At school in a lab. [Chapter 2]

Brandy and Sean had spent their college years living together as friends and roommates. Sean would help her out with her science classes while Brandy would help him out with his more artistic classes and make sure he didn't miss out on the social aspects of college.

Brandy had grown into a lanky, skinny woman who could be voted most likely to fall in love with Popeye the Sailor. Some of her rivals in school even called her 'Olive' to try and get under her skin. However, at five feet eleven inches tall, she wasn't all that easy to intimidate. Paired with her ability to let things roll off her like water off a duck's back, the names and jibes directed at her didn't do anything for her. She still had brown hair and eyes, with a face much like a young Sandra Bullock.

Graduating college four years before Sean was finished, Brandy got a job working for the university as a graphic artist. She helped rebrand the school and redesign the look of the mascot.

Sean had grown up to be just over six feet tall, with short dark brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a warm friendly smile. He had a total dad-bod, but was so nerdy and stand-offish that even when a girl did show interest in him, Sean immediately put his guard up and the relationship would never proceed past 'friendly acquaintance'.

A bit of a know-it all, Sean wouldn't hesitate to correct someone if they hadn't gotten a detail correct or missed a fact. Even Brandy wasn't immune from this part of her best friend.

Sean was studying to be an expert in theoretical physics with a focus on quantum mechanics. He had always been smart, but this career would allow him to understand the basic building blocks of the universe, as well as the world around him.

One afternoon while he was working in his lab, having gotten a grant from the university to study quantum entanglement, Sean discovered something about how two particles interact that would change the world...or it would have if the power hadn't gone out when it did.

Forgetting to activate his recording devices first, the tall, bulky scientist activated his invention, the quantum semi-collider, and released the two photons. He was observing the way they interacted when he noticed one of them had only moved after the other had moved. The current understanding of quantum entanglement meant they should be moving at the same time, not with one following the other. In his mind he named them "Leader" and "Follower".

Sean had just been writing down his observation, when he realized what he had forgotten to do. In a hurry he activated the camera to record them at the exact moment the power went out, his machine losing its stable support of Leader and Follower. Unfortunately the two photons didn't like the sudden loss of energy and each flew off in its own direction at the speed of light to find more stable places in the universe.

Follower had gone out into the universe leaving behind a new type of radiation in its wake which had never been recorded, and would never be noticed, nor named. Leader, on the other hand sought the closest source of energy it could find, Sean.

The powerful and extremely heavily charged particle hit Sean hard. So hard, in fact, his atoms obliterated for about a zeptosecond before they were reconstructed in the same amount of time. In that brief instant, when his body reformed, it tied itself to the radiation left behind by Follower as it showered the known universe with its remnants.

From Sean's perspective he felt a brief, terrifying amount of pain, and then a slight tingling in his brain. When the lights came back on, Sean had cleared his mind and then began cursing out loud, "No, no, No, NO NO!" He went to his digital camera, his miscroscope's camera, and even his back up devices. None of them had recorded even a single moment from from his experiment.

In anger, he kicked a chair across the lab and screamed at the ceiling, "Raaaaaargh!"

It was at this point one of his peers, Jamison spoke up from the doorway to his lab, "Ummm, I know science is serious and everything, but you didn't need to kick the chair across the room."

Embarassed at his out burst and still upset about his experiment not being recorded, Sean shot back with the first thiing on his brain, "I didn't kick the chair across the room, you must have imagined it."

Jamison looked at Sean oddly and in the blink of an eye, the chair he had kicked was right behind him again. Sean fell into it as Jamison walked away scratching his head, muttering, "Hmmm, I must have imagined it," the memory fading from his mind.

Sean looked around and frowned in confusion, knowing he had kicked the chair, and yet the chair never moved. He stood up and decided to take a break, thinking he had just been angry the budding young scientist decided to pack up, power down his equipment correctly, and head home.