Becca walked up the ramp leading to the promenade, weaved through the crowd, and stopped at the entrance to the restroom. Her shoulders shrank at the long line snaking out to the entrance, and she briefly thought about returning to her seat when the line moved. She decided to wait it out. If she had time, she’d get a coffee.
Once inside, Becca waited her turn while America the Beautiful could be heard over the PA system. She didn’t have much time until the National Anthem began. She fidgeted, pulled her cell phone from her pocket, glanced at the time and checked to see if she had received anymore emails. Since she had none, she clicked on “messages” to read the texts her husband had sent her before he died. Reading them she could hear his voice and envision his facial expressions. A door to a stall popped open, and Becca was thrust back to reality. She clicked the cell phone off and placed it in her pocket.
After she finished, she washed her hands. Flinging off the excess water, she put her hands under the automatic towel dispenser. The lights flickered.
The darkness of the room was unnerving, and she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. The PA system piping in the music faltered, and different voices registered their bad luck at using the bathroom at the exact time the lights went out.
Becca slid her cell phone from her back pocket and tried swiping up from the bottom bezel to get access to the flashlight icon. Nothing happened. She pressed the home button, expecting it to light up. Nothing happened. Strange, she mused. She had it charged to one hundred percent power before she left the house.
Others in the restroom grumbled about their cell phones not working. Perhaps they were in a dead zone, or beneath too much concrete, although the location would only prevent a signal, not affect the power.
Ambient light illuminated the white walls of the entrance to the restroom so Becca moved toward the opening, anxious to get back to her children. The coffee could wait. Once she was back at her seat, she’d ask her children to test their phones.
The lights flickered again, and this time stayed on.
Her cell phone powered back up.
Becca fell in behind a group of people who were choking the entrance to the ramp. The announcer came over the PA system asking for everyone to stand for the National Anthem. Deciding it would be rude to push through the crowd while it was being sung, Becca decided to wait until it was over. She could always watch it later since she had recorded the game at home – a practice she had gotten into because her husband enjoyed watching it again especially if the team he rooted for won.
Once the song ended, the crowd inched forward, and—
A thunderous explosion rocked the stadium, and Becca automatically put her hand on the back of the person in front of her. She briefly wondered what could have caused it, until the realization came to her the explosion occurred at the same time the Blue Angels were to make an appearance.
She forced herself not to panic. She had to stay calm for her children’s sake.
Moments later a tidal wave of pressure blasted through the opening leading to the stands, channeled to a lethal force from the enclosed concrete walls.
The throng of people Becca was capsulized in hurled backwards, falling and tossed around as easily as dominoes. Dazed, and unsure how long she had been unconscious, she woke to pressure on her chest and a caught the whiff of a hairy armpit. Using all her strength, she pushed a man off her, allowing her to take a breath of air. Lifting her head up, she struggled to make sense of the angry orange mass barreling down upon them. It glowed with orange and red tentacles reaching out, slapping the air. She had a second to comprehend the wall of searing red was a fireball and it was almost upon her.
She instinctively covered her head and rolled into a little ball, taking refuge among the people laying on top.
She squeezed her eyes shut tight, and dared not to take a breath of the hot air that had the capacity to burn her lungs and melt her skin.
The rush of the fireball rolled over the tangled bodies, and in its wake, set clothes and hair on fire.
Becca held her breath until her lungs felt like they were about to burst. Hesitantly she took a breath of the oxygen-starved air, and unable to fill her lungs, she gasped another breath, except her lungs did not fill with oxygen.
She gasped again.
Nothing.
Her chest rose, but no oxygen was available, only nitrogen and a trace of argon.
She violently gasped, her mouth wide open. The fireball had consumed all the oxygen in the narrow corridor.
She had no strength to move, as no oxygen was flowing through her body, and her brain was too oxygen starved to panic or to register she had possibly taken her last breath.
She didn’t hurt, or have any regrets of what she should have done or
