Mina Pradesh was skinny, wore glasses thick enough to stop bullets, and enough metal wire encased her teeth to fortify an office block, but to eleven year old Kenny Burton she was an angel on Earth.
They met when their first grade teacher, Miss Lathrop (AKA Miss Lather-Up to the more precocious), put them at adjoining desks, and they'd been best friends ever since. However, with seventh grade on the horizon, Kenny was actually starting to notice things about her that he had never noticed before. Things like how her hair smelled like cinnamon, how brown her eyes were; the strange grace that lay behind the gangly movement of knees and elbows, and even the cute way her nose crinkled up when she laughed. He wasn't sure why he was starting to notice such things, but they kept running through his mind like a caffeinated hamster on a wheel.
Kenny had no clue what she thought about him, the working of the female mind being a total mystery. Maybe she just thought of him as a friend, maybe she felt about him the way he was starting to feel about her, but the odds of that happening were thinner than she was. Kenny held no illusions about himself; he knew he wasn't good looking, talented, or athletic. In the movies, the fat kids were the comic relief and they never get the girl, even the nerdy ones. Sure people often commented on how unique his purple eyes were. But when you're on the cusp of junior high unique wasn't good, unique doesn't make you the leading man.
Kenny took a deep breath and heaved the cumbersome pack higher on his back. It was loaded with everything Grandma Burton figured they'd need on their little expedition. A pup tent, two sleeping bags, flashlights, extra batteries, some wooden 'strike anywhere' matches, an AM/FM radio, first-aid kit, and enough food to keep a platoon of the Russian Army going for a week.
Kenny tried to explain that they were only going to the Power-lines to watch the meteor shower, not on a quest to the farthest corners of darkest Mordor. Grandma just laughed and said in her usually clichéd style that it was best to have and not need than to need and not have.
Kenny was fully loaded to face the Rapture, and it was playing merry hell with his shoulders. At least his Grandma and Mina's aunt didn't try to join the trip as 'chaperones.' Although astronomy and camping weren't exactly Kenny's thing, he preferred spending times like these alone with Mina, rather than listening to his Grandma and Mina's Aunt Mohinder gossip around the campfire about the folks they dealt with at the bookstore and the bakery. Kenny should have appreciated the time he had before junior high made everything they did together suspect, but all he cared about at that moment was Mina and the weight on his back.
The Power-lines was a wide grassy gash through the heart of the forest with power-poles connecting Greenwood, Maine to the power plant standing like sentries ready for parade. It was a popular spot for the local kids to play without the interference of adults. Kenny couldn't count how many times he and Mina played Star Trek there. They were always on the same side in those water-gun wars, with Kenny as a portly Kirk, and Mina a gangly Spock, putting a united front against the awesome Klingon onslaught of the McManus twins from Crescent Street.
The Power-lines lay less than a mile from their homes but the backpack's straps chewing into Kenny's beefy shoulders made it feel like a hundred. Mina was much better off, carrying only her telescope and tripod. How much could a couple of plastic and aluminium tubes weigh?
Kenny considered carrying the telescope kit as well, but Mina refused his offer after seeing how Grandma Burton made him into a one-man pack train. She said that even his good manners had to have a limit; he wasn't Superman after all.
"Isn't the sky beautiful tonight?" asked Mina, looking up at the deep red of the setting sun.
"Yeah," answered Kenny, not really noticing the colour of the sky. "Where do you want the gear?"
"This is a good spot," she answered, much to Kenny's relief. "I can use that big flat rock for the telescope."
Ken slid his burden off, stretched his aching back, and rubbed his shoulders, who were barking mad at him for putting them through the ordeal. The summer humidity made his black hair hang limp on his head and he could feel his first zit forming on his forehead, like a third eye that didn't need glasses.
Mina had no such problems, her light brown skin was blemish free, and she kept her waist length hair in a tightly woven braid that ran down her back. With a hop and a skip, she vaulted onto the top of the flat rock that was to be her makeshift observatory.
After a few snaps, clicks, one pinched finger, and a few curses, the tent was up. Kenny stood up, his hands on his hips like the classic hero triumphant and said, "The master camper has assembled our fortress."
"Great," said Mina as she carefully aimed her telescope upward. "Come on up, the meteors will be visible any minute."
The last rays of the sun crept below the horizon and Kenny made sure to take the big flashlight as her clambered up the rock to sit next to Mina.
"Look up there," exclaimed Mina; she didn't even need her telescope to see them, streaks of light rocketed across the sky. The sight was so amazing it shortly distracted Kenny from noticing for the hundredth time that Mina was still using the shampoo that smelled like cinnamon.
"Oh my god," he muttered. A parade of fire formed above their heads, the light was so bright, that he didn't even need to turn on the flashlight.
They seemed so close he could almost touch them.
So close...
One meteor, then another and another grew larger in the sky. Kenny didn't need to be a science whiz like Mina to realise something.
"Mina!" yelled Kenny as he leapt to his feet. Mina felt Kenny's hand shove her off the big rock, and then she hit the dirt.
"Kenny," she yelled, spitting out a mouthful of grass. This wasn't his kind of stunt. "What the hell--"
BOOM!
The air above her burst into flame as a meteor struck the opposite side of the big rock. The wail of incoming meteors and the roar of earth and rock torn asunder buried Mina's scream. Instinct took over and Mina curled up into a ball and tried to squeeze as tightly behind the big rock as possible.
BOOM!
Another meteor struck with a thunderous roar, sending dirt, fire, and smoke flying. Kenny lay flat on the big rock. The first impact had knocked the wind out of him and left Kenny unable to move anything but his eyes. His lungs screamed for air, but brown dirt, black smoke, and a strange green dust choked him.
The impact also smashed Kenny's glasses, turning everything into a fuzzy blur. The chaos and destruction took on a strange slow motion effect, like a ballet done under water. A third meteor cut through the high-tension wire, sending a cascade of sparks down on Kenny, half of them a strange shade of green.
The broken wire and the meteor locked in an embrace of green fire and sparks and swung down at the stricken Kenny like the blade of a scythe. Another deafening boom filled the air and Mina felt the large boulder beside her split down the middle in a puff of green sparks, smoke, and scorched granite dust.
"Kenny!" she screamed into the thunderous tumult.
Several more explosions made the earth beneath her shake and a shower of dirt and stones come down on her like rain. Then everything fell silent.
"Kenny, are you all right?" she asked, her voice weak, fearing the answer. "Kenny?"
A hand hung limp over the side of the split rock. It was a chubby hand with an A-Team digital watch on its wrist. The watch's face was cracked and broken.
"Kenny!" she screamed as she scrambled back onto the rock. She didn't think about her singed and dishevelled hair, all clotted with dirt, nor did she care about the burnt and pitted hell that surrounded them. All she cared about was her friend, and that he might be dead.
Kenny lay on the rock like a failed sacrifice on a broken altar. His glasses lay in pieces around his head like a rough halo, and the cataclysm scorched his Darth Vader T-shirt into rags and ashes. A burn, covered with a faintly glowing green dust, crossed his chest like a whiplash.
Mina grabbed his wrist. He still had a pulse, so she still had hope.
"You're going to be all right Kenny," she pleaded into his ear, getting no response. Then she screamed for help with a volume that belied her thin frame, a volume loud enough to wake the dead.