𝑮𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 | 𝑹𝑶𝑻𝑾

𝖤𝖬𝖯

* Swearing Warning *
 

The five had at last reached the entrance of the camp.A podium which had the statue of a bear on it had been knocked over, and the camp looked like two tornadoes had just had a scrap in.They ran inside and below the wooden sign that said Rim Of The World and looked around, seeing nothing but messed up camp supplies, tables and dust.

  "Where is everybody?" Dariush asked after Alex's chorus of 'Hello?'s.

  "Obviously not here, dingbat." Piper said and waved her arms around like a maniac to support her statement. "Oh wait look!"

  Piper pointed at a wooden sign which had thick and dripping red spray paint on it, resembling a message left by the camp counsellors before they left.Piper mimed the words with her mouth while reading it, a habit she got from her mother.

  "Gone down mountain - Stragglers call 911. Well, that's pathetic.How do we do that when no-fucking-thing works?!" Piper exclaimed, feeling annoyed yet stressed at the fact that Counsellors told them to call 911 when they can't call anyone.

  If everybody got that signal, everybody in there area, then everybody must've evacuated.Meaning, if the group tried to call someone, they'd be ringing a phone nobody will answer.

  "No, they- they left us!" Dariush said as Piper began to kick the sign repeatedly with occasional mumbles of inaudible words probably curses to express her annoyance.

  Piper decided to calm down, knowing that it wouldn't benefit them in this crappy situation of theirs.

  "Not all of them. Look!" Gabriel said and pointed towards a table where a knocked out man was laying down, a flask near his head.

  "It's Heavy Metal Conrad!" Dariush stated, ZhenZhen, Alex and Piper nodding in agreement as they recognised the man before.

  Conrad was an alchoholic asshole who was basically only here for the hot female counsellers and the money.He always walked around and acted as if he was either high, drunk or about to pass out.Heavy Metal was a random nickname Original camp kids called him and he just got used to it.

  "Is he dead?!" Dariush said which made Piper giggle with amusement, showing off her pearly white teeth as she placed her middle and forefinger together and pressed them to Conrad's neck to check the pulse.

  "Nah, just heavily stoned." Piper said while looking at his neck in disgust and then looking at her finger with the same expression.

  "He must've slept through the evacuation." Gabriel said as Dariush furrowed his brows, questioning if Conrad needs some brain transplant or something.

  "Ok, what kinda asshole sleeps through an evacuation?!Wake him up!"

   "Ooh, what's that?" Piper said and wiped her finger with her shirt and grabbed a white, small flask labelled Milk and took a swig of it, passing it to ZhenZhen who did the same and chucked it behind her to the dead grass.

  They both wiped their mouths with their sleeves and looked unaffected, not minding whatever was in there due to the fact that they were thirsty as hell.

  "I- I don't think that was milk.."

~ ~ ~

   "Line's dead," Gabriel said after repeatedly tapping the phone button to see if anyone would pick up.

  Piper flicked the light switch again and again at a rapid speed, the gears in ber mind turning as she thought of an answer to this equation, walking over to ZhenZhen to help her pack her bag with things they may need.

  "It's 'cause the power's out...you know what an EMP is?" Alex asked the group and Piper slowly caught on to what the red-head was asking while placing a flare gun inside the H ZhenZhen had on her.

  "Yeah, yeah, that's the music White people dance to." Piper glared daggers at the back of his head and answered Alex's question again.

  "That's EDM, asshole.It's an Electro Magnetic Pulse." corrected Piper as she finished helping ZhenZhen and walked to stand beside Gabriel, nibbling on her lower lip in concentration.

  "A nuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere can cause one, and it knocks out most electronics over a really big area." Alex explained and Piper widened her eyes in realisation at what Alex was implying.

  "Those explosions, the ones that caused the EMP, they couldn't of happened on accident.Someone, or something, had to have set it off." Piper said, finally getting serious.No witty remarks, no sarcastic swearing, just pure logic.

  "Wait, wait, wait, that EM- whatever, what does that mean?" Dariush asked and they all looked at him quizzically, the red-head had just explained it.

"It means nothing works," Piper voiced out to somewhat satisfy Dariush's confusion.

"Well, you guys have a food and a roof over your head.You could do a lot worse than just staying here and waiting this out." Gabriel implied and Piper nodded, sitting ontop of one of the Mess Hall tables and fiddled with her fingers.

"Wait, waiting what out?"