The Tenth Explosion

Chapter 1 You ever notice how pain can start feeling… scheduled? That’s the part that messes with me the most. It’s not just that I’ve lost nine people. It’s that it always happens around the same time of the year, like something out there set a reminder and never forgets to show up. And yeah, I’ve asked myself the obvious question too—why didn’t I stop it? Why didn’t I just… be there? I wish it was that simple. Every single time, something pulls me away. Work trips I can’t cancel. Sudden illness that pins me to a bed like I’m being held down on purpose. It’s almost ridiculous how consistent it is. Like trying to leave your house on an important day and your car won’t start, your phone dies, and then it starts raining out of nowhere. Except this isn’t a bad day. This is people dying. The worst part? It never even crosses my mind in those moments. Not once. I go about my day like everything is fine—laughing, working, complaining about small things—until the news hits. Then it hits hard. That moment… when you hear. It’s not loud. It’s not dramatic like in movies. It’s quiet. Someone says it casually, or you see it on a screen, and your brain just refuses to process it at first. Then it sinks in slowly, like cold water seeping into your bones. Another one. And just like that, I switch roles. Not a fiancé, not a friend—just someone organizing a burial. Calling people. Picking dates. Standing in rooms filled with grief that all somehow feels the same. Honestly, nothing hurts more than planning a funeral for someone you were just laughing with. So yeah… tell me how I’m supposed to stay calm about a place like that lab. City Sermon Lab. Locked for ten years, they say. But it still explodes. Every year. Like it’s breathing. I’ve gone over it in my head more times than I can count. Faulty structure? Hidden experiments? Sabotage? Something worse? At some point, logic stops helping. You just sit there thinking—maybe the only way to stop something like that… is to destroy it completely. Not fix it. Not investigate it. Erase it. That thought stuck with me. Now picture this—before everything went wrong, before her name got added to that list—I was just at work. Normal day. Dust in the air, noise everywhere, the usual chaos of a construction site. I had a group of masons arguing about measurements like their lives depended on it. “Shift it two inches,” I told one of them. He looked at me like I’d insulted his ancestors. I just shook my head. That’s the job. You say something simple, and suddenly it becomes a debate. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I didn’t even need to check the name. I already knew. Her. I stepped aside, trying to look busy enough not to attract attention, but not so busy that I couldn’t steal a moment. “Hey,” I said, and yeah… my voice changed instantly. You know how it is when you talk to someone who just softens everything in you. She laughed first. Not even at anything. Just… happy to hear me. “Do you miss me?” she asked, dragging the words like she already knew the answer. “Obviously,” I said. “Work is boring without you distracting me.” She started listing things she wanted me to buy for her. Not serious things—just random stuff she’d probably forget about tomorrow. Then she switched to how much she missed me, how quiet her day felt without my jokes. I threw in a few terrible ones just to hear her laugh. And she did. That kind of laugh that makes you feel like you’ve done something right in life. We were both smiling like idiots, honestly. Then, of course, reality walked in. “Mr. James,” my boss said, arms folded, that look on his face. I turned slightly away, lowering my voice. “I’ll call you back, okay?” “Don’t take too long,” she said softly. “I won’t.” I hung up. My boss didn’t even yell. Worse—he just looked at me like I should know better. “There’s time for everything,” he said. “Go back to work.” Yeah. Message received. I slipped my phone away and got back into it. Measurements, instructions, checking materials. Normal. Routine. Meanwhile, she went back to her modeling work. Probably still smiling a little from the call. I like to think she was. Then the alarm went off. You know that sound—sharp, urgent, the kind that cuts through everything. People froze for a second, then rushed indoors. Doors slammed. Windows shut. We all knew what it meant. Or at least… we thought we did. But she was still at the store. And when the explosion came—it wasn’t just noise. It was force. The kind that shakes the ground under your feet, makes your chest tighten like the air itself just punched you. Glass shattered everywhere. One moment she was standing there. Next… That was it. A shard, straight through her chest. No warning. No chance. Just gone. Over a hundred people injured. Some died on the spot. Others later. The city… you could feel it. That heavy silence that comes after something terrible, like everyone is holding the same breath and no one knows when to let it out. And me? I wasn’t there. Again. By the time I heard… it was already over. And just like every other time, I knew what came next. Another name. Another burial. Another piece of me gone. So when I say I’ve thought about destroying that lab… I’m not being dramatic. I’m being honest.