We managed to get out fine. We managed to hide from the police easily. There were a few moments where we almost got caught but Harper’s quick thinking got us out. Soon we were underneath the basement of our school, the same basement that was underneath the gymnasium.

“Damn,” Harper said, stretching. “Is it me or is it hot in here?”

“Let’s go,” I said. I was feeling very anxious. The school was far from where the attacks were allegedly happening and as we climbed out of the basement into the gymnasium, I could hear the distant rumble of helicopters and rocket fire.

“My bicycles with the rest of them,” I told Harper. My eyes were adjusting to the bright light filtering through the windows of the gymnasium. “You ready.”

“Ready to jump into a war zone?” Harper said with a grin. “You bet I am.”

I fist bumped her as we made our way to the bicycles.

“Wait you only got a bicycle for yourself, right?” Harper asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“What’ll we do?” Harper said. “There’s only two of us and one bike.”

“Well…”

…

The bike rattled across the uneven roads.

“T-this was a terrible idea,” Harper said, holding onto me for dear life from the back of the bike, her voice shaky like the roads below her.

“Well trying to steal someone else’s bike was also a terrible idea,” I said. “Especially considering we didn’t have the equipment!”

With Harper behind me, I had to plan my turns carefully cause if I made an awful turn both Harper and I would be eating pavement.

Our destination was the skyscrapers close to the wall where the Kaiju stood, shooting freaking laser beams from its mouth at the helicopters and jets zooming towards it. It looked much more terrifying than what I saw in the newspapers mainly cause the closer I got to it, the more real was its jagged maroon spine jutting out of its red hulking body. 30 metres in length, the beast was a scaly red mountain amidst the sea of grey buildings and as it turned its hulking body around, I could see the pink slit in its black eyes the size of spotlights. The airplanes and helicopters rushing towards it were like gnats attacking a human.

As we rushed through the city a military truck zoomed past us. I broke the bike to a sudden halt as the truck started to slow down.

“We have to get the fuck out of here,” Harper said.

I nodded. We dropped the bike and rushed towards the narrow alleyways as the truck in front of us stopped. We heard some uneasy mutterings and heavy footsteps headed to where we ‘parked’ the bike. Harper and I burst into a store where the owners conveniently forgot to lock the side doors. Through the massive window we saw the Thanatos Inc soldiers poke at our bike. When they turned to our direction, we ducked.

There was some conversation. The soldiers did one final look around before finally shrugging and going back into their truck. Harper and I let out a relieved sigh.

“That was close,” Harper said. “This building should have a bunker. Think we should head back?”

I shook my head. “You can head back. I want to see the monster up close.”

Harper looked conflicted for a brief second. She let out a sigh. “What did I get myself into?”

“You can go if you want,” I said. “I understand if you’re…”

Harper shook her head. “I don’t want to, it’d be boring.” Harper grinned. “And quite frankly I’m having the best time of my life.”

…

Let me give you guys a word of advice. Do not sneak into an active military zone, especially when giant Kaiju are involved. It was the most stressful thing we’ve ever experienced, not to mention the fact that the soldiers in said zone were so on edge that they’d shoot at anything that moved. Harper and I had a few close calls with death when we so much as knocked over a tin can.

On edge soldiers weren’t our only worry, oh no. The fact that there was a giant Kaiju and literal helicopters and jets being knocked out of the sky was also another big deal. The closer we got to the beast, the more it felt like were nearing the epicentre of an earthquake. The ground below us shook, there were times Harper, and I almost lost our balance. We could barely hear each other over the bomb like sound of the Kaiju’s roar and the screech and buzz of helicopters. One time I almost ran into a soldier like I was a girl in a cheesy romance anime. It took Harper tackling me down to the floor to keep me from meeting an early demise. When the sound cleared off, Harper told me she’d been crying out my name for the past five minutes trying to warn me.

After navigating through the chaos, we finally made it atop a skyscraper, hidden underneath the lump at the top of it. The sun was starting to set, the red of the beast was dyed in the orange of the sunset. We were quite literally face to face with the monster, tracing the roads of scales on its massive body, our stomachs lurching when the tips of its mountainous spine so much as grazed the building we were on. Soon the beast turned, and we were face to face with its massive reptilian eyes. It noticed us and we had no escape. The stupidity of my idea suddenly occurring to me as the beast opened its mouth, revealing its massive, jagged teeth. Its spine lit up in red, light started forming at the end of its mouth.

“Why did we do this, April?” Harper said. “Why the fuck did we do this?”

I cried. “I have no idea. I have no idea. Why did we do this?”

The pointlessness of what I’ve done. For what? For answers? Why? Why did I do this in the first place? It’s a fucking Kaiju, a fucking giant monster. Literally Godzilla…

The light in its maw grew larger, larger. Like the centre of a nuclear bomb, it grew and grew until…

It disappeared. The beast disappeared like it was a rabbit in a magic hat. Just poof as if it never existed in the first place.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t we be grateful we’re alive first?” Harper asked. “I mean…”

I ran over to the edge of the roof. Military cars started moving around, spotlights blasting and helicopters roaring in search of the monster.

Harper looked down. She pointed at something. “Isn’t that…”

“What?” I asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“There was a girl in our school uniform,” Harper told me. “She ran into this building.”

“How’d you see that?”

Harper shrugged. “Good eyesight. Should we go look for her?”

I stared at her. “I’m high off the adrenaline of almost dying so I say, why not?”