The Atom: a story

"You promised this wouldn't hurt anyone!" Dan screamed through his gas mask.  Anna could barely hear him over the whistling and through the thick grey smoke that clouded the room. 

"How was i supposed to know it would make an atom bomb??" she screamed back.

"We have to get out of here, before it blows!"

"No, you go, I have to finish what i started."  And with that she turned and disappeared into the grey smoke.  Dan began to run after her only to stop again.  The realization came over him that he was standing in a cloud of radioactive smoke, 15 feet away an atom bomb was about to blow up, he had no idea as to where the car was, and his best friend had just gone to try and turn off the bomb.

He began running in the general direction where he last saw her.  He stopped when he bumped into something, Anna.

"We have to get out of here before the thing blows!"

"No" she said "we have to disable it, if we dont then it has enough energy to take out the whole town!"  And so together they began doing everything they could.  Pulling wires,playing with liquids, even attempting to smash the bomb that was supposed to be a miniture reactor.  All that happedned was more smoke.  It was getting harder and harder to breathe.  Finally Anna pulled a small green wire, the thing made a beeping noise and the light inside went out.

"You... disabeled... I think..." Dan and Anna were struggling to breathe.  The toxic smoke seemed to be thickening.  As Dans vision blurred he saw Anna reach for something.  Then he blacked out.

A flash of white startled the sore eyes.  Where am I?  He wondered.  Am I dead?  He struggled to move his head, and found pain shooting through every part of his body.  He felt things on his face, things on his arms.  He couldn't speak.  His throat felt like someone had taken a needle and ran it in circles around his throat.  Suddenly the light was blocked by a face.  "I'll send the doctor in in a minute." she said.

Later he learned that Anna had been reaching for a phone.  She was awake long enough to tell them where they were.  Dan and Anna where brought to the hospital and where treated for severe radioactive infection.  This included several surgeries and having their stomachs pumped out.  The newspapers called them heros for disabling a nuclear bomb big enough to blow out a small town.   After that they where different, more reserved.  The lab had all but melted down and was no longer in use due to radioactivity.