What the hell?  That was an electrical arc of some sort.  There was no mistaking the actinic flash.  People were screaming also, like they would if someone was being electrocuted.  Meredith looked back to where the strange, almost ethereal boy had been talking nonsense like he knew her or something, but he was gone.  "Hey!" she called out, looking around.  The boy wasn't visible, and as pale as he was and with that hair he should have stood out like a whitetail deer's butt in a coal mine at midnight.<br/><br/>Meredith put her finger and thumb just inside her mouth along her lower lip and gave a piercing whistle to get the attention of the other firefighters on the truck.  A few of them looked her way, including Critz, but when she gestured towards where the flash had been they didn't even seem to care.  Critz said something she couldn't hear over the diesel, then it grew louder as the truck began to pull away from the pier, leaving Meredith on her own.<br/><br/>"Screw you too," she muttered and flew a finger towards her alleged comrades-in-hose.<br/><br/>Meredith was young, barely above being a rookie, and all alone.  But she was a firefighter, no matter what those meatheads thought, and she could not ignore the possibility someone might need help.  There had been a flash and screaming.  Something was going on.  As quickly as her boots would allow, she jogged down the pier towards the commotion.  Absently, she stuck the still wet and smelling of salt and oil mask into one of the big pockets on the edge of her jacket.