Hey Guys,

I'm back with a new chapter! Happy New Year! 2014 should be filled with love, hope, and writing! I am excited to see new authors and new stories fill up this site, and I hope that you still like my writing, even though I'm updating very late.

Enjoy!

~IfWritersCouldSpeak~

I couldn't fall back asleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes his face came through the darkness, and when I opened them, beads of sweat were already coming down the side of my face.

I stayed up all night, burying my head into my chemistry notebook, as I tried to figure out what went wrong in yesterday's class. Besides the multitude of issues involving my social life.

"Three drops of sodium chloride, into the third beaker," I told my partner.

"Nina?" Fabian asked.

"What?" I replied. I saw him holding the tube of sodium chloride, and I said, "Yeah, that's it, just put it in the third beaker-"

"Nina!" Fabian cried, wrapping his arms around me before pushing me to the ground. He was on top of me, as our beaker exploded, and the bubbles ran down our table creating droplets on the floor.

A few girls in my class screamed, and our teacher attempted to calm us all down, but every student had already crouched underneath the table, as they feared their test tube would be next.

Then, of course, because I am just so lucky, Fabian's tube fell and shattered on top of the bubbles on the floor, and gave way to another explosion, sending me on top of him, as my knee stung with acid.

I screamed, and Fabian held onto my shoulders as he pulled me upright, and the tears were welled up in my eyes. He held me close, as my face was buried into his shoulder, as our teacher put out the fire growing beside us with the extinguisher.

"Are you kids ok?" he asked, once it was out.

I began crying harder, and I shook my head inside of Fabian's shoulder, his arms still around my body.

Fabian must've shaken his head, because the teacher was instructing us to go to the nurse's office the next instant.

As I hobbled ahead, I passed by Mara and Jerome's table. Her death glare was all I needed to stop in my tracks. Fabian, of course thought I couldn't walk, so he decided to encircle my waist with his arm, and Mara's face turned red.

I could feel Jerome restrain her as she lunged for me, as I hobbled away, her boyfriend's hand on my hip.

I concentrated on all of the reactions and the measurements, until I realized that there was dull daylight streaming onto my papers, and my flashlight was useless. I switched it off, and continued studying, before throwing my textbooks and papers to the side, and curling up beside the window.

Then, there was a spatter of water on it, running down to the ends, before dripping off the side of the building. Then another.

Then another.

I smiled a little. I loved rain. My parents used to tell me they met in the rain. Apparently it was one of the worst storms of their time, but they were both stuck having to go into a secluded town, and every shop was closed because the workers there were smart enough to listen to the news and stay inside.

My mom's car broke down, and she was trying to shelter herself outside some store, when my dad pulled up, and just opened his door.

She walked closer, but wasn't sure what to do, so she stood there outside his car, in the rain, until he yelled, "You coming?"

She hopped in, and they had to stop somewhere on the side until the storm died out a little. There they talked, and laughed, and that was the beginning of their relationship.

"Nina!" a voice yelled, pounding on the door. Mara began groaning, and pulling the sheets tighter around her. "Nina, Mara, get out! Trudy and Victor need us downstairs no-" The lights went out. "Patricia, oh my God, Patricia, no the stair-Patricia!" I could hear Amber's high pitch screaming fading as they walked away.

Mara was now semi alert, and she was shrugging on her robe, and slipping her feet into her slippers. On the other hand, I skid to the door, in my pajamas and my fuzzy socks, grabbing my cell phone, and a notebook off the table, which I saw Mara eye as I left.

I turned on my flashlight app, and the upper level of the house was filled with the bright, neon blue light. I gently stepped towards the staircase, hearing Mara behind me. I used my phone as a guide for both her and I as we cautiously stepped down the stairs.

When we reached the bottom, we found candles scattered across the common room, and a lantern hanging in the kitchen. There were flashlights or cell phones in everyone's hand, and Joy's clattered to the floor as soon as she saw Mara. "Oh, thank God," she whispered, hugging her. She let go, as soon as Jerome entered the room.

The tall boy leaned down to hug her, and lifted her up once just for good measure. "Oh, thank the Lord." He let her down, his arms around her waist. "You ok?" he asked, gently.

She nodded, before leaning up, and pecking his cheek.

"How long is this going to last?" Fabian asked, his voice interrupting the sweet moment.

"They don't know," Alfie commented. "It's might be a few days."

"It's just a storm," Amber stated.

Jerome then spoke, "No, I saw a tree across the front of the house. Must have knocked down the power circuit."

"Don't we have a generator?" I questioned.

"We do," Trudy answered, entering the room. "Victor just got it working. It should kick in soon, but it only exceeds to kitchen and the laundry room."

"Why?" I questioned again.

"I don't know. It's not a big one; this side of London doesn't get many power outages. We have an old one from years ago, but it's dead. We've tried to get it to work bu-"

"Patricia, want to help me?" I asked the only science lover in my house that I wasn't ignoring.

Her smile was all the answer I needed.

We both pried open the black board of the generator, and smoke entered our lungs. We began coughing, and we began waving frantically in front of us, until the smoke had cleared.

We both began digging, and we started to point at different materials. We determined the cause of the failures had to have been from the back, since from Trudy's recalling, the sparks began at the back of the generator, years ago.

"There," Patricia pointed. Once we had opened the gate to the shaft, we saw that the shaft was a metal rod that was clearly rusting. We pulled it out, and inspected it. "It has to be replaced," Patricia concluded.

"Yeah," I agreed. "We can use something metal, but it has to be a closed figure. We can open up the gate more, to allow maybe a circular object in, or we may have to increase the volume of the shaft for it to be in that shape." I asked her, "Can you expand the gate by two centimeters? I have an idea for the shaft."

She nodded, and I headed back to the kitchen, where everyone was because we had occupied the only other electricity filled room. "Hey!" I shouted.

They all turned to look at me.

"Do you guys have any light bulbs I could use? Even if they don't work," I begged, "please."

Jerome instantly began unscrewing as soon as I explained that it would be able to give us electricity throughout the house.

Fabian brought in a couple from his room, and Jerome gave me two from the common room.

I brought them in, and Patricia announced that the gate was almost done. I asked her for the twine Trudy gave us earlier, and I placed it beside me. I uncorked the smaller light bulbs, and I took the silver bottom of them both and connected them together with twine. I wrapped it around twice, before I twisted the other end around another light bulb.

Patricia declared the gateway was ready by then, and I asked her for the tweezers I had gotten. "Ok, I'm going to need you to keep the gate pried open for at least a minute. We're going to have to turn this on, so you have to try."

"Ok," Patricia agreed.

I ran out first, asking Trudy for saltwater. She placed some salt into unpurified water, and I mixed it continuously for two minutes. I then hurried back to Patricia.

"Ready?" I asked her.

She nodded, and I placed the newly created shaft into its respective compartment. I then looked at Patricia, and I turned on the generator.

Patricia was gritting her teeth, as she tried not to get her fingers chopped off. Other parts were working, so this was extremely dangerous. I held my left hand under my right which was hovering about it. I tipped the saltwater gently onto the twine, careful not to spill onto any other parts.

I counted to the thirty before stopping. Then the lights flickered off.

Patricia didn't remove her hands until they flickered back on, and screams of joy came from outside.

We smiled, and high fived before securing the cap on the back of the generator. Then we walked outside arm in arm, just being weird.

The cheering got louder as we approached. They swallowed both of us with "congratulations"' and "thank God for you" and "we totally knew you could do it, kind of" and a million other phrases, many of them British, so I the clueless American just thanked them for the compliments that seemed odd.

The first person that approached me was Fabian, surprisingly. He hugged me, and I sort of hugged back, and he looked at me, pulling away, his expression screaming that he had to tell me something. Then he stepped back, and said, "Nice job."

And in his place, came Mara.

"Not bad, Roomie," Mara commented. "We should hang out. You know, after Fabian stops drooling over you. I wonder why." My breath caught in my throat. "Because I know you haven't been talking to him." I vigorously shook my head. "Since, that interferes with our deal."

Joy called Mara's name, and she walked away, saying, "We'll talk later."

Patricia was up next, talking in a loud voice. "I knew you could to do it, I told everyone that you were incredible at science, but no one believed me, before today, that you were brilliant. They probably just thought I could stop you from blowing us all up. Oh, can I walk with you on Monday? I saw that thing you did, saltwater trick, very nice. I was thinking of doing something like that for the science fair. Want to help me?" Before I could answer, she leaned over and hugged me, then trapped me by whispering into my ear, "I heard. Don't say anything. I won't tell." She slipped something in my back pocket, before telling me in a hushed voice, "I'm rooting for you two."

She pulled away, saying; "Tell me later," before walking towards Mick, with whom she struck a conversation with.

I went out into the hallway, Amber's smile at me telling me she knew as well. I pulled out the item Patricia placed in my pocket, and read it in my head.

Nina,

We really need to talk. You have things to say, and so do I. Meet me outside the house at six am Monday morning. We won't be interrupted. I'll make sure, don't worry.

-Fabian.

X

I guess I might have to miss that walk with Patricia on Monday.

So, did you like? What do think will happen? What will Fabian want to talk about with Nina? The incident? Or are there more reveals? Will Nina reveal something?

Find out next time!

Next Chapter update: January 11th 2014.

See ya!

~IfWritersCouldSpeak~