Zoe pinched herself. What had just happened was impossible.

It made sense that a bolt of lightning would strike her bike. Her bike was made of metal and it was standing up on a flat beach. She was lucky to survive it—if she had been a little closer to her bike, that would have been it.

But the second lightning bolt should have killed her.

Why did it strike empty sand—not five feet away from her body? It made absolutely no sense. There was no logical reason why she was alive.

She imagined herself encased in glowing electricity, hair sticking straight up in spikes, with her skeleton flashing through her skin every now and then. She wondered if that was what people really looked like when they got struck by lightning.

Zoe snickered as she crouched in the sand. She hadn't had a good laugh in a while. It felt good, so she didn't stop laughing until she started gasping.

She wiped the tears away from her eyes and rolled over on her stomach and took a long look at the sky. The storm was finally dead. A wet breeze blew over her wet nose, but she heard no thunder and saw no lightning.

She pushed herself up and wiped the sand off of her hoodie. Then she walked over to the smoking crater in the sand, where the lightning had struck.

There had to be some explanation. An investigation was in order.