"Boom! A loud explosion is heard and just rattled my bones. My office seemed like it was shaking violently. I run out into the reactor dock and there is debris and smoke everywhere. Standing there in a cluster of chaos the fear of death inked into my veins and I knew I had to get out. Breathing in what could have been radioactive steam, I stumbled through swaying hallways, running into who know what. I hear smaller explosions behind me. More debris... broken glasses... air gushing in... the ceiling felt like it was slowly caving in. A big cloud of smoke, resembling that of a tidal wave, came rumbling down the hallway as if it were chasing me. I decide to duck and take cover under a table in an office. Lights flicker and the bulbs eventually bust.

At this point I have certain flashbacks of terror, death, screams of my coworkers, panic... BUT, and I kid you not... there was this calm voice I could hear out of nowhere... as if guiding me... as if eerily soothing and letting me know what to do. I tried to focus on this voice and locked into it. Totally blocking out what was happening around me. Suddenly I made a conscious decision to try and get out. I told myself, that if I died, I wouldn't want it to happen here... not through a horrific nuclear meltdown. With all the smoke, and debris on our floor, I staggered up, searching for a hallway, looking for co-employees, friends, ANYONE! But found nothing. I kept thinking to myself is this for real? Or am I watching another full-blown action flick?

By now, I am sick to my stomach of the events unfolding thru my very own eyes. Walking on, I stumbled upon the fire exit and opened the door... and... whoosh! Literally hundreds of people going down the stairs in a two-line formation... slowly... orderly... calmly... if not, trying to... I see wounded folks... I see women bare-footed... wet from the sprinkler system, I see unscathed folks all going down the stairs...I was able to squeeze myself in and went with the flow.

This must've been the longest stairway descent I've ever experienced. We slowly descended each floor to get out of the plant, and I noticed a number of people giving me scowling glares, but truly thought nothing of it. I finally reached the bottom and headed out into the parking lot where I was met with more chaos, panic, and bloodied folks. It looked like a total war zone! There were contamination crews running all over and policemen with gas masks directing us out of the there. My initial thoughts were that we were in the middle of a terrorist attack, until someone yelled, "There he is!" and I was arrested on the spot.

Apparently a bomb went off in my reactor port, and being the only one to have access to get there, I apparently was the one that planted the bomb. Twenty-nine people died from the blast from either the explosion or trying to make their way out through flying debris. The blast did not destroy the reactor, but it did cause a substantial leak of radioactive gasses and fumes. It was so bad, the plant had to be shut down, and a ten mile radius around the plant was quarantined.

I spent a week in jail before I had to go on trial. Everyone in the joint knew what I was accused of, and they treated me like shit. When the trial rolled around, I looked like I was beaten a thousand times over. I had two swollen eyes that looked like they were sunk into the back of my head. My body had so many bruises someone could possibly confuse me of being another race. When I took the stand, I was bombarded with questions, even from my own lawyer sometimes, about why I did what I did, and not that did I do it or not.

I knew deep down that they had nothing on me and luckily I was right. No traces of the bomb were found or anything that could tie me to it and all charged were thrown out. I might as well of been killed in the plant, because I lost everything anyway. My wife Susan left me and took my daughter with her. My face was plastered all over the television and not a soul would speak to me, let alone look at me. It made me feel that I was guilty. I knew deep down I did not do this, but all fingers pointed to me. There was no possible anybody could have gotten in there besides me. Why were those voices leading me out? The whole situation was like God was trying to kill me and then helping me escape.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, I was exposed to radiation. To control it from spreading through my body, a doctor prescribed an experimental drug called "pluteritol" to me. It allows the radiation to lie dormant in my body, but as you can see, it has mangled my face something awful. The concave curves on my face produce shadows that make me look inhuman."

"Now open your eyes Preston. That is quite some story you have told me", said Dr. Krinski. "This is why I am here doctor. I have no desire to go on with my life, and no longer see any purpose for it. You are the only one I have found that would listen to me. Everyone else thought I was guilty, or just plain crazy." "Preston, you have been coming here on your own for the past two months, and I have not once thought you were crazy. These stories you come up with are amazing, and incredibly realistic. As for your life having no purpose, I think everyone is alive for a reason and God acts in mysterious ways. I will see you next week and make sure you remember to take your medication."

Preston left the office with the feeling of his life spinning out of control without a life vest anywhere in sight. I was a long way back to his house. He grabbed the 208 bus down Ravenswood Avenue and it dropped him off at Harms woods. There he had to walk to the rest of the way down Ridge Road. Ridge Road was hardly a road at all. It was basically a leaf and grass trampled path, bordered by thick abandoned woods that led to Lake Verizon. Dead trees have fallen over each other and vines ran wild. No one has tended for the land in the past fifty years for there was no reason to.

Preston resided at the edge of the forest in an abandoned lighthouse that looked over the lake. It was about a twenty minute walk from Ravenswood. The house was made of red brick that had cracks resembling spider webs. It stood about thirty feet high and had dirty glass panels around the top. The wooden door didn’t even have a lock any more or even a handle. It just swung up and back, creaking with the wind. There was a bathroom on the main floor that consisted of a sink, toilet, and a broken mirror. Everything was caked with mildew. There was a small bedroom next to it that was kept in pretty clean shape compared to the rest of the house. It had a well made queen size bed, with white sheets, and a green blanket. A nightstand sat next to the bed with a lamp and an alarm clock on it. There was a small kitchen that was full of dust, and looked like it had not been touched in years.

As one climbs the spiral staircase, they come to a wood deck with an enormous oscillation light in the middle that hasn’t worked since Preston lived there. It didn’t even have a bulb in it. To the right of the light sat only a mattress with a pillow and plaid blanket on it. On top the blanket sat diary that Preston wrote some of his dreams or tales in. A glass door with a rusty brass handle led out onto the balcony. There was a railing that surrounded it and all one could see were miles of water or the rocks below. Preston liked this place because it was somewhere he could get lost. If he was dead no one would probably ever find him because of the history he believed was in the house.

Preston wrote in his diary about who he thought the previous residents of the house were. "Back in the 1950s Ridge Road was covered with beautiful sandstone that people traveled down frequently too see this amazing lighthouse. The landscape was maintained and birds fly out into the open without a care. A man by the name of Dennis Maynard lived there and he was a shoemaker in town. He lived there with his wife, and their sixteen year old son. In the winter of 1973, Dennis awoke in the middle of the night from a terrible dream. In his dream, he got the urge that he was supposed to kill the entire human race with a butcher knife, but thought nothing of it and went back to bed. But night after night he was still getting these dreams and they were driving him mad, almost to the point where they were empowering him to kill. He no longer had the desire to have sex with his wife, and found he only got an erection at the dinner table when he held a steak knife.

He told no one of these dreams and enlisted his son as an accomplice. They would ride the bus to towns they'd never been to and break into people’s homes. His son would rob the houses followed by his father who killed the residents.

Then one night Dennis received the supernatural order to kill as many people as possible, but he didn't know how to do it. He told this to his son, who cheerfully told him he'd be glad to do it and they could start one by one. On a warm summer’s day in July of 1974, they spotted a young boy on Fifth Street in Philadelphia. His name was Jose Collazato and he was ten. They took him to an isolated area in an abandoned factory, and killed him by stabbing him in the heart with a syringe full of air.

Two weeks later, they lured another boy into the Harms woods with the promise of taking photographs and killed him there. They knocked him unconscious with a baseball bat, chained to a ladder, and threw him into the lake where he drowned to death. Dennis was so turned on by this, as he saw the boy sink to the bottom, and had an orgasm. During the crime spree that began toward the end of that year, the son threatened his father with an ultimatum: if we don't kill, I won't go out again. So he had no choice but to begin.

I cannot say what happened to them because I myself am unsure. But I do know that they were trying to put an end to the universe for some reason and that the killing was guided by a powerful hallucination."

A week has passed since Preston’s last visit to Dr. Krinski. He doesn’t want to go anymore because he feels that it’s just not worth it. "All these thoughts are running through my head, and there is nothing I can do to stop them! I know I didn’t plant that bomb! Suzie Q (Preston’s nickname for his wife), I love you with all my heart. I just wasn’t meant for this world! I hope I can find a place of peace and happiness. A place I am child enough to live, yet man enough to survive. I love you! I hope you can truly believe me and forgive me. Maybe on my journey I’ll find Jesus. Pray for me baby. Pray I will find happiness. I hurt so bad inside! I want it all to go away. I want a new beginning. I am not afraid to die! I just don’t want to go through another tomorrow!" Preston shouts out all of this as he decides he wants to end his life.

For months now, he has been trying to gain enough courage to do it, and it finally came to a head. Preston walked up to the glass door, that lead out onto the balcony, and realizes that there was no turning back. He can barely turn the handle because he is shaking so much. He walks out onto the balcony and a big gust of wind hits him, almost knocking him over. Preston is startled by this, and grabs onto the railing to catch his balance. But he doesn’t think twice about what he did, and climbed up onto the railing. He stares down at his death bed of rocks below and decides he is going to go for it.

He is just about to take his leap of faith when suddenly, the light in the flashes on and shines out onto the water. Preston is shocked at what is going on and looks out onto the lake. He sees something out there, but can’t focus in on it. And then rising from the water like the Titanic, out comes a horse with wings.