse. The others went in and kept her company when I was gone. We took it in turns to sleep. There was always someone with her, like you asked. Even if they were both asleep in the room, she was never alone. Anyway, when I got to the warehouse it was surrounded by fire trucks. Michael, it had burned to the ground.” Michael nodded. Chris looked at him, unsure about what his friend knew. “So I watched them put the fire out. There was nothing left. Everything we ever had was gone. I was about to turn back when the ground started to shake. Michael you would believe it. This thing that looked like a cloud appeared out of nowhere, only there were lights on it; it could change direction and everything. It was just there, floating over the city for a bit, then it went mad, firing god knows what down onto the buildings. Everything was gone within a few minutes. People just tried to get as far away as they could. A lot of them started screaming as soon as the thing appeared. We just stood and watched, we couldn’t move. But when the buildings started going down we all ran like mad things down here. But everything’s gone.”

“What about the people that were in the buildings?”

“Dead, instantly, the buildings went down as soon as they were hit with whatever that was. The people…”

Michael noticed suddenly how pale his friend was, Chris’ hands began to shake.

“There was nothing left of them Michael. There were just bones. We tried to rescue them, but there was nothing left.” Chris convulsed at the memory of what he’d seen. He vomited on the ruins of a building.

Michael buried his face in his hands. He stood up slowly, and screamed into the night. He was surrounded by rubble. His home, his city, his friends, were gone. There was nothing left. Michael screamed his agony.