A burst of heat and light erupts from Thea's hands. It shoots out on the others in waves, shaking the Earth. Erik goes flying backwards, as does Jamie. The shockwave throws Cara and Eden more than a dozen feet away from the blast. June hits a tree in the air and falls on to the ground. Wesley skids across the concrete beneath him. Both Lee and her guitar tumble backwards. The girl and her dog land together in a heap on the ground. Furthest away, the girl with her scarf falls, twisting it tightly around her neck.

On the ground, she struggles to pull it off her. She can feel herself hyperventilating. Her hands wrap around her neck, shaking. She pulls at the scarf, trying to release herself. Above her, she can see stars in the sky. Actually, she thinks she might be about to pass out.

The girl with the dog gets up. She checks her dog for scrapes, examining him. He whines, his knee ripped open and bleeding. The girl looks between the others and her dog, biting her lip. Eventually, she decides to get him to walk forward. He whines, limping.

"Is everyone alright?" Cara forces herself off the ground. She slowly stands. Her fingertips run along her hairline. She catches blood on her head. Even though she is dizzy, she can stand. Hopefully, they'll be able to make it to the hospital to have them check her for a concussion.

"I'm bringing my dog home," the other girl calls, picking him up off the ground. She struggles to carry him away, waddling back down the path.

Cara stumbles over to Eden, the boy closest to her. She leans down on the ground, placing her hands next to his head. Cara snaps a hand next to her ear. Beneath her, the boy opens his eyes, if only lightly.

"Are you alright?" She asks him, leaning down. Here is not the place to inspect him for injuries.

He nods, his head scraping along the dirt beneath him. Eden focuses in on her, watching her face. "You're

Cara feels a smile form on her face, though she resists the urge to banter back. Instead, she begins to help the boy up.

A few feet away, Jamie begins to sit up. His head is pounding. For a second, he wonders if this is what Kyle feels when he is going through withdrawal. It's no wonder that his friend consistently struggles to go clean.

"What was that?" Wesley pulls himself to his feet.

He begins to look around, although he struggles through his cracked glasses. There are bodies spewed about at his feet, most are stirring but not all of them. He scans the crowd, his eyes settling on Erik. The boy looks no more battered than before, but his eyes and mouth are open. The younger boy stares up at the sky above him. Wesley doesn't move. He stares, preying to whatever that soon Erik will blink. If he doesn't, then Wesley is looking at a corpse. He watches, and watches, and watches.

Erik licks his lips.

"Is everyone alright?" Cara repeats, stepping around the crowd. Lee stirs beneath her, pulling herself into a sitting position. Cara wishes she had paid more attention to the group before the explosion. Maybe some numbers would've benefited them.

Wesley steps through the grass, making his way over to a tree. He leans down, over June. The girl lies face down in the dirt. Wesley rolls her on to her back.

"Don't do that," Cara steps, moving in behind him. "She could have a spinal injury."

Wesley ignores her, leaning down over June. He tries to put his fingers under her neck, checking for a pulse, but he finds nothing. Wesley tips back on his feet, collapsing on to the ground. Through his cracked vision, June is splintered.

"She's fucking dead," he turns to look at Cara. "Oh my God, she is dead."

Cara leans down over the girl, putting her cheek to June's lips. Slowly, she begins to count to ten. Every second is agonizing, but she feels June's faint breath.

"She's alive," Cara manages, looking back through at the rest of everyone. She gently puts a hand on Wesley's shoulder, trying to help the boy calm down. "Always check for breath, not for a pulse. Pulses are hard to find."

Jamie and Erik, closest to the blast, still sit on the ground in a daze. Jamie's head is bleeding, and Cara can't tell if Erik is in better or worse condition than before.

"She is alive indeed," June croaks, beginning to pull herself up. Cara helps the girl into a sitting position. June leans against the tree, which is wet against her head. Even though she tries not to think about it, June knows it is her blood. Either that, or it is the juice in her skull leaking out. "I'm not concussed."

"You look pretty concussed," Wesley offers, backing away. He offers Lee a hand to help her off the ground.

The musician ignores him, instead turning to her instrument case. With a flick on the lock, she opens it. In the fall she took, two of the strings broke and her instrument got pretty dinged up, but nothing irreversible.

"I work with stunt doubles, I would know if I was damn concussed." June pulls herself up, bracing her body against the tree. Cara keeps her hands hovering in the air to protect the girl. While June offers her a polite nod, she doesn't accept Cara's help. Instead, she leans past the girl, looking around at the group. Something's weird. Someone's missing.

"I'm out," Lee offers the group, pulling her mostly intact guitar off the ground in its case. "If everyone is good."

"We need to go to the hospital," Cara corrects Lee, scanning the girl. Her leather jacket is torn, and her cheek is scraped, but otherwise, she seems fine.

Lee shrugs her shoulders. After all, she feels fine, and a trip doesn't seem worth the medical expense. Without insurance, she is heading home.

"What just happened?" Wesley repeats, but just to himself. He tries to make out the faces of the strangers around him in the low light, but he struggles more and more. If only he had worn his contacts. Although, he considers that perhaps contacts would have lodged deep into his brain and blinded him further.

Lee turns to leave. She begins her walk down the track, only pausing for a second to glance at the strangers among her. Her footsteps seem to echo in the silent park.

"No hospital with no power," Erik notes, looking between everyone.

Cara frowns, looking over, just outside the park. Unfortunately, the boy is right. None of the street lights are on. Whatever just happened didn't just knock out the power lines, but it also knocked out the town's back up generator.

The streets have grown dark. The light in the park comes from the stars hanging above their heads. It isn't bright, but it is okay. Already, two of them have left their small group. At least Cara can distract herself with the people left. She convinces herself that she doesn't have time to consider what impossible event just occurred if she is preoccupied with helping people.

Eden struggles to his feet. Unlike June, he guarantees he is concussed. In fact, the darkness is blurring into itself. He tries to blink rapidly, fluttering his eyes up and down, over and over. "Thea?"

Jamie stumbles to his feet, tripping and falling over themselves. He tries to scan, but his brain feels like slosh in his head. Just a minute ago he felt his hand graze Thea's jacket. She was there, but now he can't seem to find her.

Cara and June look at each other, staring at the ground. The spot where Thea stood is empty. When the blast hit, everyone went flying. Cara was most concerned with broken bones and arterially bleeds once she realized everyone was conscious. It hadn't crossed her mind that a voice might be absent altogether.

"I'm sure she flew farther than any of us," Cara offers, swerving around. She spots a body a ways off. It lies on the ground, unmoving. With one last look at June, Cara makes her way over.

She spots a girl, one who most certainly is not Thea, on the ground. She kneels down next to her, watching the girl flinch. Through the heavy scarf, she can hear her breathing.

Cara leans down, without pausing to ask for the girl's consent (as she knows she is supposed to) and untangles the girl from her scarf. Instead of responding, the girl tenses.

"People don't vanish," Eden pulls his head off the ground, trying to get a better look at where Thea grabbed that thing. His head feels less dizzy with every passing second. He considers that he isn't concussed, although only for a second.

Erik hops up and begins limping towards where Thea stood. She isn't here. He shakes his head back and forth, before raising his hands in the air in defence. "Yeah, no, I'm out."

"You're leaving too?" Jamie asks, beginning to stand up again. This time, he collapses to the ground on his hands and knees. He heaves, bile spewing out of his throat and on to the ground.

Cara looks from Jamie to the girl in front of her. She begins to convulse on the ground, her knees jittering up and down. After removing a glove, Cara takes the girl's hand and squeezes. They are warm against Cara's cold palms. She nods at the girl, her head moving up and down slowly.

"We need to get you out of the cold," she tells the girl. In this light, Cara can't tell if the girl is going into shock or if she is having a panic attack, and Cara can't tell if there is a condition she would prefer. "I have a car. I can drive you back to your house."

"This is a load of bullshit," Erik notices, looking out on to the others. "There was a damn explosion, which knocked out all the power in town, made a girl fucking disappear, and even broke my MP3 player! Too much ridiculousness for one night."

"We shhould callda police," Eden slurs a few of his words. Damn, maybe he is concussed. He wishes he could make up his mind, although the indecision could be the concussion talking.

Erik shakes his head back and forth. June squints her eyes at him, and he flips her the bird. As if calling the police would ever be a good idea. Anyway, what would they say? Whatever happened is a load of crap, and he is so tired, and he bets this is all some vivid hallucination on his part from when his Dad beat his head in. It would be the first, but what's weirder?

"Oh, shut up, spaghetti tongue," Erik realizes his insult game could improve, but it is hard to think with his knee tapping incessantly beneath him. "Going to the police in this town is the worst possible decision we could make right now. We tell them that we were the last person to see a girl, who is definitely going to be classified as missing tomorrow morning? As if."

Satisfied knowing that he gets to relish in the final word, Erik turns and heads out. He still doesn't walk towards home, but he walks away from these idiots all crowded around on the ground.

Wesley walks around, his normally strong feet taking unsure steps. Ignoring June, he begins to walk into the forest to search for Thea. The trees are thick, cloaking the land. While They are a Maze, one which Thea could not have blasted through without leaving a path. However, the forest looks unperturbed by the happenstance.

Cara slowly lifts the girl off the ground, unsure if that will help her. She doesn't forget the scarf either, tying it firmly around her own waist. Casting a glance back at the group, Cara bites her lip. Her eyes land on Jamie, who is still keeled over.

Wesley feels a wet drop of rain hit his head. It lands on his nose, and Wesley is quick to wipe it away. He turns back to June. "It's raining."

June nods. She tries to steady her feet as she pulls herself away from the ground. With a fist pressed tight against itself, she manages to take a step, and then a second. She rationalizes that although it will be difficult, she can get home. If her brother could give her a ride, however, none of that would matter. June pulls her phone out of her pocket, glancing at the smashes screen. She doesn't even bother with the power button.

"My family is going to be worried sick," she grumbles, stepping forward. She offers Wesley a weak smile when he helps her step forward. You know, she realizes that he isn't as harsh as he is pretending to be.

"Are you sure you are alright?" He asks, looking between them. "Will you make it home?"

June takes another step, Wesley's hand resting on her shoulder. The smile takes over, only this time she winces. For the first time in perhaps her life, June wishes she had paid attention in any class. Then, maybe she would know if an organ like an appendix could burst from a collapse.

"We need to get out of here," Cara begins to help the girl over. "We need to go somewhere where there is light."

"But... but... Thea," Eden looks around, finally pulling himself up. He is dizzy, but he can manage. If he really concentrates on his words, they line up in perfect order.

"She must have run off before any of us got up," Cara finds a solution she is happy with. After all, a bunch of people didn't notice the girl with the dog leave. Who is to say that Thea was unaffected by the blast, and hasn't run to get help?

"My place is nearby," Jamie offers, finally rolling down on his back. "Nobody lives there besides me, and Kyle. But, you know, he isn't home."

Cara looks around the group. Out of everyone, she and Wesley were the least affected by the blast. Although, she doesn't rule out that Eden could've been drinking before coming here, and it is intoxication which is slowing his movements and not an injury.

A girl is missing. There was a burst of light, and then she was gone. Normally when something extraordinary happens, Wesley can easily write some sort of metaphor, or prose, or anything about it. In his mind, he feels the impact of a shockwave hitting his chest over and over again. Worst of all, he hears no sound. As if every creek from the forest was sucked in, leaving the world empty behind him. He grabs the two halves of his skateboard, tucking them under his arm.

The trees are unforgiving. They hang over their heads. A leaf falls down on June's head. She manages to shake it off, looking to the others for help.

"My car seats five," she finally says, counting between the six of them.

Eden stares at her blankly. He shakes his head back and forth. "I'm going to look for Thea."

"Settled," June says, reaching out to Wesley to help her walk. She begins to straighten her hunched spine, and in spite of the remaining pain, her body feels better. The panic of it all, June rationalizes, must have been worse than the fall itself.

Although everyone else seems settled, Jamie even picking himself off the ground to join Wesley and June, Cara scrunches her nose. She looks from the tiny girl next to her, who is shaking and whose breaths are growing more and more shallow, and then she turns back to Eden. She can't leave him, but she has no other choice.

With the girl in her arms, she walks over to Eden. She looks him up and down, before beginning to speak. "I go to Barnaby. I'll be on campus tomorrow if you'll meet me in by the field."

Eden offers her a nod. When Cara turns to leave, Eden lingers on her. The brunette wraps her arms tightly around the quivering girl, bring her towards the closest road. Casting a glance over her shoulder, Cara makes eye contact with Eden again.

He regrets that he says nothing.

~~~

I mean, I am super excited. Like, I have so many ideas of where to roll with this, and things are just getting started. Let me know if anything your character is doing doesn't make sense or anything like that. 

I'll see you soon!