Interlude 1 - Aiden

Aiden Bennet is having a particularly good day. He might even call it the best day of his life but he is going on a date with a scientist and indulging in being hyperbolic might be verbally punished.

Sitting in his Econ class and barely paying attention, he can not wait for tonight.

The aforementioned date is with Yara, the girl from one of his friend’s Math Methods class. His friend, Fredrik, had invited her to a party at the beginning of the school year that Aiden and his friends arranged in their house off-campus.

With two years of online classes behind them, having a party was to cement the group of juniors as “cool” even with their history as not being popular in high school. It had kinda worked too.

Aiden had just finished an argument with a group of people about the actual daily cost to the world economy by the blockage of the Suez canal when a girl came up to him.

“Hi I’m Yara, you are wrong, but if you are trying to keep the equation manageable it is sound enough.” Yara introduced herself.

“I am Aiden, of course, it is simplified, it is speculative and I am not some theoretical physics geek.” Aiden answered.

Yara had just grinned at him and said. “Sorry, forgot you economics students need to dumb it down to understand.”

“Well, we can't all be theoretical physicists, some of us actually have to do something useful after college.” Aiden replied with a grin.

“Okay, Little Flame if that is what you need to tell yourself.” Yara said.

“Little Flame?” Aiden asked.

“Aiden means Little Flame in old Celtic, did you not know that? I think it fits you.” Yara answered with a smile.

They had talked for the rest of the party and Aiden had learned that Yara’s name had various meanings in the Middle East, like sunshine but also referred to a Brazilian mermaid that drowned men in a lake. He thought the name was oddly fitting.

Coming back to the present, Aiden notices the rest of his classmates are packing up their stuff. The Econ class is over and he also packs up his things fast.

Walking through campus to the bus, Aiden puts his headphones on. Loud music blasts as he reminisces about earlier this week. He ran into Yara outside the physics building and after saying hi he had followed up by asking her to go out with him.

“What took you so long?” Yara had responded with a big smile.

Grinning from ear to ear leaves campus.

Since then he had been watching videos online about different physics topics to be able to keep up a conversation with her during their date.

Almost at the bus stop, Aiden sees a flower shop on the other side of the street. He still needs to go home to shower and change before picking up Yara at her apartment so this is the best opportunity to get some flowers.

Aiden crosses the street.

He does not notice the people screaming at him and just keeps walking. The next moment the truck hits him.