Everyone in the classroom looked like they had just seen a ghost. "What the hell was that?" some said. "A nuclear bomb hit New York?" others chattered. "New York's been nuked?" Francis, who was sitting next to Nate, whispered to his best friend. In the event of an actual EAS broadcast, especially one about an oncoming nuclear war, Nate would be pretty shaken up with adrenaline. But he was about ninety-nine percent sure this was not an actual EAS broadcast.

"Francis, do you know what day it is today?" he said.

"Uh… Friday? The last day of school?" Francis whispered back, his voice shaky.

"No, you idiot!" said Nate. "It's Prank Day! That whole EAS broadcast was just a prank! Someone must've hacked into the intercom."

"Oh, I guess you're right," Francis said, relieved. The whole class was hiding under their desks, just like they had been taught to do in the event of a bombing, but it was Nate who got up and stood on top of his chair.

"Guys, guys!" he began. "Don't you get it? Today's Prank Day! Someone played a fake Emergency Alert over the intercom!"

The class believed him somewhat, but a few students were still paranoid that a real nuke had indeed struck New York. Teddy was the only one who got out from under his desk and sat down in his chair.

"Quite a prank that was!" he said. "Hijacking the intercom. Why didn't we think of that?"

Francis, too, then got up from the floor. "Nate did that once. He played 'Surfin' USA' with his armpit over the PA system, then he got two weeks of detention for it."

"For the record, it wasn't 'Surfin' USA', it was 'Fun, Fun, Fun'." Nate corrected.

Then, all of a sudden, another voice was broadcast over the intercom. This time, however, it wasn't an emergency alert, it was none other than Principal Nichols, the principal of PS. 38.

"Attention, students…" Nichols began.

Thank God! Now not just Nate, but all the other students stopped shaking with fear. It was a prank after all, and it seemed like the perpetrator was about to be in some deep trouble. Still, Nate had some mad respect for whoever pulled the first gag of that year's Prank Day. Their prank was targeted at not just one teacher, not just the entire faculty, but the whole school. And they did it all by hacking the intercom, an act Nate had somewhat preformed a while back when he had the bright idea to sneak into the empty principal's office and make fart noises with his arm, to the tune of a Beach Boys song, broadcast to the entirety of his school. He was just disappointed he hadn't thought of it by the time his second Prank Day rolled around.

Principal Nichols continued talking over the PA system. "...I have called an assembly regarding that emergency alert message you just heard. All students and teachers, please report to the cafetorium right now."

Cafetorium? What the heck is a "cafetorium"?, Nate thought, just as he did whenever he heard a teacher use that strange word. At his school, the cafeteria was referred to as the cafetorium because it had a stage and doubled as an auditorium, but only the teacher called it that. The students still referred to it as a cafeteria, just like every other school on Earth did.

Nate and the kids in the classroom, plus their teacher, got up and marched down the halls. "Phooey", said Nate. "That was an awesome prank, but I was just about to set off the catapult when the alert went off."

"That stinks," said Teddy. "You'll just have to fire it as soon as we get back to the room."

"Please walk in an orderly fashion," Nichols continued. "This is a very important meeting. Everyone, stay quiet."

An assembly regarding a simple prank didn't seem to Nate like it would qualify as 'important', but from his two years at PS. 38, he had learned that Principal Nichols was just a paranoid kind of guy. He stood outside the schoolyard during every recess period, and whenever he caught the hint that a kid had skinned a knee or gotten stung by a yellowjacket, he would rush in to investigate. Perhaps the principal had called an impromptu assembly just so he could get everyone rounded up, and he had the police on standby to interrogate each and every one of the kids so that he could find out who pulled the prank, and smack them in the face with a yearlong suspension the next school year.

Nate, Francis, Teddy, plus George and Harold, whom they ran into while walking through the crowded halls, made their way into the cafeteria, where a sea of people were packed like sardines. Coach John, Nate's PE coach, was standing on the stage, holding a megaphone.

"STOP TALKING!" the coach yelled into the megaphone, as if his real voice wasn't loud enough to be heard for miles.

There were only enough seats in the cafeteria to fit about half the school, so the students who couldn't get a seat had to stand. Nate was one of the unlucky ones who had to stand amongst the crowd, but Francis sat down in a seat next to him.

"I SAID, SHUT UP!" yelled Coach John. "THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

Those last five words were what really shook everyone up, including Nate. All of a sudden, the kids stopped talking and everyone stood still as a statue.

With the ongoing cold war between the United States and the Russia, both of which were nuclear powers, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, some Americans had begun to get a bit worried that a nuclear war would become a real threat. Principal Nichols was one of them, and so he had made a procedure on what to do in case of a bombing, and required that it be taught to every student at the beginning of each semester. And the first step of that procedure was to assemble in the cafeteria, the strongest part of the building.

Principal Nicholes stepped onto the stage.

"Attention, students!" he yelled, before changing to a more normal voice. "I imagine you all heard that strange broadcast over the intercom."

The students all nodded.

"And I am quite aware that today is not only the last day of school, but Prank Day."

"Fortunately, I have not been hit with any of your shenanigans yet, but I expect that to change," he joked. He then giggled, before transitioning to a much more serious tone.

"But this assembly is not to discuss Prank Day, or the end of the school year, or anything along those lines. It is to discuss the EAS alert which was just broadcasted over the intercom. And I hate to tell you all this, so please do not panic, but it was not a prank."

Nate felt his heart skip a beat, and so did everyone else in the cafetorium. Not a prank?, he thought. Does that mean there was a real nuclear attack on New York? The cafetorium filled with commotion, with everyone talking about what Nichols had said, if it was true, and if so, who had sent the nuclear bomb and what it could mean for the United States.

Chad raised his hand above the crowd to ask a question.

"You there," Nichols said, pointing at Chad. "What do you want to ask?"

"Is it a real nuclear attack?" Chad askes, nervous.

"I'm afraid I don't know, and neither do most people other than the government. All I know was that the EAS alert was as real as it can get."

Suddenly, Mrs. Shipulski, the school secretary, walked out onto the stage and went up to Principal Nichols. "Mr. Nichols," she said, seeming a bit worried. "You got an Email on your computer."

"Hang on a second, students!" he yelled back into the crowd. "I got a message on my computer. Perhaps it can tell me more about what happened."

Nichols followed Mrs. Shipulski back to his office, and set down at his computer to look at his messages. Unsurprisingly, when he looked at the top of his inbox, he saw a new Email, with the subject "Emergency Broadcast". Yes!, he thought. He knew it could give him new information he could update the students with, but as glad as he was, he was still shaking like a leaf. It could either be good news that there was a false alarm and there was no nuclear bomb, or it could be bad news that a bomb had hit, millions of people were dead, and the US was about to strike back with an atomic bomb of their own. For a second, Principal Nichols wondered if he should open the Email at all. If New York really did get nuked, would he really want to know? Or even more importantly, would he want the students to know?

Then he decided: he'd check the Email himself, but if the results were bad, he wouldn't tell the kids. Deep down inside, Nichols was so afraid he thought his skeleton might jump right out of his skin, but nevertheless, the last thing he wanted was to start widespread panic. If the students found out New York really had been bombed, or if the US was on the brink of entering a full-scale nuclear conflict, they would become scared, which would then lead to anger. Principal Nichols thought it would be best if he allowed each kid to find out naturally.

His finger shuddered as he clicked the message in his inbox, and what popped up was not a message from a friend, from his family, or from another staff member, but a message from the US government.

Randy Betancourt stood outside the office, his ear pressed to the door. Randy was a tall, thirteen-year-old boy who was considered by many the terror of PS. 38. He was one year older than everyone else (because he had been held back a grade after flunking Pre-K), and he loved to bully those smaller than him. But today, after what Principal Nichols had just said, Randy was as horrified as anyone else, especially when Nichols had been informed of the Email on his computer. When the principal walked back to his office, Randy snuck after him and pressed his ear as hard as he could against the door so he could get the scoop. He could just barely hear Principal Nichols and Mrs. Shipulski's voices, taking a look at the message.

"The government?" Shipulski said, concerned, as Randy listened in secret.

"It looks like," said Nicholes, who began to read the Email.

It read:

"This message has been sent at the request of the government of the United States and President Joe Biden. We regret to inform that a nuclear attack has struck New York City. If you live in the state of New York or the surrounding areas, or if you feel you are at risk of being affected by radiation from the nuclear detonation, please click the link below for more information."

"The nation responsible for the attack is currently unknown, but with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in addition to other international issues, the origin of the nuclear weapon is theorized to be either Russia, China, or North Korea. The US government is working to decide what to do next, and what these attacks mean for the United States of America."

Randy listened as Nichols read the Email aloud. Although he was certain there really was a nuclear attack, hearing that message made him, one who was usually so strong and intimidating, as sad, frightened, and nervous as he had been in his life.

He almost felt like he was witnessing the impact of the second hijacked plane on 9/11. One plane? No problem. Sure, lots of people died, but it was still only an accident, one that could easily be recovered from. But a second plane? That's no accident. It was intentional, and no one knew who was behind it, but all they could confirm was that their nation was under attack. That was exactly what had just happened. The EAS alert was no accident, a nuclear bomb had really hit. America was really under attack, only the casualties weren't just four planes, two towers, and part of the Pentagon. They were a whole city, and now that people knew that the bombing was indeed targeted, they could be sure that more cities, more destruction, more lost lives, were soon to come.

Betancourt began to run back to the cafeteria as fast as he could. As soon as he got back, he would tell everyone exactly what happened. Sure, he didn't want to cause a riot, but he felt people needed to know. Randy thought it didn't feel right to keep everyone back in the cafeteria ignorant. If he were to do that, another atomic bomb could hit, this time directly aimed at his town, and everyone would die, all because they didn't anticipate it coming.

He ran into the cafeteria, pushed through the crowds, and noticed that Principal Nichols had not yet arrived on the stage. Randy was sure the teachers would not be happy with him distributing the news that a nuclear bomb had indeed hit New York City, so he decided, rather than standing up on top of a cafeteria table and yelling out the truth, he'd whisper to one of is classmates and pass it along.

"Francis", he whispered to Nate's friend Francis, who was standing right next to him. "There really was a nuclear strike."

"What?" Francis yelled, still shocked by just those six words, even though he was pretty sure it was a hoax, like the time Randy claimed that a person swallowed an average of fifteen spiders in their sleep every year. "There really was one? How do you know?"

"I just snuck off to spy on Principal Nichols and Mrs. Shipulski and see what that email said. Principal Nichols got an email from the government saying that an atomic bombing really did happen on New York. They don't know what country's behind it all, but America is under attack."

Francis, too, reacted like he had witnessed the second plane hit.

"Oh my God!" he yelled, as Randy began whispering to the other students. "We're being attacked! America has been nuked! I've got to tell Nate!"

Randy told the students around him, and those students told the ones around them. As the commotion unfolded, he sat atop a lunch table, and watched the pattern of one student telling another student, then that student feeling more fear and shock than they could recount in their lives. For even one so tough, who seemed so evil as Randy, it was hard to handle the fact that his country had been struck with a nuclear warhead, that millions of people were dead, that millions more were dying slow and painful deaths, and that perhaps he would be next once America got involved in a nuclear war. And it was even harder to handle the fact that everyone else in the cafeteria was then just realizing what was going on, and it was his fault they knew, even if they wouldn't have wanted to know.

In a way, Randy felt like he hadn't done the right thing.

"Nate!" George told his new friend he had just gotten to know that morning. "Randy just got the inside scoop on that EAS alert!"

"What did he find?" asked Nate.

"It's pretty bad," George began. "A nuclear bomb hit New York City."

"Oh my God!" Nate reacted, just as Francis had reacted before to the news. "New York's been destroyed?"

"I'm afraid so. I sure hope we don't end up in an entire nuclear apocalypse."

The first thing that came into Nate's mind once he heard the term "nuclear apocalypse" was those "end-of-the-world" movies, like the movie Geostorm, which he, Francis, and Teddy had just seen and thought it was rather good. Then Nate realized that George wasn't talking about a movie. The situation was real as can get.

By then Nate was already thinking that the EAS alert wasn't accidental, so he was starting to get emotionally prepared for Principal Nichols to drop the bomb of information right on his head. He thought he was ready to hear the truth, but it turned out, he wasn't.

"Crap! We can't be in the middle of a nuclear war! We've got to get out of the United States!" was the first thing Nate said, too shocked to consider whether or not that solution was actually practical. As frightened as he was already, he was yet to fully realize everything that single nuclear attack meant, like the millions of people in New York who lost their lives to the fireball and the radiation.

Then he realized that the attack wasn't just targeted at New York, it was targeted at the entire United States, which of course included him, his town, and everything he had ever known.

At that moment, the intercom came back on, and talking over it was Principal Nichols, whose voice was extremely shaky.

"Uhhh… w… we're doing an early dismissal today. School is dismissed early."

Then the dismissal bell went off, and the students filed out the cafeteria door. But they weren't leaving in the cheerful, excited hurry they'd be in when leaving for summer break any other year. In fact, to Harold, who was standing atop one of the cafeteria seats, it looked more like a zombie apocalypse. No one found it right to act cheerful, not even on the last day of school, when a disaster equivalent to the Holocaust had just happened a matter of minutes ago.