A catnap was exactly what my body needed. My eyes opened and my vision had to adjust to the bright sunlight pouring into the room from the sliding glass door.
A cool and damp wash rag lied across my forehead.
Across the room Harry was playing back voicemails on my home phone. It wasn't very polite of him to do so. I felt like my privacy was invaded. I removed the rag off my head, placed it on the coffee table and sat myself up on the sofa.
"What're you--" I began to ask Harry.
"You're going to want to hear this..." He interrupted my question.
His tone was very disconcerting and I wasn't sure how comfortable I felt approaching his side. I took my time getting to the answering machine. I watched Harry's finger hit the playback button.
"Tayrn, sweetheart? It's mommy."
"Mom...?" I said and I could hear the sadness in my voice as it shook.
"Are you there? ... God, help her... We tried to call the hospital, but nobody picked up!"
There was nonstop interference coming through, several voices could be heard in the background, and occasionally my mother paused to speak to someone else with her. Her eager tone of voice was unbearably nerve wracking.
"Honey, if you get this, please hurry home. They're going to take us somewhere safe, okay?"
The voicemail ended there.
Harry let the next voicemail play out. The next one was received twenty minutes after the previous one.
"Tayrn...!"
My mom sounded like she was in tears.
"Please pick up! They're not willing to wait any longer!"
An unfamiliar male voice came through, he was asking my mother to get off the phone.
"No, you don't understand!"
She cried.
"It's my daughter--"
The voicemail cut off.
It was unclear to me what was going on during the time. There was too much interference, and no leads to go by. In the moment, due to not fully understanding or getting any hints to find her, I had clenched my fist in frustration and began choking on tears. I had once again felt hopeless. Until Harry shed some light onto the situation.
"They're alive, you know..." He said very softly to me. Hearing those words, my head perked up and I turned to him.
"They are!?"
"They're not here though..."
"What...?"
Harry went on explaining, "That safe place she's talking about, it's a bunker or shelter in Washington DC."
"How did you--"
He interrupted me once more, "Back when the epidemic started, everyone in the states received an emergency broadcast that the U.S. military was gathering survivors and taking them there. Anyone, us for example, who happened to miss the only transportation, or if they reached max capacity, was left behind..."
That was far too gruesome to digest. Innocent people being left behind were forced to either survive or die trying. All because it wasn't worth making two trips and risking anymore lives to save more people, or to save humanity. Now that I had thought about it Harry stated he missed the only chance for transportation. I was curious as to how and why that was the case. Though I felt asking might be unnecessary.
"You want to go there, don't you...?" Harry asked me.
Although I spoke no words, I was pleading with my eyes that he would help take me there. After making eye contact with me he sighed and held his gaze for a few brief seconds. He was hesitant, but he agreed, and he helped me pack supplies from my apartment before we set back out to meet up with Niall once again.