Day One

That first night was a restless one for most. Some children stayed up in fear of being without their parents and not knowing what to do with themselves, while others stayed up with the excitement of being alone and having the capability to live their lives the way they see fit without any adult influences or meddling.

When dawn broke, most of the kids were already up, restless from the night before and filled with anticipation for the day ahead, not knowing what the day would bring for them, but wanting to make the most of being in control of their own lives and decisions.

A small group of six walks the town streets quietly, splitting into two groups, they make their way to the town’s grocery and electronic stores, respectively. They had the idea late last night to grab a large reserve of food for themselves as well as any electronics they wanted to keep them entertained.

The group heading toward the grocery store consists of seventeen-year-old, Terra Black, fourteen-year-old, Jack Surrey, and twelve-year-old, Stephanie Patel; the group heading towards the electronic store consists of seventeen-year-old, Gabi Green, sixteen-year-old, Emmet Ray, and twelve-year-old Kim Bulio.

Terra is the leader of this little brigade, in school, she was known as a problem child, always fighting, stealing, and getting others to do her bidding, she is in every sense, a bully, who finds pleasure in inflicting pain and misery upon those who are weaker than her, Kim and Stephanie being the newest recruits into her little posse that she bosses around and torments.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Terra says, turning towards Jack and Stephanie “Jack, you go grab all the meat and starchy foods you can, Stephanie you’re on beverages and frozen foods, I’ll grab the snacks, booze, and cigarettes. We’ll hit the smoke shop afterward, Lord knows I’m not going to be sober for any of this bullshit.” She finishes, sending the two on their way and making her way to grab a shopping trolly before heading to the aisles where all the snacks were. Terra grabs a bunch of different things ranging from chips and popcorn to chocolates and sour candies before going to customer service to grab a few bottles of Jack Daniels, Cîroc, and Smirnoff vodka that was behind the counter with the cigarettes, to which she grabbed three cartons of Marlborough before heading back to the front of the store to wait for the other kids.

While waiting, Bernard comes in, looking for some milk and eggs, his mother usually did the shopping but with her vanishing, it was now left up to him. He stops for a second and glances at Terra, who gives him a once over before addressing him “The fuck are you looking at twerp.” Bernard, not being the confrontational type, starts nervously rambling.

“Uhm, nothing, I wasn’t looking at anything, I just need some stuff, I’m sorry, I’ll just be on my way.” He manages to get out with his eyes cast down to the ground while carefully moving around Terra to get through the entrance and to the aisle he needed. Terra, however, had other plans.

“Is that so, what makes you think you can just come and grab things, that is stealing you know, what would your parents say!” She sneered with a mischievous look on her face, knowing damn well, she was doing the same thing, which Bernard foolishly points out.

“But, like, are you not currently doing that right now?” he asks confused while pointing to the cart full of snacks, booze, and smokes.

Terra steps towards Bernard and growls “I’d watch the way you speak to me if I were you. You don’t know how long we’re going to be alone,” she threatened as Jack and Stephanie reappear with their trollies filled with their designated groceries. “I’d hate to see something happen to you simply because you have a big mouth.” She finishes inches away from Bernard’s face “Come on guys, we have shit to do” she addresses Jack and Stephanie before waltzing out of the grocery store, pushing her trolly full of goods.

Bernard watches as the three teens leave the store with three full trollies of food, he shakes his head and continues to the refrigerated section that contains the milk and eggs that he was seeking. ‘I should probably let Chris and Jocelyn know about those three… The last thing we want is to run out of food simply because we were too dumb to ration… As much as I hate to admit it, the girl was right, we don’t know how long we will be here alone, and with no shipments of fresh food from another large grocery retailer, we are bound to have shortages sooner rather than later, especially if we allow kids to come and grab whatever they please when they please. I’ll go to his place after I make myself some breakfast, better to make plans with a full stomach.’ He thought out loud to himself, not realizing that another person had entered the store and heard every word he said.

“Damn, do you think we will be alone long enough for something like that to happen?” A girl around Bernard’s age asks causing him to jump around to face her with a startled look on his face.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the living shit out of me!” he says while holding his chest and trying to get his heart rate to slow.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you or scare you, I just walked in to get some tea and heard you talking to yourself. What girl were you talking about? Was it the one with black hair that was leading the two others with carts full of groceries? Because that’s Terra, and if you were not able to tell, she’s an absolute bitch, always picking on people she finds to be ‘weak’” she says with quotation marks. “Oh, I’m Chloe by the way. What’s your name?” She finishes while giving him a kind smile.

“Uhm, I’m Bernard, and to be honest, I’m not sure, but considering that there are already people such as them,” he starts off pointing in the direction of the doors “looting, then the chances of us running out of food skyrockets; throw into the mix the fact that we are a bunch of children and teenagers who are left to their own devices for the first time in our lives, with no idea of when the adults will come back. The last thing people will be thinking of is rationing food.” He answers her first question before continuing “Oh, so, that’s Terra. I’ve heard of her; I just never actually met her face-to-face until today. A few of my friends have had run-ins with her, I tend to keep to myself with my head down, so I never had the pleasure, I can see why she’s so popular.” Bernard finishes sarcastically and Chloe laughs at his remark.

“HAHAHA, I know right?! Tell me you can also totally see her becoming prom queen, with that likable personality of hers” she says before becoming serious once more. “But yea, I guess your right about all of the foodstuff, do you think there’s anything we can do to ensure we have food until our parents come back?” She asks with hope in her eyes.

“Well, first and foremost, we will need someone to take inventory of everything in the store, after that, we will need to figure out how to ration the food so everyone can get an equal amount, and finally, we need a designated person to be able to manage and ration the food for everyone. The only thing that poses a problem is the duration we will be alone, since we don’t know how long that will be, it makes it very difficult to be able to ration the food, so even if we aren’t alone for that long, we will still need to find an alternate source of food and water, just in case of further looting or some other unforeseen disaster.” Says Bernard, as a matter of fact, and takes a closer look at Chloe. “You weren’t volunteering by chance, were you?” He ask’s, “Because if so, I was going to run the plan through the rest of my friends, you are welcome to tag along if you were interested. I feel like we’re all going to need to band together and work as a collective by the time whatever is happening is done. What do you think?” Bernard finishes with a grim look on his face.

“I mean, if you think that I’ll be able to add to your group and not hinder it, sure. I’ve been having this weird feeling since the storm that something big is about to happen.” She replies to him with a distant look in her eyes.

“You will, just talking to you has helped with brainstorming, so I doubt you’ll be a hindrance, and I know what you mean, everything seems, off… Like the town is the same, but it also seems different, like, there’s more going on underneath the surface of things that we just cannot see but can feel.” He says agreeing with her assessment. “Well, that’s something to figure out later I guess, let’s just head to Chris’ and figure out a game plan for food and water.” He finishes before grabbing the milk and eggs, then heading for the door with Chloe behind him clutching her herbal tea.

At the Roma residence, both Anita and Samantha stayed the night; Anita because she didn’t want to be all alone in her house, and Samantha because she, Cameron, and Killian were working on a method of communication for everyone to stay in contact with one another without cell service.

“I don’t know Sam, I still think that the Ham radio will work better in terms of long-distance communication,” Killian says with a hint of irritation in his voice.

“I’m not saying your wrong, Killi, what I’m getting at, is an easier mode of communication for most of the population, plus, we only have five Ham radios located throughout town, which means, others will need an alternative mode of communication. See what I’m getting at here.” Samantha counters, trying to get the six-year-old to see things from her point of view.

“Okay, yes, I do see your point, and I get it, I do, but two-way short-wave radios are extremely unreliable, first off, you need the weather to be on your side, so any cloud cover or rain means that they will be almost unusable, or at the very least so full of interference that anything being said would be incomprehensible; and secondly, the radius of it is very narrow, more often than not, you need to be able to see the person you are communicating with because the radio waves are unable to go through buildings or rocks or anything solid, making them useless unless we are in an open field with clear weather; you see what I’m getting at here.” He counters, rolling his eyes as if it were the simplest explanation on the planet.

Samantha looks at Cameron for assistance but is met with the shaking of Cam’s head. “Believe me, Sam, I learned a few years ago not to argue with the kid, he will always find a rebuttal and make you look like an idiotic child.” She says while handing Sam the consensus from yesterday and changing the subject.

“So, are you sure, we’re not wanting to go and find out how many students were left behind in the University, we might be able to recruit a few to help us in figuring out what the Hell is going on here, I can’t explain what it is, but I have this really weird feeling that knowing the age group of everyone left in town is somehow important; I also remember Richard saying that his sister is in University and that she had a high IQ, so I was hoping you may have changed your mind” Cameron explains as Sam looks carefully over the paper and considers Cam’s words.

“No, you’re right, it’s just, with being on the younger side of them all, I’m not really in the know; when I said that the students are cliquey, I meant it, they don’t like to associate with people who are not in the inner circle of the science community. I’m sure not everyone is like that but from what I’ve seen most are. That being said, I guess there’s no harm in just trying, the worst they can do is refuse to answer our questions and slam their dorm door in our faces, right?” Samantha shrugs handing the list back to Cameron.

“As fucked up as that is, I’m still feeling like it’s a necessity, again, I cannot explain it, it just feels like something that we need to do,” Cam says while getting up off the floor they were sitting on.

“Hey, I may be a genius but I’m still only six and still in the room! Watch your language around me, I’m impressionable.” Jokes, Killian as he gets up and leaves Cameron’s room for his own.

“I swear, that kid is going to be the death of me.” Jokes Cameron as Samantha rolls her eyes chuckling. The girls get their things together, let Jasmine and Anita know where they are going, and then head out to the university. The university is on the opposite side of town, making the walk around twenty minutes; the girls walk in silence to their destination, their friendship not needing a lot of words to show each other how they felt towards one another.

Once the girls got to the university Samantha took the lead; knowing where the dorms were located as well as being a student herself, they both agreed that she would do the talking and Cameron would be a kind smile taking down the information they were willing to give.

The HCSR consists of five separate wings; the science division wing, the research division wing, the technological division wing, the dorm wing, and finally the ominous classified wing; all of which had five levels and were connected through a huge information and security hub in the center of it all. The dorm wing was smack dab in the middle, of the other wings, so walking in, the girls only had to go straight, to the elevators, and up to the first floor where the first and second years stayed, they went door to door asking their questions, and to their surprise, most of the first and second years were willing to answer their questions.

They continued like this until they reached the fourth floor, which was filled with students in their final year, they were more apprehensive than the rest of the students, but the girls were still able to get a general idea of the age group within the university, which they were happy about.

“Well, that wasn’t half as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Cameron said as they walked outside into the now-setting sun and started heading back toward Cam’s

“Yea, they were surprisingly forthcoming. Which is out of character from my experience but helps us either way. So, the oldest one we found was twenty-five, and the youngest we cataloged yesterday was four. That gives us an age gap of twenty-one years between the oldest and the youngest.” Sam replied while looking up and down the streets at the small groups of children walking home after their first official day without any adults.

“Yeah, I wonder what the correlation between us all is…” Cameron says absent-mindedly