Acceleratedly, Brianne makes an appearance leaving all us tight-lipped being that it was a private encounter we were having. But Brianne’s part of the posse. Somehow. I guess.
“Guys, remember my friend Colin?” she tips her chin excitedly at the guy in front of her.
They all look strangely at each other having no clue why she would bring a strange young man into our bedroom and expect them to be cognized of him.
“I do.” I say. I have vague recollection of some moment she’d talked about him for a couple of minutes in a raw making me really bored as to why I would wanna hear anything about a guy I had no clue about his existence. But she looks excited about him. So I decide to take a shine to Colin too. And soon I realize that this is a strange impact that red velvet hair girl has upon me. I guess I like her hair color so much I decide to like anyone she’d dragged through to our rally, who she decides to be keen on.
“Cool.” She keeps up joyously. “’Cause I’ve got awesome news. The confines don’t keep apart these two worlds.” She frowns at some thought on her head. “Hmm, what I mean is they do. But not how we were told to anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“He waddled across the other part.” She says crawlingly, her nose wrinkles, shoulders shrug. Adorable!
“So what?” Zoey butts in. She’s so miffed at this Brianne girl, which I don’t understand. Brianne is nothing but a sweetheart.
“So… He’s alive.” Brianne says. Like, duh. Isn’t his presence just enough.
Oh, boy.
Zoey looks way more miffed than before. She hates it when she’s being faultfound. I have scrutinized that during our little time here at the Eatonii. And boy do I avoid getting her angry.
I mean, sometimes it’s fun getting her get angry at you. I mean, she’s so cute when she’s angry. Don’t get me wrong. I do not like angry people. Despise, would have been the word which decently describes it. Though, when it comes to Zoey, she’s so hot and swaggering for the anger to properly materialize into her. So instead of looking miffed, she just looks… cockeyed. But in a cuddlesome way of course.
“As it turns out,” Brianne dispatches me from my contemplation, “Colin remembers exactly the very spot where he decided to accidentally cross the lines.”
“How do you decide to accidentally do something?” Now Zoey looked confused. We all were.
“Well, he was bored, guys, and perplexed. Needless to say, you might wanna do something to get the suspicion out of the way. You of all the people should know.” She tells me and Zoey, clearly minding our little trip field to the ventilating system. “Sometimes it takes mettlesome people to get enough courage up and do things we all kinda wish we did, in order to vanquish the curiosity.”
“You know what they say.” Zoey likes butting in to whatever Brianne has to say. They probably got off on the wrong foot. “About the cat.” She clarifies.
“Well, it didn’t apply to this case. To our luck. Now we can just follow the path that he will show us and get ourselves out of this place as soon as possible.”
“But it will be risky.” I say. Sure, we haven’t tested his ability to recollection. If we step foot to even an inch further from the correct coordinates, we might get ourselves pixelated and vanquished in spur of moment. The thought of Cody exhausts me entirely.
“Nobody said it wouldn’t. But being here is way more dangerous than taking the gauntlet and kiss this place goodbye.”
We keep having that conversation regarding our further stance at this place and needless to say it renders rather inconveniently. Meanwhile, I’m just taking into account the fact that, unlike all the others, my memory hasn’t improved a smidge. What is wrong with me, I wonder. It would have to take way more than chasing secrets and getting on with suspicions to have my whole precious recollection back. ‘Cause that wouldn’t do, just as it is. I mean I don’t know they are really precious for sure; I might have had terrible perspective I don’t wanna bear upon with anymore. But anyhow, precious as in it’s my own thing, I’m entitled to it. And weirdly, we, humans are bizarrely inclined to be fond of own tokens. At least, when we don’t have them anymore. And boy do I not have my memories anymore.
It’s just so sad.
8
I haven’t proved to be bigoted when it comes to friendship as far as I know. And let’s just say my area of acknowledgement includes just these last couple of weeks I have spent at the Eatonii. But as far as Zoey is concerned, I mean, I really, pleasantly would like to be bigoted towards. It’s just that she, up to date, hasn’t allowed this option to be active. She has been all concerned with her boyfriend and all the guys trying to check out on her. And I haven’t got the time (or the guts; really, it’s more of a matter of guts, though it’s so unpleasant for me to admit) to get at her the way I would’ve wanted to.
The main issue remains our escape plan, which we haven’t still progressed to the way we might’ve wished, accordingly. At this point, we have found the spot where none of us could get vanquished or pixilated. It was hard to believe at first, but when Zoey decided to put her life in danger and take the risk to cross the line, since none of us was able to, we know for sure now, there’s one particular link that we can transpass and get out there to the world we were being told it’s inhabitable anymore.
“I can’t take this anymore,” Zoey had told us. “You’re driving me nuts, staying there and huckstering of its availability, and ultimately all you do is pussy out.” And in spur of moment she had brought herself to the other part.
My heart had raised in panic. I had almost jumped out of my own skin in terror. Until me senses were clear she was safe and sound there and smiley (don’t forget smiley!) giving us the signification that we had found ourselves a way to escape.
It was awesome.
And terrifying.
We didn’t know what to expect out there.
But anyway, whatever the world had to show to us (or surprise us for that matter) I was sure it might be way better than whatever they had us holed up here for. I remember clear as crystal what happened to my best mate Cody. And I’m still horrified by it. My hands still shake at the thought of what I’ve seen happening to that booth.
(It’s strange though that I consider Cody my best friend, since we had like, what, a couple of days hanging out with each other? Point is, I felt closer to Cody than I did to any of the other guys at the tower, which was unfortunate since he wasn’t there anymore and I had to make myself another best mate. Ugh. I hate it—the feeling of peeking under pressure. I had a feeling I didn’t like it. ‘Cause, see, I had a lot of tinctures that linked me to my past, though nothing clear and perceivable at that.)
This was the moment we took on with our plan, that at this point I gotta admit wasn’t as much well-designated as I might’ve wanted it to be, but being that there wasn’t really much that attached us metaphysically and empirically to this place, we didn’t actually give it a second thought. Our eyes were on the price. And the world was our price. A price that might come along with a lot of risks and unexpectedness, we were aware of that. But we were just so desperate and wanted to get it over with as soon as we could. Brianne had convinced all of us, Zoey included, to admit her friend, Colin, to join our trip. I was okay with this. Andrew, Carter and Harvey didn’t have a problem with it, too. But when it comes to Zoey; she had to make a scene and show the real pain in the ass that she likes oh so much to come off like. She rejected for more than two hours his enrollment, with the excuse he might tell us off. Brianne had kept repeating he was to be trusted, so much as it became a little buzzing. Maybe her being repellant was even the reason why Zoey decided to give in and let Colin join us.
Colin was a decent guy. Which only proved to how obnoxious and egotistic Zoey really was. Even she, later, seemed to have become so fond of the guy. I spotted them having a fifty-six minutes-cozy chit-chat at the coffeehouse. Not that I was counting.
“What’s up with that long face of yours?” Zoey asked Brian
ne when she joined our coffee klatch at what seemed to have officially become our spot at the café; the first table adjacent the entrance where a great display of the lawn was provided. It was calmative and it made us dream of the world out there. The free world. The real world which we had no idea whether it was non-radioactive or not, but yet still rendered to have a glimpse of hope that we wouldn’t suffocate ourselves with the first step that we took outdoors.
I mean, now that we had the coordinates to the way that linked the Eatonii to the other part, we were sure something that we weren’t told about took place into the foreign land that separated the one we were currently lodging in, otherwise why build themselves a link to a toxic, suffocating earth? We had strong suspicions that we took on. Our trip wasn’t that crazy after all.
“I don’t know how to tell you this so I’m just gonna say it.” Brianne looked so desperate as though her whole world had crushed in spur of moment. Zoey and I looked at her expectantly. “Colin spread the news.”
“To the crew?” I asked shocked.
“No, to the others.” She clarifies. “All of them.”
“Why would you be horrified by that? That’s not that bad. Actually, come to think of it, I lean on this would be a smart idea.”
“How is this a smart idea?” Zoey looks at me like I’m deranged. She likes to do that: giving to others the sensation that there might be ninety-nine problems with their reasonability and that she’s the one over the top person on the right might over the place.
“I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt.” I explain. “We need as much people as possible with us.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because.” I emphasize. “They’re just as innocent in all this as we are. They have no clue what is about to happen to them, and don’t know whether the world is really unlivable.”
“I didn’t know even you could be so unhinged. The more people know about our secretive agenda, the higher the chances for the crew to get a hint at it.”
I have to admit, I wouldn’t blame her resolution on that. But still, it feels so wrong to me, knowing that there’s something conspirational in this tower and still leave the rest of us behind. It only doesn’t seem fair.
“We gotta go!” Zoey barges in after a moment of contemplation, having fixed her eyes at someplace unidentified in the air.
“What do you mean?” I clearly do not seem to follow. She has to be more specific. My feelings are on something crazy. She loves bringing crazy things along. And chances are she’s still doing that.
“We need to take off with our plan right away. We don’t have to take that risk and let the crew be cognizant of our agenda and lock us up here once and for all. I’m even gonna follow through by myself if none of you has the guts to join.”
“Are you crazy?” I almost howl at her. She clearly is! “We’re still not there yet. We need more preparation and we have to scramble through thoroughly at the map Colin has ransacked.” ‘Cause, yeah, it turned out Colin was a heck of a thief, and he had managed to glide away some bizarre map, which didn’t represent something conceivable or relevant. It clearly didn’t cover up the Eatonii propriety. It looked like more of a geographical map. Which you would expect to show up the world’s geographics and territorial state, but NOPE, what these region confines represented looked nothing like the world we know of. And that’s why it was appropriate for us to take a better look at it and why not, have a scrutiny and come to a realization. “With that much people knowing, the chances are the possemen would snoop out or hear something any moment. And boy would that put us in so much trouble! This place is trouble as it is. Do we really need more of it to indulge ourselves into?” she proceeds.
I have to say, at some point she sounds pretty convincing. Though I’m so scared, which is embarrassing ‘casue I’m a guy and stereotypically it’d have been the other way around. I should have been the one to take that call.
But not when Zoey is around.
She likes to be so high and mighty.
“Okay,” I say… unconvinced. Now don’t get me wrong. I didn’t accept because Zoey’s resolution was so good it had me at the first glint (though admittedly it was fair enough) and that I was so scared the crew would come to find out and ruin everything, but because I felt that if Zoey felt and I was here alone (even if the other part of the posse was with me, I’d still feel alone) I’d be freaked out and horrified by the fact she was out there facing God knows what the earth had come to. I felt like Zoey was my shelter. With Zoey it always felt like home.
I still seemed to frown whenever I thought of that thought, ‘cause, seriously, how could you be so fond and homely to someone you’ve known for less than two weeks?
“We have to tell the others. Spread the news.” I say, which even to me sounded a little strange, let alone Zoey, who was frowning and giving me the once over. “I mean, let the posse know that we’re ready.”
“Brianne, you tell Colin and Andrew. Greyson, you find Harvey and Carter. I think they’re in the coffeehouse on a date or something.” She shrugs.
“One a date?” I scowl at the idea. Carter never mentioned he had a crush on Harvey. But then I realize that’s not even the point where I should focus on. “What about you?” I shook the previous thought and tried to get a view to whatever plan she had come to.
“I’ll gather the survival backpack. You take care of the rest. I’ll meet you at the freeway.”
“Roger that.” Brianne seems to be the first to hit the hills and go find our friends. While I look at Zoey for a couple of seconds, undecided, and after it’s been long enough for her to frown at me, I realize it’s about time I took on with my duty.
9
“Dude, I was almost getting at her, only a smidge away from it and there you go, showing up all nonchalantly and smashing everything.” Carter mumbles at me as we’re running through the crowd on the hallways.
“The only thing you’re getting at right now is my nerves.” I tell him, since he’s all encumbered and crooked into telling me how it was my fault for destroying his date.
Harvey on the other side pretends to not hear a thing we’re saying, which is impossible, since all the three of us are stressed enough and concentrated as much as to hear each other breathing, heavily and panic-stricken.
I make out casual conversations of the people around us while passing by. “Dude, is this place really untrustworthy? Is all this a conspiracy?” I hear a guy asking his mate nearby the indoors bonsai tree at the corner. “Is it really the end of the world? So much sturdiness for an apocalypse!” another blonde girl mentions through the crowd.
I try to block it. I know if I hear any more of it, I would wanna tell the truth to everybody, get them coming with us and I know this is all a bad idea. Instead of helping, what it’ll do is bring up a rowdyism, that would drench us all in altogether.
We find Zoey and the others to the passing way where she told me to meet her.
“What took you so long?” she scowls, voice faultfinding. Even with this much of excitement that taking up with savage agenda brings along, Zoey still manages to be her true self, that is an annoying or frustrating plague.
“You got all we need?” I ditch her question.
She doesn’t answer me. She’s pissed enough to not wanna say as much as another world to me for the rest of her life, but I let her cool down. I didn’t know patience was an element I featured. I was so sure that I was so bad at when it came to being patent. Seemingly it didn’t apply to when Zoey was around.
I look at the backpack plucked at her shoulders and get the answer I was looking for.
For a moment, we look together at the line that separates the Eatonii form the world and hesitate to pass through.
“I’ll go first,” Colin is the one to break the silence. After all, he’s experienced and all when it comes to crossing the lines, I mean that in a literal way.
Zoey goes after him. So does Andrew and Harvey, Carter and me at the end. That jus
t explains how undecided I was about this whole thing. But staying, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been any better. And that’s the thought that somehow I take comfort on.
I sigh and look enchanted at what the world out there has to offer. It’s all green. Gargantuan trees swathes all around. I can hear birds chirping.
So much for a radioactive world!!!
We have taken care of everything that might come in handy during our field trip. Essential items in a surviving kit 101: first and foremost, you are going to need a knife. This is the most important item to a surviving trip, because of the uses that incorporates. You can use it to cut ropes, bandages and packages, but also to create fire starters. The second thing you are going to need is cellphones, in which case we don’t have any so I’ll skip over. You are going to need flashlights, MRE’s, a compass or many, why not (but we only have one anyway,) sleeping bag, duct tapes, maps (we have one that we can’t decipher; ughhh, so frustrating!) crowbar, tinder, gloves, Bible, binoculars, scissors, hard candies, lantern and energy bars. That’s all we could find at the tower and thought might be useful during our survival journey.
But up until now, it all seems so peaceful and… normal.
“What do we do now?” Carter breaks the silence.
“We’re free.” Zoey looks around, amazed. “We can do whatever we want.”
“I don’t see much of a choice here. What could we do anyway? Build a wild house? Find a fruitful tree? Pee over a bush?”
“Shut up, Carter.” She says annoyed.
Faking Apocalypse (The Apocalyptic Games Book 1) Page 7
