The bomb exploded. No one had seen it coming; we only had a minute’s notice from the police. In a panic, we all forced our way from the office and into the street, scrambling over the pavement in shaky heels and dress shoes. A deafening blast behind us sent a shadow over our heads, and soon I could feel small pieces of concrete falling onto my shoulders and the back of my head.
I let out a hoarse, raspy cough and turned around to look up at the office building, only to see a pillar of swirling darkness with the vivid glowing of flames occasionally visible behind it. It was then that I felt a throbbing pain start in my left forearm; looking down, I discovered a long, ragged gash had appeared in my skin. Biting back a scream, I clutched the wound and cast a fearful glance around as my head began to pound.
Sounds faded to a minimum as the throbbing of my arm and head overtook my being. Ambulances and firetrucks flew toward the office, sirens blaring faintly in the distance my pounding head formed between myself and the world. I vaguely remembered the paramedics’ cautious approach, though their distant words and appearances were all blurred as I felt my eyes beginning to grow weary. Darkness overtook my vision and no memories followed until I awoke again in the hospital.
Jerking awake in the uncomfortable hospital bed was quite a shock; when I spotted a pair of police officers standing in the doorway, I remembered what had occurred at the office earlier. “Ma’am, the police are here to ask you a few questions,” a nurse explained to me when she noticed the startled expression I wore.
Shakily, I nodded and submitted to the questioning.
“Ma’am,” the first officer began, running his fingers through his soft-looking pale brown hair, “Were there any suspicious people in your office at the time of the explosion? Did any of your coworkers seem to be acting odd?”
For a moment I was sucked back into the memories from earlier that day, and though it took a while, my mind finally stumbled onto a detail I’d never really noticed before. “Well, one of our interns was acting a bit odd, I suppose,” I answered after a short pause.
It was true. I explained to the investigators that during the past few days, a pair of interns had arrived in the workspace. The first was a tall blond girl with vivid green eyes and a bright smile. Her name was Carrie, and she appeared to be very enthusiastic and compassionate about her work; nothing was wrong there. Our second new intern had been a quieter, more cautious young man named Sam. He had a soft, careful voice and seemed to consider every word for a long time before finally speaking. In all honesty, I had been a bit worried by his presence even before the accident. Whenever he was on break, he would stand outside the janitor’s closet and sip water from a small paper cup, silently watching the inhabitants of the office.
I’d found this odd enough, but one other behavior of his was more on the side of unnerving. After the workday was over, he would insist on staying behind to ‘learn the office’s floor plan better,’ thus preventing him from getting lost. After a bit of persuasion, the boss had consented and allowed him access to the lower levels of the building after hours.
The police paused my explanation abruptly at this, asking if they could show me a suspect sketch that had been made off of a still image from the security cameras out front. “We had a young man leave the office just prior to the bomb’s detonation,” one officer explained. “Would this happen to be Sam?”
The man pulled a sketch from his pocket and unfolded it on the table for me. Not even a moment of observation was required for me to recognize the person depicted in the sketch, and I said in a worrisome, shocked voice, “That’s him.”