klg18

[klg18]

Season 1

Episode 3:  Living A Lie In A Different World

The trio joined the stream of students flooding toward the auditorium, the air thick with murmurs and bewildered glances.  Lexie kept her eyes glued to the floor; her cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she passed small groups of guys proudly rubbing their rounded bellies.  Xavier walked beside her, his usual cocky grin replaced by a tight-lipped frown.  Orlando trailed behind, his mind racing faster than his feet could carry him.  He couldn’t shake the image of the locker room signs, the pregnant men, the dean’s voice—everything felt like a twisted dream he couldn’t wake up from.

However once they finally entered the auditorium, it was buzzing with emotional energy all over the spectrum as Orlando, Lexie and Xavier found their seats near the back, with Xavier and Lexie sandwiching Orlando in the middle.  They just couldn’t understand or believe this.  But they started scanning the massive room.  With most seats filled, yet there were pockets of empty chairs in the auditorium.  However with the trio’s gazing all over, the sight of any of the male students pregnant, was just baffling to them.  Once their observation felt on the stage, which was empty save for a lone podium, its polished wood gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights.  Orlando scanned the crowd, his eyes widening as he took in the sheer number of students sporting noticeable bumps beneath their shirts.  It wasn’t just a few; it seemed at least a quarter of the male student body was expecting, maybe it was more, maybe less.  Whispers about due dates, baby names, and cravings filled the air, creating a surreal backdrop to their mounting dread.

A hush fell over the room as Dean Harrison strode onto the stage.  He was a tall heavyset Hispanic man in his late fifties, his silvery thinning locks neatly combed back, a salt and pepper goatee carefully styled, his suit impeccably tailored.  Yet Orlando noticed something unsettling—the dean’s own midsection seemed fuller than he remembered, straining slightly against the buttons of his crisp white shirt.  Harrison adjusted the microphone, his expression grave.  “Students,” his voice boomed, echoing through the cavernous space, “I’ve called this assembly to address last night’s… incident.”  He paused, letting the word hang heavy in the silence.  “As many of you are aware, a severe electrical storm struck our campus shortly before ten PM.  A lightning bolt penetrated the roof of the Applied Sciences Building, specifically impacting Room 204.”

Orlando exchanged a horrified glance with Xavier and Lexie.  Room 204.  That was their lab.  Their machine.  Lexie gripped Orlando’s arm, her nails digging into his skin.  Xavier leaned forward, his knuckles white as he clenched the armrests.

The dean continued, his voice tight.  “The strike caused significant structural damage and triggered a cascading power failure that plunged the entire campus into darkness for several hours.  Emergency crews worked through the night to restore power and assess the damage.”  He cleared his throat, his hand unconsciously resting on his own subtly rounded abdomen.  “While initial reports focused on the physical destruction, we are now investigating… unusual phenomena reported by students and faculty this morning.”  His gaze swept the room, lingering momentarily on clusters of visibly pregnant young men.  “Rest assured, the college is committed to understanding the full scope of this event and ensuring the safety and well-being of everyone affected.  Counseling services will be available starting this afternoon.  That is all.”

“What!”  Orlando mouth in complete stunned silence.

Lexie and Xavier leaned in  and unilaterally whispered, “back to your dorm okay.”

Orlando gradually nodded.

As the dean stepped away from the podium to scattered, uneasy applause, Orlando felt a cold dread solidify in his gut.  The official explanation was damage and power outages.  They hadn’t mentioned the machine, or the bizarre reality shift.  But the dean’s own slight bulge, the sheer normality with which he addressed the room filled with pregnant men… it confirmed their worst fears.  The lightning hadn’t just fried their project; it had rewritten fundamental laws of biology, and the college either didn’t grasp the magnitude or was deliberately hiding it.  Their experiment hadn’t just failed; it had unleashed chaos, and they were the only ones who knew why.

The assembly dissolved into a low hum of chatter as students shuffled toward the exits, their conversations punctuated by casual mentions of prenatal vitamins and nursery themes.  Orlando watched, frozen in his seat, as a group of football players compared the sizes of their bumps near the aisle.  One laughed, patting his stomach.  “Twins run in my family, man.  Gonna need extra-large jerseys soon.”

Beside him, Xavier dug his fingers into the armrest, knuckles white.  Lexie’s breath hitched as she whispered, “They’re just… accepting this?  Like it’s Tuesday?”

“Looks like,” Orlando answered.

“But why?”  Ask Xavier.

Orlando and Lexi shrugged unable to answer.

Dean Harrison’s final directive echoed in Orlando’s mind:  Return to your classes.  Resume normal activities.  Normal?  The word felt like a physical blow.  Around them, the crowd flowed like a river of complacency, carrying dozens of pregnant students toward calculus lectures and philosophy seminars.  A guy with a shock of blue hair styled in a mohawk and a prominent belly bumped Orlando’s shoulder, flashing an apologetic smile.  “Whoops!  Baby brain already,” he chuckled, rubbing his rounded middle.  Orlando recoiled, bile rising in his throat.  This wasn’t acceptance; it was mass amnesia.

“Yeah… um…” Orlando uttered, “okay…” the young man said running his hands through his blonde locks forcing a smile on his lips.  While the other student just nodded and smiled continuing on his way.  Leaving Xavier, Orlando and Lexie behind and before any of the friends could respond, the other students behind them in the row began ordering the trio to move.  Which they swiftly did, and all the way to the dorms.

A week bled into a haze of forced normalcy and frantic, hushed research.  Orlando, Xavier, and Lexie moved through their days like ghosts haunting a world that had rewritten itself overnight.  Yet they knew there was something strange going on.  And they needed to know why.  So throughout the week the three friends had studied.  How, what, why and many other things about the pregnancies of this bazar new world.  One day between classes, Orlando scribbled frantic notes he had found from a website, which made his mind screamed that none of this should exist.  While on the other hand Xavier, pale and sweating beside him, kept glancing down at his own flat stomach as if expecting it to swell any second.  Lexie spent hours in the library, buried in anatomy texts that now, impossibly, detailed male pregnancy as the biological norm, her frustration mounting with every page that contradicted everything she knew to be true.  The dissonance was a constant, low-grade hum beneath the surface of every interaction, every class, every bewildered glance exchanged between the trio.

The confusion was a physical weight.  Orlando found himself staring at his own reflection in the dorm bathroom mirror, half-expecting his chiseled abs to ripple into something else, while Xavier developed a nervous habit of constantly pulling his shirts taut over his stomach.  Lexie, usually sharp and decisive, second-guessed every basic biological fact she uttered in conversation, terrified of sounding insane.  They met late each night in Orlando’s dorm room, the door locked, curtains drawn, pouring over printouts of their corrupted AI code fragments and comparing them against the baffling new medical journals.  “It’s like the lightning injected chaos into the data stream,” Lexie whispered one evening, tracing a corrupted algorithm on her laptop screen, “rewriting reality based on some… glitch.  But how do we fix it?”  Answers remained elusive, buried under layers of impossible biology and the suffocating normalcy everyone else seemed to embrace.

The boys looked at one another and they could only shrug.  Not understanding their situation.  Let along what they should even say.  How any of this could make sense to anyone, how they were going to fix their machine or even correct the code and the abundance of errors displayed on the computer screen.

The invitation arrived via text on Friday afternoon, a jarring splash of color against the grey backdrop of their anxiety.  Lexie stared at her phone, blinking.  “Hey Lexie!  Huge costume party at Sigma Chi tonight!  Theme:  Myths & Legends.  You + your hot friends should totally come!  Dress to impress!  - Chloe.”  She read it aloud, her voice flat with disbelief.  A costume party.  Amidst a campus where a quarter to maybe half the guys were visibly pregnant and discussing diaper brands?  It felt grotesque and absurd.  Yet, as she looked at Orlando’s exhausted face and Xavier’s haunted eyes, a flicker of something else sparked – a desperate.  Irrational need for escape, for just a few hours where the impossible wasn’t their constant reality.  “We need… something else,” she said slowly, holding up her phone.  “Something not this.”

Orlando groaned, running a hand through his short blonde hair.  “A party?  Lex, are you serious?  With everything?”  He gestured vaguely towards the window, towards the world outside that had lost its mind.

Xavier, however, perked up slightly, a ghost of his old grin touching his lips.  “Dude.  Costumes.  We could go as… I dunno… scientists who accidentally broke reality?”  Lexie managed a weak smile.  “Or maybe just… people who aren’t thinking about uteruses for five minutes?”  The idea was ludicrous, fragile, but the sheer normalcy of a college party, even a themed one, felt like a lifeline thrown into their sea of confusion.  They exchanged a look – weary, apprehensive, but undeniably tempted.  Maybe, just for one night, they could pretend the world hadn’t turned upside down.

Orlando let what Xavier say buzz in the young man’s head for a little bit mulling it over.  As Orlando thought about the party, their project and the whole crazy situation they were all in he finally let out a rather annoyed sigh.  Then uttering, “what the fucking hell.  It’s not like we can’t work on all this…” he quickly paused gesturing his arms around  the dorm and continuing with.  “This mess we made so sure let’s go.”

Lexie and Xavier could only give a weak smile knowing they needed a break from everything, the machine, the pregnancies and everything else they had to deal with.

To Be Continued!

[klg18]

Season 1

Episode 2:  Strange New World But Stranger Problems

The next morning, Orlando woke up still groggy, the events of the previous night a blur in his mind.  He stumbled out of bed and went through his usual morning routine, stepping over to a dresser and slowly opening the top drawer reaching into it and grabbing a pair of underwear and socks.  But something was off.  The clothes inside were all wrong—boxer briefs instead of his usual boxer shorts, “w-w-what… what the fuck?”  he whispered baffled by the underwear, and he could only let out as sigh.  “Whatever…” he murmured to himself while giving a quick sigh.  However as he continued gathering his clothes his bewilderment grew with each one of his article of clothing.  “What’s going on,” he asked himself whilst brushing his medium length blonde hair out of the green eye and grey one.  Going through the two dressers and closet, they showed a collection of polo shirts, dress pants and shirts, Bermuda shorts and numerous bowties that were hanging on hangers or folded up verse the mixture of tee shirts, graphic tees, jeans and other pants, shorts as well as countless baggy clothes he favored.  He rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the sleep from his head, but the disorientation remained.

Once he had picked what he was going to wear that day from all those clothes that were in his dorm room which he figure it might have been  one of two choices.  He passed out in someone else’s dorm or Xavier and/or Lexie replaced his clothes with what he thought were these nerdy article of clothing as some kind of prank.  Although the confusion had finally washed off, he immediately stepped out into the hallway.  He slowly made his way down when the sight of a handful of the male students with rounded and extended bellies of all sizes in the hallways only added to his puzzlement.  He had heard of some crazy college traditions, but this was on another level.

‘Oh man,’ Orlando thought, ‘I get college life can be a party, but some of these guys… um… they might want-need to hit the gym.’  Yet the young blonde man continued on his way and could really only just ignore the oddity for the moment, he made his way to the boy’s bathroom, still dressed in his tee shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms, and headed to his locker, 69, as was his routine.  He inserted the key and gave the lock a twist, but it wouldn’t budge.  “What…what the!”  He blurted out.  “Why isn’t this working?”  He asked and then again tried it.  He tried  to unlock it and with a few more times with the same result.  “Oh come on…” he let out a groan.

Unbeknownst to him a man emerged from the shower’s steam, his figure shrouded in the mist that clung to the tiles.  He was shorter than most, with a frame that carried more weight than was typical for his age.  His hair, almost black, held whispers of a dark brownish-red hue, hinting at a fiery past or perhaps a rebellious streak that time had not fully washed away.  Water droplets glistened on his skin, creating a mirage of youth that belied the creases around his eyes.  He looked to be in his mid-thirties, yet there was a certain boyish charm in his gaze that made him seem younger, more approachable.  He had only a towel and a pair of water shoes, on.  Once the man had entered the area with all the lockers when he finally noticed Orlando and raised an eyebrow, “hey you!”  He called out rapidly storming over to his locker.  “What the hell are you doing at my locker.”

“Hmm…” Orlando said swiftly glancing over at the man.  “Um… what!  No!  This is mine.   See…”  he raised the key up and that’s when he noticed the locker tag had printed on it #75.

The man raised an eyebrow.  “Eh no,” he said.  “It’s not.”

“What,” Orlando mouth, “no!  But-I’m… this is… but…” he trailed off feeling a sense of defeated and unsure of what to do.  He sighed.  Confusion, plastered all over his face, he shuffled down the row of lockers until he reached the correct one all the way at the end and against the wall, feeling a bit like he was navigating through a foggy memory.  He hastily place the key in the lock and turned it.  The sound of the door unlocking surprised him.  He speedily changed out of the tee and PJ bottoms Orlando had on and in one swift motion tightly wrapped a towel around his waist grabbing the soap and shampoo unaware that they were different brands and a changed look too.  Yet his mind, now racing with so many questions.  ‘Seriously what’s going on.’  He thought.

However after the awkward encounter in the locker room, Orlando, in a rush to shower, eager to wash away the weirdness of the morning started searching for the first empty one.  The locker room was bustling with the sounds of splashing water and the chatter of other students.  As he made his way to the shower, he couldn’t help but notice something odd.  Each shower stall had signs on them, some of which read ‘Expecting Fathers’ Showers’, others with pictures of men with pregnant bellies, and there were even a few labeled as ‘Expecting Fathers’ chairs’.  He rubbed his eyes, sure he was dreaming, or someone was playing a prank on him.

“This can’t be right,” he murmured to himself, his heart racing.  He decided to ignore the signs and just get clean.  He turned the water on and waited for it to warm up.  As he stepped into the shower, the water cascading over him, he felt a strange tension in the air—like something was about to happen.

The confusion grew as the water hit his skin, the warmth of it feeling oddly comforting in the midst of the chaos.  Orlando scrubbed himself with the bar of soap that smelled faintly of baby powder and lathered his hair with the shampoo that was definitely not the brand he had bought.  He tried to shake the unease, but it clung to him like the soap suds.  He had to find Xavier and Lexie and figure out what was happening.

As he rinsed off, the water grew hotter, almost uncomfortable.  He quickly turned the knob, but it didn’t respond.  “What the hell!” he yelled, jumping back from the scalding spray.  The room fell silent, and then erupted in laughter.  Orlando realized that his friends had probably rigged the shower to prank him.

Once he managed to shut off the water, he grabbed his towel and rushed back to his locker, throwing on his clothes as fast as he could.  He burst out of the locker room, half expecting to find Xavier and Lexie waiting for him with their signature smirks, but the sight of his friends outside his dorm was anything but comforting.  Their expressions were mirrors of his own confusion and concern.

“Guys, what’s going on?”  Orlando asked, panting slightly.

Xavier’s eyes went wide.  “Dude, you don’t know?”  He whispered urgently.

Lexie stepped closer; her own confusion palpable.  “You didn’t hear about it?”

“What?”  Orlando’s voice grew louder with each syllable.  “What the fuck is going on?”

They exchanged glances, and Xavier spoke first.  “There’s a rumor going around that a lightning storm last night caused something weird in the computer science lab.”

Orlando’s heart dropped into his stomach.  He knew immediately which night Xavier was referring to.  “The machine.  Oh no.  What did we do?”

Lexie’s voice was a mix of shock and fear.  “We have to find out before this gets out of hand!”

“Guys let’s talk inside.”  Xavier suggested rapidly looking around the hallway still baffled by all that has happened since the storm the previous night.

Orlando’s and Lexie’s gaze fell on each other and nodded, “yes.”  They said as they turned their attention back to their friend.

The three of them hurried into Orlando’s dorm room, their eyes darting around the unfamiliar space.  The furniture looked like it had been rearranged, and there were different posters on the walls that hadn’t been there before.  Lexie and Xavier sat on Orlando’s bed; his eyes glued to the floor.  Her eyes had been darting all over the room concerned written all over her.  While Orlando for the second time that day bolted over to the dresser and then grabbed one of the few tee shirts in there and a pair of underwear.  And quickly putting them on, using the towel to hide his privates.  Afterwards in one swift motion grabbed the desk chair, pulled it over to his friend then sat down sitting on it backward leaning against the chair’s back and uttered, “what the ever loving hell is going on?”

Lexie shrugged as she finally stopped looking around the room.

“Okay… guys,” Xavier spoke with a heavy dose of hesitation in his voice as he eventually looked up from the floor and at Orlando.  “I need to tell you all something that I just found out this morning.”  He took a sudden pause trying to rearrange his words and only stumbling over his own thoughts until finally just blurting out.  “So… um… I guess… here I go…” he took in a deep breath and brushed his red locks back.  “So when I woke up this morning after we had all snuck back into our dorm rooms.”

“Dude just get to the point.  Why do all these guys have guts and what’s up with the expecting fathers signs and pregnant men pictures everywhere?”  Orlando demanded glaring at his friend.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Xavier said holding up his arm as if someone was going to shoot him.  “Okay so when I woke up, my roommate was gone.  And his bed was empty.  And I didn’t think too much of it.  It wasn’t until I saw him in the school’s cafeteria  and then notice he had a belly.  And I didn’t understand why until he mention he was pregnant, but I knew that wasn’t possible and thought he was joking and doing something to help his pregnant girlfriend, Jessica.  But he told me he wasn’t dating a girl named Jessica, but his girlfriend’s name is Gemma.  And then he told me that male pregnancy is normal and that most of the guys here with guts, they’re pregnant.  And that guys have been getting pregnant for like forever.  And it’s like everyone’s forgotten girls are supposed to get pregnant and it’s not us guys,” he said, his voice shaking.

Lexie’s jaw dropped.  “That’s insane!  My mom told me the exact same thing men get pregnant not women when she called me earlier.   And then she said  that my brother and his husband are both expecting instead of adopting a kid.  She said it’s the latest trend for gay couples to do that.  With both guys getting pregnant.  And that a lot of same-sex couples are doing it.  I didn’t know what to say!”

Orlando felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead.  “We need to figure out what happened last night.  Did we do something to the code that caused this?”  He paced the room, his mind racing.

They sat in silence for a moment, the gravity of the situation weighing heavily on them.  The storm had brought more than just rain; it had brought a bizarre reality where men were suddenly capable of bearing children.  They had to find a way to reverse whatever it was they had unleashed, or their lives would never be the same again.

But as they sat there, trying to piece together the puzzle, the intercom crackled to life.  The voice of the college’s dean, which had been a male’s voice verse a woman’s, filled the room, announcing a mandatory assembly for all students in the auditorium.

“What?”  The trio uttered confused by the voice, the speaker in the room and why there was an assembly in the middle of the day, but wonder if it were time to face the music and hope they could find some answers.

They grabbed their bags and headed out into the hallway, passing by more and more of their male classmates with their newfound baby bumps.  The whispers grew louder as they walked, and Orlando couldn’t shake the feeling that their little experiment had changed the world in a way they could never have imagined.

To Be Continued!

[klg18]

Season 1

Episode 1: It All Start At College

The moon cast a pale glow over the deserted college grounds as a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the nearby trees. The silence was almost deafening, punctuated only by the occasional distant hoots of a few owls or the faint chirps of crickets. It was the kind of night that made shadows dance and secrets feel more enticing than ever. However the piece was broken by the sound of footsteps in the distance as a solitary figure emerged from the shadow of a towering oak tree. Orlando, his six-foot-five frame seemingly glowing in the dim streetlight, took a deep breath of the crisp evening air before adjusting the strap of his backpack. His twin colored eyes a fair green right eye and a bright grey eye on the left searched the deserted path for any sign of movement. “Where are they,” he asked himself as if he was going to get an answer. He let out a sigh and then continued searching. A few seconds later he let out an annoyed grunt before mumbling to himself, “damn it… they never listen to me. I told them 9:30 and look at that its passed the allotted time.” He found his gaze repeatedly falling on the silhouettes of the academic buildings that loomed ahead, their windows dark and uninviting. “I hope they didn’t forget…” he paused examining the surrounded area. “Or fell asleep like the first time we did this.” He sighed letting his mind wonder back to that first night.

Moments later, Orlando was brought back to reality as a second figure stepping out of the shadows. The young man leisurely joined Orlando, the slow rhythmic thud of footsteps echoing through the silence. Xavier, a year older and slightly shorter at five-foot-ten, but equally athletic, approached with a cocky grin that only the night could hide. His red waves bobbed with each step, and his light blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “Hey short stack,” he spoke waving at the younger male.

“Hmm…” Orlando hummed rapidly turning around to face his friend. “It’s about time you showed up dude. What took you so long?” he asked.

Xavier shrugged smiling at his close friend.

Orlando rolled his eyes and sighed, “whatever. Just c’mon dude,” he said taking a quick pause and then continuing, “we need to find Lexie.”

“Okay, okay, okay…” Xavier brushed a hand through his red locks. “I get it Orlando seriously calm down and take a chill pill bro.”

As the duo reached the college’s main entrance, a soft, feminine voice called out, “Guys, wait up!” Lexie, tall and curvy with a mane of long blonde hair, sprinted towards them, her wide hips swaying hypnotically. Her light blue eyes sparkled with excitement, and she flashed them a dazzling smile.

The boys stopped dead in their tracks and turned around to see their third musketeer. “Oh of course,” Orlando blurted out with a snarky and quiet laugh and a minor head shake, “you are the last one here Lex,” he replied.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Lexie said rolling her eyes.

“Can we just go in now?” Ask Orlando.

They had all been friends since the first year of middle school when they were all in the same homeroom. And tonight they were about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—or at least the most exciting thing to happen since the last midterm.

They huddled together, a whispered strategy session in the shadow of the building. Orlando’s heart raced as he checked his watch. 9:45 PM. They had to be quick. They had spent the last few months crafting this device for their final exam, and now it was time to test their creation. The classroom where they had it was a labyrinth of tech, filled with the whispers of machines and the scent of freshly soldered circuits.

With a final nod, they slipped inside, their sneakers squeaking softly against the linoleum floor. The corridor was eerily lit by the emergency lights, casting an otherworldly glow on the rows of lockers that stood sentinel beside them. The air was thick with the anticipation of the forbidden, and they could almost taste the adrenaline on their tongues.

They moved in a silent symphony of stealth, each step measured and calculated, until they arrived at their destination—Room 314. The door was slightly ajar, revealing the tangled web of wires and screens that was their pièce de résistance. The machine, a bizarre Frankenstein’s monster of a computer, lay in wait for their command.

Xaiver was the first one in the room and flipped the lights and smiled, followed by Orlando and Lexie was next. They looked at each other and then nodded. “Let’s get to work,” the redhead said smiling.

“Alright,” Lexie and Orlando said with the trio heading over to their machine and began working. Yet as the trio huddled around a bizarre contraption that looked like someone had crammed a computer, a game console, video game controllers, and an octopus with all the wires hanging out as they were into a single device.

By the time the first couple of hours had passed, Lexie, Xavier and Orlando were convince this last bit of tweaks would help. Xavier stepped back and gazed at their midterm project. “Hey O-Man,” Xavier said looking at the blonde. “Give me a Phillips screwdriver.”

“Hmm…” Orlando’s fingers froze in place hovering over the keyboard as he halted on his work he had done on the code, pushed out his chair then stood up. “Yeah sure,” he rushed over to the toolbox. Quickly he shoved his hand in the container and started to move the tools around. And as fast as he began he unexpectedly stopped. Grabbed the tool and he looked over at his friend. He suddenly tossed a screwdriver to Xavier with a playful grin. “Catch!” Orlando called out.

Xavier snatched the tool out of the air with surprising grace. “Touchdown,” he yelped while doing a bit of a goofy dance.

“Oh man you are a dufus dude.” Orlando said through his laughing.

Lexie rolled her eyes and quietly laughed at the boys. “You two are like a pair of kids playing with a new toy.” She said through her chuckles and returned to her work.

“You know you love it.” Orlando and Xavier said smirking.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah… let’s just get back to this.” Lexie said with a slight nod and a massive smile planted on her lips.

They were deeply in discussion about the latest coding challenge for their computer science class.

“Hey, check it out,” Orlando said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. The monitor flickered to life, displaying a series of incomprehensible symbols.

“Is that the new AI we’re working on?” Lexie leaned in, her light blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“Yep.” Orlando nodded. “It’s going to revolutionize gaming. Imagine playing against an opponent that learns your every move.”

“Really?” Xavier, ever the skeptic, raised an eyebrow. “And what happens when it learns to cheat?”

Orlando shrugged, his broad shoulders flexing beneath his skintight t-shirt. “Then we just have to outsmart it.”

The classroom looked like it was a typical college dorm room—wires, computer parts and textbooks strewn about, soda, beer cans and bottles with some energy drinks and snack wrappers and tools of all sizes littering the floor. The only sounds were their laughter and the occasional beep from their machine.

Lexie’s phone buzzed, breaking the spell. She glanced at the screen and groaned. “Great. Thunderstorm alert.” She could only roll her eyes at the notification.

Orlando didn’t look up from his work. “Yeah, but it’s all the way out west. We’ve got time.”

Xavier took a swig from his half-empty can of soda. “Besides, it’s just a storm. What’s the worst that could happen?”

The machine they were building was more than just a school project; it was a ticket to the future. If they could crack the code, they might even be able to sell it to a big tech company. Dreams of fame and fortune danced in their heads as they tinkered away, oblivious to the dark clouds gathering outside the windows.

The first drops of rain began to patter against the glass panes, and the distant rumble of thunder grew closer. The wind picked up, howling through the halls, but they were so focused on their work they barely noticed.

It was the third flash of lightning that made them jump. The room lit up like daylight, and a deafening crack of thunder shook the building. Orlando looked a wait from the monitor and his fingers froze hovering over the keyboard, he turned around and glanced out the windows as his eyes wide with surprise. “Whoa, that was close!” He exclaimed.

“Hmm…” Xavier hummed as he and Lexie gazed outside and eventually noticed the storm. “Oh wow!” He nearly shouted as his two friends shot the young man a look to be quiet. “Oh yeah sorry” he said lowering his tone and giving an awkward smile afterwards. “I can’t believe it’s actually raining now. I thought we would have more time before the storm actually reached us.”

“Yeah,” Orlando said still stunned.

“Same,” Lexie uttered.

Orlando sighed, “c’mon guys let’s get back at it hopefully we can finish this by the time the storm pass.”

Xavier was still awestruck by the light show the storm was producing.

Lexie was too as her eyes followed the bolt of lightning as it struck the ground outside, a look of wonder on her face.

But it was the latest flash that changed everything. The lightning shot through the air, shattering the glass as the pieces flew through the classroom, crashing hard on the floor and counters around the window. And then the bolt of lightning continued on its path striking the machine they’d been working on. Sparks flew everywhere, and the room was filled with a brilliant, blinding light.

The next thing they knew, they were all lying on the floor, dazed and disoriented with Lexie leisurely opening her eyes and felt a sharp pain on the back of her head. “Ouch… my head…” she moaned rubbing her head as she eventually got in a sitting position, “what happen?” She asked as she slowly was looking around as Orlando and Xaver both let out a grown.

“I-I-I don’t… know…” Answer Xavier as he and Orlando both copied Lexie’s action. “The last thing I remember is the lightning striking the glass and then a bright light.”

“Same,” Orlando spoke seeing all the glass all over. “Oh crap,” he mouthed.

They gradually managed to get to their feet, the room was eerily quiet. The machine was a, smoking, wreck, and the window lay in shattered pieces on the floor. Rain had started to pool around the destroyed window.

They all looked at the classroom and were shocked, but once the three saw their project they were all astonished. They couldn’t look away at the mess that was their machine. No one spoke until Orlando cried out, “Oh no! The machine! The money!” He whined.

“Shit!” Lexie cursed.

Xavier’s mouth dropped opened, “all man. This isn’t good. Do you think the teacher will give us an extension to fix it or make something new?”

“All that money…” Orlando whimpered falling down to his knees.

“Oh brother,” Lexie mumbled rolling her eyes as the sound of thunder roared. “Damn,” she yelled as they looked at each other, their eyes wide with shock and fear.

“We should get out of here,” Xavier said, his voice trembling.

“Yeah!” Lexie said quickly nodding.

“Um… duh! We need to get out of here before the school blames us.” Orlando uttered.

“C’mon guys,” Xavier replied.

They swiftly gathered their things and sprinted out of the classroom, unaware that the power had gone out through most of the facility. Yet their hearts were racing faster than the code they’d been trying to write. The hallways even with the backup power were dark and empty, the lights flickering with the little power that was surging from the lightning strikes.

The clock in the hallway read 6:52 AM. They had been out for hours. The storm had passed, leaving only a gentle rain to wash away the chaos of the night. They stumbled to their dorms, exhausted and shaken, not knowing what to say.

In the quiet of their own rooms, Orlando couldn’t help but think about the project. “What do we do now?” He whispered to himself.

Xavier and Lexie had already crashed onto their beds, but the question hung in the air like the storm clouds outside.

Their once-promising invention now lay in ruins. But in the back of their minds, an even more disturbing question lingered: what had the lightning done to their code? And what had it done to them?

To Be Continued!