Faking Apocalypse (The Apocalyptic Games Book 1)

by Damien Steinfield

  “Caden is not who we should protect ourselves from here.” She explains, voice a little more than a mumble, rendering across the aureole of carping. “And besides I’m still not going out with him. I mean, we’ll probably get there, but as of now, we’re not on that level. So please, remain calm, you’re making a scene here.”

  “Good thing he’s becoming fond of her,” Andrew barges in.

  I look at him more confused than ever, “How so?”

  “Well, we could use some insider’s insight to this place. If she uses him proficiently, then he might turn into a good thing.”

  I sway my head in disbelief. I doubt Caden could be good of anything. Plus, I can’t stand him getting closer to Zoey.

  For once, I make up my mind to finish with my food and involve into other better things. Not that there are better things to do at the tower, but still… this Caden-Zoey conversation has made me more miffed than I was erstwhile.

  Everyone seems embraced to their own trays now that the conversation is over, until Avery rushes off from the entrance and into the empty chair that was saved for her.

  “Are you okay?” Zoey asks her.

  Avery put both her hands, supported on the table, on her head and seems as though she’s seen a ghost.

  “Avery,” I ask. “What’s wrong? You know you could tell us everything.”

  “I saw him…” she says and decides to stop stricken in terror by the thought of something we weren’t cognizant of.

  “Saw who?” Carter asks.

  “Cody.”

  “What? Where is he?” I ask, and a sweep of excitement clutches me entirely.

  “In the room where they pinch us with the quantity surveyor.”

  “And what did he say? Why isn’t he here?” something doesn’t quite add up on my mind, now while ruminating over it.

  “He didn’t say a thing. I talked to him, but then I hid, since I think one of the possemen saw me.”

  All our jaws drop altogether.

  “Guys, why would Cody be here and not come to us? We’re his only friends.” I try to make a resolution. They are all attentive. “I think there’s something more here, and I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”

  “Avery, are you sure you saw him?” Zoey asks her. Seemingly, she’s mulling over a different resolution from mine.

  “I wouldn’t be so that terrified if I didn’t.” Avery’s a little angry at the question.

  “I mean, it might have been just your imagination. Don’t get me wrong. It could’ve happened to anybody. We’re all locked up here and somehow we’re stressing out progressively. There’s only so much one could take at a time.”

  “Zoey, I’m not crazy, it wasn’t a hallucination. I saw Cody. It was him. Alive, but…”

  “But, what?” I clearly believe everything she says, or maybe it’s just a part of me that wishes so strongly for Cody to be safe and sound, so that I’m willing to believe anything as much impervious as it might be that anyone has to say.

  “It seemed like he was so crocked or something. Like, he couldn’t make out of his surroundings. I mean, when I called out for him, he didn’t even as much as turn his head around a bit. He ignored me, but Cody that I knew, wouldn’t’ve.”

  “There’s only one way to explain.”

  “What is it?” Zoey asks me.

  “Well, obviously they know about Cody, and until now there’s no official announcement of his return. I mean, they never even mentioned about his disappearing in the first place. I’ve got a very ominous feeling about this.”

  My resolution seems to have dragged them all into rumination.

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” Andrew gets up off his chair and leaves the eating house.

  6

  I keep rendering on my own suspicions about this place and any day forward it becomes more ingrained that it just represents all the unconvincingness that I’ve kind of pushed for. Zoey is becoming more and more close to the crew guy. And so, for Zoey and I, well we’ve become good… friends. I just can gain that confidence in where we stand, and be that as it may, that’s all of it I can gather, even though it doesn’t meet my expectations. I feel like it took me so long to finally get my guard down and there she becomes infatuated at one of the enemy. I’m just convinced his boyfriend (or whatever) is the bad guy. Or at least, one of the many.

  This is not the place that I think everybody will get the most out of. In the contrary, this is that kind of place, where you don’t know the least of the hidden secrets and intentions behind it. My ominous feeling about this agenda remains as such.

  Last day was when we got ourselves pinched by what is referred to as a quantity surveyor. Obviously, I couldn’t skip on that like I’ve done on a daily basis with the blue pill they have us into. I mean, when it comes to the pill, the rumbustious crowd gives you the space to hide away, but the pinching process is a total another thing. They have us come into this room where I first got pinched one by one and go under the same monotone process. I mean, if I refused to go under the twinge it would gather a lot of attention, which I can’t afford right now; I can’t have that much of attention upon me, not when I still haven’t yet realized the secretive agenda of this society.

  “Who are you hanging out with today?” I ask Brianne and take a seat on her table. Now that Zoey has got herself a boyfriend, I’ve got plenty more time to meet and greet with other people. And let’s be honest, Brianne is exceedingly nice. I like her red velvet hair and her gothic style, though I’m not really sure whether is it such, since she’s way more cinnamon-colored that the gothic style entails. Though, undeniably her straight hair color is the nicest. And it kinda makes her look like a character of a gothic anime movie.

  Adorable.

  “Oh, it was Colin, just a casual member or the tower like all of us.” She says.

  More like a ‘hostage,’ I want to say, but don’t, ‘cause I wouldn’t like to just scare the living daylights out of her, you know?

  “Hey, is everything alright with you?” I ask, since I could perceive a whining weird sound coming out of her mouth, though she’s careful enough to hide herself from me so that I couldn’t be sure of that.

  But I want to make sure.

  I touch her chin gently and realize that my suspicion proved right. Her eyes look crystalized, adopted by the tears that are still there refusing (or being forced; not that I know) to come out.

  “Brianne, what is wrong?” my hand sidles though her chin, voice more than a concern. I look at her compassionately. I didn’t realize that Brianne’s issues would get to me that much.

  She sniffles.

  I look at her straight in the eye and refuse to unlock the maintenance.

  “It’s just that,” she hesitates for a while, like she’s trying to weight her words, or whether she should share them. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. We’re been waddling around this building like hostages and none of us are given an explanation as to what the purpose of all this might be. I’m scared.”

  “Hey, I understand,” I say empathically, both hands stuffed upon hers.

  “You do?” she seems surprised, a glint of unexpectedness swaps the light on her eyes.

  “I’ve been holding the same suspicions for too long now. I mean, this place never screamed normal to me.”

  “I know, right?” she seems happy by that statement, which strikes me a little bizarrely, since lodging in a dubious place isn’t that kind of information to take delight on.

  Instantly, I notice on the other part of the room, crowded by a bunch of random people doing their own thing, Zoey and her found boyfriend are snuggling oh so endearingly, it makes me wanna puke. How could you become so fond of somebody in such short notice?

  Well, that comes off a little ironical, even to me, since in a secretive part I seem to have become so keen on her, even though it would never come out as such. I mean, I’m not ready for it to.

  Zoey’s eyes dispatches from her honey bunch (and I mean that in an ironical w
ay) for a moment, after he has been so busy on her neck, and now on her cheek, her nose… ugh, he doesn’t seem to get enough of her. But who could blame him at that? Zoey is that irresistible. Zoey takes a quick gander at me, or to be more precise, at my hands. Impulsively, I bundle my hands off Brianne’s and try to glance around causally like nothing ever so weird happened.

  So unenviable.

  “I’m scared Greyson.” She tells me. (What I’m thinking of is, how come somebody is so fond of a mane that might, after all, not even belong to them? I’m talking about myself, if you didn’t get that.) But I feel like my hands are tied up to comfort her so I just try to do it with my eyes and my complexion.

  To be honest, I’m just as scared as she is.

  And really, everybody on their darn right mind would be, being that we’re segregated in the middle of nowhere, with no idea about our whereabouts or about our density, with no trace to be found.

  I mean, these aren’t exactly the circumstances someone would take comfort on.

  After a while, as me and Brianne are standing there, soundlessly, (well, she’s now and then sniffling and trying to gather herself, while I’m watching her do it,) I take notice that Zoey is heading our way. She’s given the kiss goodbye to her crew lover and a rather delightful smirk waddles on her face as though she’s reached a quite effortful accomplishment.

  “Here,” she says as soon as she makes it on our table.

  “What is it?” I look at a wrinkled piece of paper with a bunch of lines ingrained.

  “It’s a map… of the tower.” She tells me and waits there like she’s expecting me to congratulate her or something. But after that couple seconds of her cottoned-up expectancy, she takes a brief look at Brianne and her complexion alters entirely.

  “Oh, don’t worry, she knows.” I hoist my head at her just an instant and then back at the paper.

  “She does? Did you tell her?” she seems angry at me, voice more than faultfinding.

  “She figured it herself. This place isn’t exactly what can confront oneself.”

  Zoey seems to comes to terms with it… eventually.

  “So, why did you get this?” I still haven’t realized her main purpose, but don’t get me wrong, I know that this kind of token can come in handy for a lot of reasons, when in intricacy.

  “Why do you have to be so requisite? Is this how you pay me off? A simple thank you would’ve been enough.”

  I ditch her stubbornness.

  “Why would he be so willing to give you this?” I ask. Out of all the things that I could think of regarding this map, his willingness is what buzzes me off the most. Gotta love my inquisitiveness!

  “He wasn’t.” she says so carefreely. I hoist my head upon her, eyebrow raised. “I ransacked it.”

  My eyebrow swells the highest it could get. Now, she’s a girl full of surprises.

  “You did what?” I ask.

  It's not like I wouldn’t expect something like this from her. She's not the kind of person that strikes me as playing-by-the-rules. Though I gotta admit, I didn’t see this coming. She’s becoming yet more and more interesting any more that I know her.

  “I figured we might scramble into it and find some tie-in that could toggle us to Cody’s disappearance and his questionable return.”

  “Who is Coby?” Brianne interferes.

  I look at Zoey, gap of silence in between.

  “When I told you she’d figured things herself, I didn’t mean that much of information.” I tell Zoey.

  “Oh,” she waffles for a moment and then rolls her eyes. “Whatever. She’s in the know now, which somehow makes her one of us.”

  “One of you?” Brianne asked whippily.

  “Cody was our friend, who got pixelated and withered away across the confines to the lawn.” I try to explain.

  “What lawn?” clearly, she hasn’t been anywhere else, but the indoors.

  “Our friend saw him a couple of days ago, being forgathered by the resurrection crew.” Zoey takes it from here.

  “Where’s your friend now?”

  “Oh, I think he might be at the golf club.”

  “There’s a golf club?” Brianne’s eyes sparkle like a kid in the candy store.

  Zoey rolled her eyes and ceased explaining. “Clearly, we should gather as much as we can from the map, until Caden notices.”

  “I mean, it’s not like we’re androids or something. How do you expect me to memorize all these lines? It’s not like something you can commit to memory, anyway. It’s just a bunch of lines scrambled altogether to a piece of paper.”

  “I can snapshot it, if that helps.” Brianne barges is excitedly, leaving us both speechless and in surprise.

  “We might wanna need a phone or a camera to do that, which, need I remind you, we came in here without any belongings alongside us.” Zoey explains as if Brianne wouldn’t know.

  “I’ve got a phone.” She says quite naturally as if it’s the most normal thing in the world which (now in the real world we belonged prior to now it’d’ve been normal but in these circumstances) it isn’t.

  “Where did you get a phone?” Zoey asks shocked.

  “I found it at the hodgepodge of stuff they had us select so we could cozy up and make the tower look like more of a home. Somebody must’ve slipped it off by mistake.”

  “That’s awesome, Brianne!” she congratulates her. “Where do you keep it snuggled?”

  “Well, it’s in my bedroom.”

  “Your bedroom?” her voice was less than a congratulatory now. “The one that you share with nineteen other girls?”

  “Well, that one. It isn’t like there’s much of a choice in here. In case you haven’t figured, we’re lodging in a resurrection tower, not in a high-class lounge.”

  “Would you have us look at it?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says.

  We leave our seats, map and all on hands, and get ready to pay a brief visit to Brianne’s conjoined bedroom upstairs. As we get the found tech device on our hands we look astonished at it. Ever since we got in the tower, we’re forbidden to keep private, important things, such as cellphones. It’s not like we’re literally forbidden, (it’s more of an unscriptural way,) though the fact that we don’t have a choice to keep in touch with tech-savvy devices and such, makes it hard to believe that they’re so willing on letting us relish on this latitude.

  We both look at Brianne caught in surprise. Who would’ve thought that the girl who wasn’t cognizant of the fact that the tower featured a lawn and a golf club, would be such a badass so as to sneak out handy dandy things such as a cellphone.

  “That’s awesome,” Zoey reposts as we look at it. It’s been a while since we were prevented tangibility with the coziness of vitality. Don’t get me wrong, this whole place was rather so virtual to us, though when it comes to technology, we find that world magical, which I couldn’t say the same when in regards to this conspiratory world.

  “That’s weird,” I add and frown at the device.

  Zoey looks at me like I’m unhinged or something.

  “How in the world would you look at a cellphone after almost a week, that I know, and look at it asquint. Dude, what’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s not the phone.” I try to ignore her looking at me like I’m a social outcast. “Look, there’s perfect signal to this phone. You could make calls and navigate the internet perfectly.”

  If she was looking at me before outlandishly as if I was a pariah, now she thinks of me as an encroacher, given by the way how whatever that looks is intensifies.

  “That’s what a cellphone’s supposed to do. Give you the freedom to make calls and surf the internet.”

  “That’s not what a phone’s supposed to do when the world is uninhabitable. They say there are radioactive and all sorts of nuclear elements that prevent keep a world to normal range. Now if that were true, we wouldn’t be having awesome signal and connectivity here.”

  Now she just frowns and her thinking
of me ever so bizarrely commingles, in which case, I’d like to have seen it vanquishing at once, but she’s so proud to do that. She doesn’t provide me that satisfaction.

  ~.~.~

  “Hey, careful. It’s my foot there.” She shouts at me, voice more than a mumble. We don’t wanna be too loud, unless we wanna get caught.

  “Are you sure this is the right direction?”

  “It’s not you holding the phone.” Zoey is still angry at me. It’s weird, ‘cause I find her being angry a turn on. Actually, everything Zoey does is an incitement that calls us inappropriate behaviors.

  “Okay.” I give up, I’d be raising my hands now if I weren’t supporting my whole body weight with them, while floundering on the limited tight space that the airing system of the tower has to offer. “Just checking in. Don’t wanna turn down to their inquisition room.”

  “Inquisition room?” she frowns at me. I can’t see her, being that I’m scuffling legs and hands from behind her, though I could imagine. “Where did you come up with that?”

  “I’m just saying, we don’t know for sure they have Cody in any of these rooms, and even if they did, we wouldn’t be sure which would be the one.”

  “I told you there was something leery to the end of the hallway in the main floor. They say it’s a restricted area. And just so we can be clear, we’re looking for anything restricted and imperscrutable right now.”

  We did have a really hard time getting up here, so it better be good for something. We had to climb up the wall, take off the spigot and bring ourselves in these miniature indoors hallways that felt nothing but uncomfortable.

  “Did you get the map back to your boyfriend?” I didn’t mean to (at least not this time) but ‘boyfriend’ comes off rather distastefully and ironically. I hope she doesn’t notice. Like, duh. Sure she’d notice. It’s impossible not to. But at least I hope she’d ignore it. Which in the circumstances that we’re lodging in to, chances are she will.

  “I did but I don’t want to talk of it.”