Sean - The Gamer

It had been shaping up to be such a good morning too.

He'd woken up and handled morning business, which along with answering nature's call included initiating the next stage of internet comedy that he'd taken such a liking to these past few years... It was amidst possibly immature laughter that all hell broke loose, the ground shook, people were screaming and freaking out, and as it got worse he swore he could hear someone shouting about the end of days and repentance.

The next thing he knew was that the RV was suddenly on it's side and he was plastered against a window under his mattress as things just got louder, then gravity reversed and things seemed to float for a short while, long enough to get a look out the windows just before gravity returned and everything went black!

__________________

'Ugh... Everything hurts'

Slowly he began to wake again, with a thought that perfectly described his current predicament. "alright, lets take stock." Sure it might be weird to lay there talking to himself, but in a way he considered talking to himself to be a confirmation that he was okay enough to speak. "headache, back ache, crotch ache. everything aches, but everything also feels like it's still intact." Standard procedure that he just invented his head after slamming into the ground in a falling RV was to start wiggling various things to see if it still functioned, and after a few seconds of getting far enough to imitate a seizure he finally started pushing back up against the mattress on-top of him when he felt something and paused "... Okay... no, y-yeah... yeah, no, I'm gonna pretend I didn't notice that, next step!" He gave a shove and rolled the thing off of him to get a look around finally "Okay, So, I'm on the ceiling, that is definitely a thing that is happening."

Indeed, it appeared that the support for his bed was above him, still firmly attached to the 'floor' that was also above him. Scattered around were bits of glass and broken electronics "How did I not get-oh wait I see." It turned out that being slammed into the ceiling with the loose mattress on him had protected him from being showered in glass and sharp computer pieces, even if it involved making out with the metal roof. Luckily, the case holding his collection of dangerous sharp objects had survived, thank you plexiglass. "Welp, there goes my desktop. Good thing I didn't have that ceiling fan installed. soooo, where-" one glance out the upside down window told him everything "It was caught by tree's?... oh god I'm up in the air, I hate climbing."

...

Welp, that's enough staring at things like a dumbass, nothing was going to get done that way "Let see what I can find that's still functioning and then get the hell out of this death-trap before it inevitably falls the rest of the way to the ground." It would be fairly accurate to say he was running on auto-pilot and allowing for minimal mental distractions, sort of a defense mechanism to stave off the inevitable freaking out once he remembers that he basically just watched and survived the world ending... SO!

*Time/word saving slow and careful equipping montage that included putting on some actual pants, rough weather gear, and preplanned camping equipment set*

Once he was done up like some kind of geek-lord tourist who thought he looked cool in the 'fancy forest gear' it was about time to get his bearings, though there wasn't much visible but the slightly tinted sky and the view of a river nearby. The RV was surprisingly stable with whatever was holding it up, but he wasn't keen on testing his luck by trying to get the best angle, so with everything he considered essential to his survival, or that he wasn't willing to discard such as what portable electronics survived the landing, he surmised that just getting out was liable to be his best bet at the moment, and also that lingering with nothing to busy himself meant more time to end up thinking about things that might make him panic.

Of course, that was easier said than done.

A glance out through the door's window gave a better hint of how high up he was, and it didn't seem interested in opening easily "Great, that means there's pressure on it. I don't even know if that's how this works, but I'm not going to go kicking it open and risk that being the straw that broke the RV and me with it." so instead he went for the roof hatch, which opened fairly easily instead "Thank god for that." Right to the view of nearly 50 foot drop "Gyuhuh. Fucking... Heights. alrightalright, lets see what I have to work with." Stuck in one of few situations that would make him face his loathing of fatal heights, that being trapped in a big metal box that he had no idea the lasting stability of, he did his best to peek out of the hatch first to make a plan for how to get down. "H'okay, there's tree's all around this thing... that one looks close enough. First though."

The hatch wasn't big enough to come out with his camping pack, so after removing a small camping hatch he had to let it take the fall on it's own, most of it wasn't fragile enough to lose to a Fifty foot fall at least, though as he always did he kept the more sensitive stuff in a separate pack, much smaller, and quickly slung over his back. "Welp. Forward unto the breach and all that silly stuff... who came up with that one again?" He took a few moments to steel himself, hatched in one hand and the other white-knuckling the edge of the hatch "God I hope I remember to let go." and-

"SHIIIIIIIIIT-GYUH!" He dropped through, using his grip to cause as much swing as he could in one go before letting go, and subsequently dropping almost Ten feet before the other hand swung out, catching the under-side of the hatchet's head on a branch, causing his shifted momentum to slam him into the pine and instantly latching on with every limb he had like his life depended on it, and it probably did. "Ugh, I can see the ants allover it... Just get moving." Easier said than done, he spent several moments perfectly locked up and calming his furiously beating heart while doing his best not to hyperventilate... Then slowly extricated the hatchet from it's position dug into the one branch before letting it drop to the forest floor, and setting about slowly loosening his grip until he started sliding down at a sufficiently not heart-pumping pace to get to other branches.

"Man, I'm going to have to thank someone for making pants like these, all that and no splinters in my legs!" There was some sap and lots of pine-needles, but once against the toughness of boy-scout pants was proven. Of course that was a silly thing to stop and admire!

"Right, back on track!" He quickly collected the hatch and his camping pack, shifting the smaller bag to cling to the under-side of the pack, and took a quick glance up at the RV "I can't be the only one that happened to. I'm going to have to watch for stuff falling out of trees... and apparently cracks in the ground." Indeed, while the initial cracks had sprung lava from the massive caldera beneath yellowstone, they had quickly cooled after the 'blast', but now there were countless voids in the terrain that had cracked up and been fused back together. With the green tint in the air it almost looked like a totally alien world from here.

He quickly shook his head "Stop that, think more when you're not in the open waiting for something, or someone, to fuck you up Now then, map." He started a very sedate walking pace towards the river he'd spotted as he slipped his Phone out and pulled up... "And Error screen? No satellite or internet then? Back up plan." He pulled up the downloaded map instead, paper was nice and all, but he liked to be able to edit it a little "okay, I 'was' parked near the Roosevelt lodges... I really hope this is the river that leads there." He went to fish out a small compass from his pack, only- "Oh you're kidding me." It didn't seem to want to behave so he put it back and glanced up to the sun, then to his phone again "Okay, I know I no hiking master, but I'm pretty sure the sun isn't supposed to be near the mountains at 'noon'. Man, the swiss are gonna have a heart-attack, someone fucked up time calculation."

It seemed there was nothing for it but luck and chance now! As soon as he neared the river he just pulled out a coin and flipped it "Tails... Go right." So he fished out a butterscotch from a side-pocket and popped it in, slipped on some sunglasses that were very quietly playing some distracting tunes, checked the rather hefty revolver hidden inside his jacket and the machete on his belt, then set out on his way, hoping to all kinds of things that this wasn't one of the few river's that 'didn't' lead back to civilization of some kind. The map was his only source of getting his bearings and he needed to find something he could call familiar in order to make use of that... Oh, and also so he could get the crisis out of his system and do something other than numbly wander along towards a vague goal.

Darla Ann

I had only been at Yellow Stone for about a week. I was suppose to be staying with the park rangers in their housing, but my room was undergoing renovations. So, for the time being, I was living half-in and half-out of a suitcase at Roosevelt Lodge. Not that I spent very much time there. This first week had all been about exploring the park and its facilities so I could get comfortable with the territory. I was on a year-long program to explore geothermal energy possibilities as a part of my PhD work. Besides getting to live with the moose and bears I so greatly admired, I also was finally going to learn what actual seasons were like! Growing up in the South had kind of created a confusion about what Winter was actually like.

This morning had started like any other. Backpack in tow, I had joined my guide for the day on the golf cart we used for short trips. We were only headed to Floating Island Lake. However, our trip was quickly interrupted. As I went to take a bite of the apple I had snagged from the lodge, the ground beneath us began to shake. A crack formed in the road, and our cart was thrown through the air.

Several hours later, I awoke to a dream world. Everything was green, including me. Well, green minus the dark red plastering my hair to my face. I knew it was dark red because when I raised my hand to my throbbing scull, dried flakes of blood came away with my fingers. "What the fuck..." I then remembered my companion and the cart and the crash. I had lost one of my contact lenses in the chaos, so I quickly pulled the other out with dirty hands and pulled my glasses from my backpack. Luckily I had spent that extra $30 on the shock resistant case, and my backpack had managed to stay attached to me. Once again able to see, I looked around. Ten feet away was the cart, still stuck in the huge crack. In the cart was the driver... dead. "I'm so sorry."

Too shocked to do much else, I took off down the road towards what I hoped was the lodge. The road was relatively intact, but the same could not be said for the buildings at the lodge compound. Bodies, bricks, large wood timbers were strewn everywhere. Not really thinking, I stopped at a maintenance worker to see if he was still alive. Finding no pulse, I took his keys from his belt, vaguely realizing that they might prove useful. The lodge itself was split clean down the middle. I wandered through the opening in the wall and towards where my room had been. I even unlocked the door once I had reached it, despite the large hole leading into the bathroom.

Then the panic hit me. "Crap... Crap crap crap... No. I... I need to grab everything I can! But not too much. Right? Because I'll be walking and you can't really take everything with you to the grave!" Desperate laughter escaped my lips as I threw whatever clothes I could find scattered across the room into my carry-on suitcase. I grabbed anything within reach. Paints with no brushes, my laptop but no charger... Random crap. And then I saw it, or at least its box, sitting in a pile of towels. The porcelain moose made by a local artist. I had bought it for Bobby Keith... It had been so long since I had seen him last. I blocked the thought that he might not be able to wonder where I was now. I threw the moose into my bag. Luckily I was very anal about packing up my toiletries each morning, so I quickly added them to the poorly packed bag. Last of all was to find my bear. Beary was my constant companion and the only way I could sleep at night. But where was he? "Beary! Where are you?" I began to cry as I shifted through the rubble in the room. I then noticed the crack in the wall leading to the next room. Hopeful, I looked through. There he was, resting on the bed, looking like he was a sleeping cub. I scooped him up through gasping, happy tears and placed him gently inside of the suitcase.

As packed as I could get without breaking down entirely, I left the lodge and began to head southeast in hopes of finding someone at the Tower Falls campsite.

Name: Pierre Athene
Location: "Yellow Stone Expansion" Charitable Event, Roosevelt Lodge

"...terror must be broken by righteous terror; the Marxist radicals must be met on the street by overwhelming force. Piers I am talking full blown counter-revolution; the red needs to be beat out of these cretins...."

Pierre was brought back to reality by the rambling of an almost comedically gigantic man in a tight fitting, off color suit adorned with a plethora of war medals; this man was former Three-star Lieutenant General turned paramilitary radio host Hector Williams who was only worth a meager $180 million USD and technically did not meet the wealth requirements to attend this philanthropic event, but this man and his paramilitary organization D.A.M. (Defense Against Marxism) with its membership ranging in the millions were useful politically speaking...many would be revolutionaries met their end in bloody street wars instigated by D.A.M. and this group was providing security at today's outing; though those doing the actual security were in peak physical condition and touting high-powered weapons. Hector was also a close acquaintance of Pierre's...a privilege few shared and perhaps Hector considered them friends, but Pierre's tolerance for the giant was strictly restricted to his usefulness as a political tool and as a confidante; thusly Hector is the only person Pierre begrudgingly allows to address him with that reviled nickname.

Speaking of Hector, the spam dump by whomever managed to ritualistically hack into his phone featured the military man prominently in today's morning video; set to an especially annoying variation of a Rick Astley tune the video insinuated that Hector and Pierre were clandestine homosexual lovers and featured the pair poorly photoshopped into compromising positions while scenes of violence were interspersed every few seconds along with the words "How Could You Scum?" and other such nonsense. Pierre had been plagued with childish shit like the aforementioned video for the last few months and it was beyond frustrating that the perpetrator was not caught yet. While, it was no big secret that Hector was a closeted homosexual nobody has the gall to mention it in his presence not even the man's wife...not after the beatings anyways; Pierre knew of Hector's legendary temper and imagined the "keyboard warrior" behind these annoying hacks being on the receiving end of it, this amused him for a few seconds.

After realizing that the gargantuan man was still rambling, Pierre removed himself from the conversation by dismissing his subordinate with a hand gesture. After socializing with a few of his political contacts and the occasional ass-kisser Pierre checked his Rolex Yacht-Master II watch: confirming the time with one of his aids the master manipulator started making his way to the prearranged podium when he happened to catch sight of Nathan Thumberstock lurking amongst the crowd. Never one to pass up an opportunity to get under his "rival's" skin Pierre changed direction in order to deliver a condensing comment under the pretense of goodwill.

However, before he could reach his intended target the ground began to violently shake and Pierre was thrown off balance hitting the ground with a deafening thud. The last cognitive thought he had before blacking out was realization that perhaps allowing Hector and his trigger itchy goons to provide security detail was a bad idea as the sounds of automatic gunfire echoed around him.

Pierre found himself in a vivid dreamscape; he was standing frozen in place in what could only be described as a large, dark, musty beehive and odd buzzing sounds echoed throughout the structure. At first the buzzing sounds were indistinguishable from each other, but eventually a feminine sounding voice distinguished itself from the rest; this was the sound of an important creature and Pierre felt comforted and oddly nostalgic hearing it...he wanted to submit himself fully to the voice even if that meant giving up individually and becoming part of a collective force. However, before he could hear what the voice wanted him to go he was jostled awake.

Pierre awoke surrounded by mangled corpses; some were crushed underneath pieces of the lodge's roof, but many more were riddled with bullet holes mere victims of the confusion. One of the "security" personal was crushed under a nearby column and only after exerting a ridiculous amount of effort was Pierre able to rise and retrieve the idiot's unfired Heckler & Koch MP5. Pierre was only an adequate shot, but this weapon could just be fired in quick bursts spraying one's immediate vicinity with many bullets. Already Pierre's mind was racing on ways to distance himself from the potential fallout of this act of grave negligence; the solution was surprisingly simply all he had to do was blame the radical culture inside the D.A.M. for fostering an attitude of non-negotiation and they saw the Yellowstone deal as a concession to not just democrats, but too revolutionary leftists. If he played this right, he could be seen as just another victim of ever escalating political violence; he would be seen as a potential victim of an assassination attempt.

Jason was thoroughly enjoying himself today, he was with his buddies from his Marksmanship team. They were going to visit Yellowstone as after wiping the floor with some local teams in a competition, and of course he had probably the most beautiful girl in the world holding onto him right now. Frankly it was a glorious day for the boy who was so used to tragedy and just getting the shit end of the stick. He wasn't going to let this chance get away from him. Not as long as he still had air in his lungs and the day was still burning daylight. Either way, the boy figured he should probably get out of spacing out like he was right now and back to the real world. The group was heading towards one of the visitor centers, in order to get a map so they didn't get lost and get eaten by bears. As if that would happen. While the group went inside, Jason and Kaitlyn stayed outside and took seats on a bench. The girl leaned in and kissed his cheek playfully. This of course brought a small smile to his lips. Nothing was going to ruin today!

The next few moments made him really regret that thought. Suddenly the ground began to shake violently, as if somebody had decided it would be fun to kick the entire continental plate. Then he noticed all the geysers going off. ' But this isn't possible. They always said Yellowstone would be dormant for a long time...' The boy thought to himself, then turned to grab Kaitlyn and pull her inside. At that moment however, the ground shook especially violently and the girl stumbled a few steps away from the boy. As she did that a Crack opened up and Magma flew from the ground, covering the girl as she screamed out in pain. There was nothing Jason could do as he watched half her body melt away in the molten rock. But alas, there was no time for the youth to mourn. He was shoved violently to the ground as it became felt like the world was suddenly on fire. He crawled towards the bench and grabbed the underside, holding on tightly. Then he took a deep breath and shut his eyes tightly. Being a Space Physics major, he understood what the sudden heat meant. Earth had suddenly lost her precious atmosphere. It was about to get very hot, and very hard to breath. All around him he could hear the buildings crumbling to dust as the gravity that once held them disappeared. People screamed for their lives. The ground still felt like it was moving with a mighty roar. Then... nothing. There was no gravity, no air, no sound. It was completely silent. That meant all the air was gone and the boy had mere seconds before his blood boiled and he exploded. This was it. Then suddenly a deafening roar covered him as air rushed back into his lungs. Sound returned but he still felt weightless. Jason clutched onto the bench for dear life. He also dared to open his eyes to notice that there was an odd green light. He screamed loudly as his body was suddenly alight with pain, it felt as if all his bones broke then re-built themselves. Shortly after that pain he felt a massive slam as he was thrown from the bench and onto the unmoving ground. Somehow, he hadn't blacked out. His entire body hurt but it was as if he were stronger... no, no stronger. Tougher.

He could focus on that later. First he had to ensure his own survival. Now... what had countless hours of plating Fallout taught him? Ah. Yes. Others would start looting, or rioting, or go crazy in general and start killing people. He needed weapons to survive. The boy shakily got to his feet and looked around. The managed body of Kaitlyn lay nearby. Her locket somehow unharmed. The boy went over and pulled the heart shaped locket from her dead body and put it on himself. He would remember Kaitlyn no matter what else happened. Then the boy went to the ruins of the visitor center, which was barely standing on one wall. He looked around and found a backpack which had somehow remained unbroken. He snagged it and headed towards the back wall with had a novelty Katana sword. What the hell a sword was doing in a novelty store at Yellowstone was beyond him. But he took the thing. He would sharpen it later. The boy knew it would most likely break if he ever used it, but it would look threatening to others. He lid it into the sheath and slid the sheath into his backpack. Nearby was the Park HQ. Where they would have guns. The building was in shambles, but the weapons safe remained unharmed. Apart from the door being thrown off. The boy walked over and took a M98B from the safe. Then he grabbed all the ammo they had for the rifle and tossed it in his bag... after loading the clip and sliding it into the rifle. Holding his new weapon, Jason turned to face the rest of the world.

What he saw was a broken world, some normal, but others looked like pieces that had been underground were now above ground. It looked as if a toddler had put a Jigsaw puzzle of the earth back together. Huge chunks of land were barely touching in some areas where one could cross, but then next to them were huge glowing Abyss'. Which the boy figured you would die really quickly if you fell into them. Off in the distance he saw some mountains that hadn't been there before. They looked mysteriously like Pyramids. With a sigh, the boy set off to satisfy his curious mind and head towards the huge pyramid mountains. Picking his way across the new landscape very carefully.

Everything had been so very, very simple for Diane a few days ago. Truly, it had been. Her class had won the raffle, and had gotten the free trip to Yellowstone park. While, yes, sure, they had needed to bring in a ton of canned food to even be entered into the raffle, they had still one it! Diane Bright had been more than please, really. Charter buses all the way to the park, nice cabins to stay in, and free mostly everything. Yes, Diane Bright was sitting pretty, and her class were in for quite the beneficial trip! Some people went their whole lives without once seeing anything outside their home town, anyway!

Then, Diane woke up this morning to a whole new, not as pretty sitting world. No, if anything, her world had been turned complete and utterly topsy turvy. Her eyes fluttered open, and all the school teacher could feel was dull aches, as if her body had been thrown around like a rag doll by some unknown, unseen force! Sitting up and looking around her room quickly revealed that, well, SOMETHING had thrown the room topsy turvy! Everything was a mess, and Diane was sure that if the furniture wasn't bolted down, and so heavy in the first place, she wouldn't of survived to be able to appraise it all. Diane sat there in the bed, in her clothes from the day before, having been too exhausted to change...before something suddenly clicked.

"Oh my lord, the children!!" Diane yelped, before nearly springing out of bed. She stumbled out of her room, looking around her personal cabin, before giving a scream. Kevin, one of the chaperons, was completely mangled and filled with the kitchen knives, pieces of a sandwich strewn about. Whatever had happened, it had happened while Kevin had been feeling the munchies. "Poor...poor Kevin..." she frowned, before shaking her head and focusing on keeping her eyes from watering. No! She had to stay focused! The kids needed her! So, going to the emergency box on the wall, she popped it over. Everything was still there.

"Oh, right! My bag!" The teacher tried not to look at Kevin as she went back into her room, but soon came out with her bag again. She walked up to the red box, and tugged out a few essentials. First aid kit, flair gun, survival knife, and some standard flares, before she tucked it all into her bag and shut the thing. With that done, she walked outside and gazed around the area. The other cabins were in disarray. One of them was totally crushed by trees, while another had...evaporated, it almost looked like. The teacher looked around, before shouting the children's names. "Crap, crap, crap..." She frowned, taking a deep breath. She tugged out her cellphone and looked at it. No service. This prompted the teacher to groan, before shaking her head. Focus. She needed help, and NOW.

So, what is a cunning teacher to do, all alone, with children possibly missing, or worse, dead...? She took out her flair gun, and pointed it right up into the green sky. "I really...really hope this doesn't cause anything..." She winced, before pulling the trigger. The flare shot out into the air, whizzing up and up, before finally exploding into a show of light.

Sean the Gamer

He was trying his best not to let thoughts of what had happened, no, 'was' happening, rise to the surface in his head... he really was! He knew what would likely come if he didn't manage to keep it down long enough to get somewhere safe, the middle of a recently destabilized forest was not the place to panic!

And yet Everywhere he looked there was another reminder!

Every Hundred of so feet there seems to be another crack in the ground that had fused into a mound of cooled magma, around which there were burned trees that had been choked out by the earlier loss of atmosphere and settled simply for looking blackened on the side toward the hole. Occasionally there was a body somewhere, maybe a charred skeleton, or a half body sticking out from under a big rock, oh, and that one that one that was impaled on a still hanging tree-branch which actually snapped free just as he came into view of it, now 'that' was a sight. There were also constant reminders in the form of scattered objects, a grill here, a tattered tent there, someone's car speared into the river that he checked to make sure nobody was drowning in before moving on... He was starting to feel a freak out coming on, but until it happened there was no reason to shrug off a chance to help someone else.

If this had all been in a game he would've been freaking out in a good way about how thorough someone had been with their new apocalypse simulator, before ragging on them for calling it apocalypse when it was wrong word to use. As it stood though, everything he saw brought him back to that one glimpse through the window of the RV before he blacked out from impact, that impossible sight that refused to let him think it wasn't real or drudging up old memories that he really didn't have the time to deal with at the moment.

It was roughly 3 butterscotchs and a mile worth of brisk walking later that he got the distraction he needed to hold off the building panic.

A sound in the air, a tell-tale skuhreeeeee that was 'meant' to get people's attentions, and he looked up to spot the bright light in the air. It wasn't too far off from the direction he'd been traveling and was close enough to have come from the lodges "Well that's convenient... at least I was going in the right direction." and now he had an objective to focus on. With that in mind he set off at a fair jog in that direction, trying to hurry without wearing himself out before he got there... It really was pretty hot spending an extended amount of time in this clothing moving around a recently heated forest, but he learned to stop caring if he was sweaty a long time ago, there were much more important things to consider anyway, and it would still take him a fair bit to actually 'get' to the position of the flare.

What a catastrophe indeed. Such destruction, such chaos, such confusion... More than enough that perhaps many would not notice the subtle twitching of the dead... Then again, maybe it was just that thing called death throes and there was nothing important about these motions.

Jason had been focusing on just putting one foot in front of the other as he tracked his way across the landscape. The boy had hoped to find somebody else alive or reach those odd pyramid mountains soon. Unfortunately all the signs pointed to the fact that he was not going to achieve either of those goals anytime soon. The mountains seemed to have not moved a centimeter since he set out, and so far all that he saw were various dead people. Wonderful.

At that moment a flare shot up into the sky very close by, disrupted the odd calm that had settled in around him. As the boy's head snapped over to watch the flare, he judged that the person who shot it couldn't have been more than 100 feet away. Although the thickness of the forest and the debris he was currently in blocked him from noticing them. So the boy turned and went towards the source of the flare.

What he found was a scene of a bunch of cabins, all destroyed and pieces of belongings laying all over the ground. He decided it would probably be best not to mention the body of a child he found speared on a branch on his way in. He also noticed a Woman who seemed close to his age, maybe a fee years older, standing in the middle of the clearing. If the boy was going to be honest he found her attractive to look at. However, he couldn't even think about a relationship or anything with girls right now. The pain from losing his girlfriend much too fresh in his mind. "Everything alright? I saw the flare so I came to check out. It's good to see somebody else survived" He called out to the girl.

Nathan Thumberstock
6 Hours before the Green.

"Malory, you really think this tie matches the jacket? I am really skeptical about heading to Yellowstone with a freaking Harvey Suit. I would just put up some hiking outfit if it weren't for Pierre Athene himself being the host."

Malory nodded, he was a silent sixty something year old butler. The only one that Nathan Thumberstock really relied on, not that he did anyway. Malory helped with the tie, nodding with a gentle smile. "You don't want to overdress Mr. Athene either."

"Yeah he would absolutely throw a fit for it, I am not really in the best mood to be at anything closely concerning Athene, not after I lost a few hundred millions in China. Green Energy my ass, Oil is the only fuel they should be buying."

"Your Oil sir."
"Indeed."

Nathan decided to take his Limo to Yellowstone, it was a four hours drive, he didn't really want to flash his wealth going into the press event in a helicopter. That would be bad for his public image, especially after losing over six hundred million dollars in a China deal gone bad.

Yellowstone National Park,
The Roosevelt Lodge.
1 Hour before the Green.

The seating area was quite comfy, not too fancy or too shabby. Just the right amount of good, Pierre was this good, but then again he was after something, Nathan thought as he glimpsed the host a couple peoples away. He came alone, didn't want Malory tagging along or even Sandy, this was Yellowstone. You take Sandy to a Victoria's Secret charity event, not the outback. Nathan made small talk with a few gentlemen and women, nothing too burdening, and he always ended the conversation as soon as the dreaded China deal was about to be discussed.

A waiter passed by, there were some glasses of water and orange cocktails on the tray he hesitantly carried around. Nathan thought about grabbing a drink, he was still a bit shaken up from the whole "Go Green Campaign" the entire Eastern part of the world are advocating and sadly adopting. At least America still believe in Oil, he decided to drink to that.

Half an hour had passed, Pierre would mount the stage in a few moments, Nathan decided to go and give the man a firm handshake before his opening speech. Then earth decided, it will be doing all the openings today.

The mountains shrieked with horror, the sky turned red, then purple then all the hues of horror and despair. The earth below Nathan opened wide like an ancient and hungry predator, spewing out rocks and lava. The trees were flying off into the skies, the skies flying off into the void of space. Nathan stood on a chunk of land mass that was ripped off from the earth as if with a Titan's grip, the chunk of land mass shot into space as Nathan jumped off just in time over something he didn't really understand.

It was a bush, or perhaps the embrace of a pine tree that was flying off a hundred feet away from the conference area. The pine tree landed somewhere in small lake, Nathan was forced into the depth of it and slammed his head against the wet and rigid seabed.

Blackness. Whiteness. His mother's voice, singing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in his cradle. There was a fish swimming in the bedroom as if in air. His mother slowly turned green, her hair into seaweed and her eyes into black pebbles. Nathan awoke and gasped air as he found his face sunken in swampy dirt. He tried to get up slowly, he had broken a bone or two.

After a few minutes struggling to sit on his ass and support his back against a disturbingly alive rock, he looked up at the sky.

GREEN.

There were screams, if only muffled. There were scent of something newly created, something he had never smelt. He looked around, some mountains in the distant blurred horizon were missing. Chunks of massive land landing in odd locations, something that looked like a chunk of Toronto was visible a few ten miles south. Nathan felt his bones, broken, his cellphone shattered and his sense of location and direction completely missed up.

He was at least a hundred something away from the Roosevelt lodge. At some swamp or lake that looked like a scene out of a "The Queen of Mars" book. Nathan tried to get up in vain, he decided to stay put. He scratched his face and felt something odd in his left cheekbone.

It felt like a twig was sticking out, it felt like a tiny stick of pine twig was sticking out from inside out. A twig has grown out from his cheekbone. He dismissed the interest of pondering as he saw a few more hundred somethings away the ember light of a flare being shot into the sky.

Before he got up something walked, more like crawled from out of the swamp. It spoke.

"Veroni vurdalla verroci vamptu vandeqa vello?"

It was a fish, a small alligator. A little of both. It was obscene. He decided to touch the twig in his cheekbones before muttering...

"What the fuck kind of coke did Ernie sell me?"

He blacked out.

Pierre was about to leave the remnants of the Roosevelt Lodge when he sensed the presence of someone in his general vicinity...well perhaps 'sensed' is not the right word as Pierre literally felt the emotional state of this person even though he could not see or hear them; the odd sensation washed over him and he felt rather ill as the longer he focused on this person's particular emotions the sicker he felt. Much to his amazement his mind was telling him that the emotions he was picking up correlated to anger; however, this emotional link evaporated as abruptly as it had appeared.

"Hector?!" Pierre said in bemusement.

"Piers..." A weak voice answered from his left before trickling off.

The lobbyist slowly walked towards the general location the voice emanated from firmly gripping the confiscated MP5 until he came across a human form lying prone on the wooden floor and there could be no denying that this was Hector Williams; the tacky suit and large form gave it away. The gigantic man must have noticed him approaching as he began to speak once again.

"Piers...thanks be to merciful God you m...made it out in one piece...would not want you to filled with holes...like some damn Swiss cheese. You need to help m...I am pinned under this fucking shit."

Pierre briefly regarded the hope in his associates voice and the rubble pinning the man's right arm to what could be loosely called the ground before responding

"That is quite a predicament you've gotten yourself in General, but I do not need to do anything."

"You swine, after all my organization has done for you...you refuse to lift a finger to help me. Listen here Piers you cannot walk all over me like this is 2018; I have ensured that. Recall that millions now swear fidelity to my organiz..."

"Yet here you are trapped under a faux piece of timbering unable to free yourself. Spare me the rambling, and learn to face facts my frie...good fellow your power was merely an illusion perpetuated by myself. What you could never realize is that the public tires of sectarian violence perpetrated by both the left and right; they are ready for order and this recent wave of carnage unleashed by your thugs will have the bourgeoisie place the reigns of power in my hands as sometimes capitalism requires a Bonaparte to be its savior. Trust me this new wave of Marxism will be repressed, but the counter-revolution now must be fought in congress no longer on the streets. As the old maximum goes, "The revolution eats it children."" With that Pierre turns to go, but refrains and quips in a sarcastic voice, "Au Revoir Hector" before leaving the gigantic buffoon for good; muffled insults and threats could be heard from behind him, but Pierre ignored them as he exited the lodge.

The direct sunlight ravaged his eyes, but once the temporary blindness cleared the true horror unfolded itself, humongous cracks and crevices littered the landscape; cooled magma even still bubbled up from some of them. Countless bodies littered the what used to be the Lodge's grounds and the groans of the dying were carried by the breeze; it seemed whomever escaped the madness inside were greeted by an equally unpleasant death outside as evidenced by the dying man in the Brooks Brothers' suit whose flesh was being picked off the bone by crows or were those ravens. Pierre presumed there was some kind natural disaster, but he could never imagine one of this magnitude; well at least it was not him.

The scenery suddenly shifted and Pierre found himself back in the hive from his dreams; however, this time he was not alone as he was surrounded by thousands if not millions of quadrupedal insectoids that bore a striking resemblance to small horses. They all seemed transfixed on some central location and Pierre came to the realization that was were the voice from before was originating. He pushed his way through the crowd of odd creatures in an attempt to make his way to whomever the voice belonged to; it was less to with the questions he had for it, but more about letting go of the "I" and following the commands of the voice. A figure unlike the others began to take shape, but before Pierre could focus on the specifics he was once again whisked back to the real world.

The remnants of a flare lingered above the treetops and it was just now Pierre realized the sun was out of place, he checked his Rolex in disbelief. It has an illusion caused by dust in the air or something; he tried to think back to a National Geographic program he saw on the Yellow Stone volcano a few months prior, but alas he couldn't mentally verify if his synopsis was correct and his cell phone was rendering no connections of any kind. It did not matter much as the flare indicated some type of government agency was here to pick up the elites of society; why else would the flare be relatively close? He slung the MP5 over his back, fixed his hair, put on his best "I tried to save them" face and began to power walk towards the location the flare came from. No need to run mind you, he did not want to look too exhausted for when the inevitable photograph was taken of him emerging from the chaos. He chuckled he might allow Hollywood to make a movie of this ordeal; provided that they begged him for the rights.

Darla Ann

I had been wandering towards what I hoped was the Tower Falls campsite for what seemed like hours, but only amounted to thirty minutes, when I heard the flare shoot into the air. "Fuck!" I yelled as I toppled over in surprise. My mother would have applauded my sailor's mouth.

Instead of choosing to move towards the flare even though it came from the direction of my destination, I chose to stop and take stock of myself. I could hear a small creek that should not have been in this part of the woods trickle quietly nearby. Hesitantly, I left the path and ventured into the woods. Once to the creek, I knelt down beside the water and finally looked at the wound I had suffered. There was so much dried blood... I gently began to wash it all out. Wincing in pain at each touch, I slowly revealed my pale blonde hair from beneath the dark red crust. The cut was barely within the border of my hairline, and it was seeping blood. It was deep enough that stitches would have normally been required, but stitches were obviously not an option. Unless... Unless I could find someone else to help me. Pulling tissues from my backpack, I placed them against the cut and hoped that would work well enough for the walk to the flare and its mysterious owner.

I stood to leave and a wave of dizziness knocked me back to a crouching position. 'We need to go. Let's go.' After waiting a few minutes and taking a few sips from my water bottle, I again stood to leave. As I pushed my way back onto the path, I stumbled into something, loosing my makeshift first aid in the process. Both what I had ran into and I fell to the ground. Only it wasn't a something... It was a someone, and I had unfortunately gotten my blood on what looked to be their very expensive suit. "I am so sorry! Let me help you up."

Hector:

Crows...crows poured out of every orifice of the once proud lodge, a black horde engulfed the floor pecking the flesh from the bones of dead and eating away at the injured who were unable to defend themselves. Hector was lucky enough to retain use of one of his arms and used his gigantic hand to snap the neck of any crow inquisitive enough to venture too close to him; however, the radio host intrinsically knew his strength was fading fast and it would not be long before those filthy scavengers overtook him.

Hector was not a man who frightened easily, but the sense of powerlessness when confronted with the inevitability of his certain demise filled him with a sense of unease. He felt the beady little eyes of numerous crows staring at him, watching and waiting for the precise moment to strike; it would be a painful death as crows strike at the eyes first slowly ripping them form the sockets before pecking away at the body proper.

Hector thought of how Pierre betrayed not only him, but his entire organization and anger radiated across his entire body; while, anger dilutes the cognitive processes of others it has always made things clearer for Hector and suddenly the solution to his predicament was crystal clear like it was sent from the Lord upon high. It was clear his right arm would have to be amputated as it was indefinitely stuck, but the bones would have to be broken first otherwise he could not use his dagger to cleanly cut through the flesh.

He gritted his teeth as he began the painful process of breaking his right arm; it was eerily quiet as he did this thought as the plethora of crows had stopped what they were doing and were now unnaturally watching. Only after the arm was completely amputated did the crows return to devouring the dead. The next step for Hector was cauterizing the wound before he lost too much blood, however, much to his surprise the wound was already sealed; one second it was gushing blood and now it was sealed...even the pain of losing a limb had abruptly faded. He intently regarded his crucifix shaped dagger in awe at the power of his Lord. He always knew he was an instrument of God put on this Earth to violently cleanse the filth from society, but this was the first time that divine intervention saved his life. His chapped lips mouthed the Lord's Prayer as he made his way to the exit. Arriving to late to see or hear the flare Hector merely stumbled into the woods; hell bent on revenge.

Diane had begun to pace in her spot, just glancing back to the cabins. She needed help, and now. The children, they might be in danger! Diane wanted to go in there and look it over herself, but at the same time, what the hell could she do with just herself? If one was stuck under a beam or something...Diane ensured to look up at her now falling flare, wondering if she should shoot off yet another one. Anything to get some people to this location. That was when she suddenly heard a voice, the teacher spinning to face it.

"Oh! Children! Children! There is children, stuck in the other cabins! I need your help." Diane said, before she turned and began to gesture towards the mess of cabins. She wanted some more people to help with the search of the children, but you work with what you get.

Pierre Athene

Pierre Athene was caught up in one of his favorite pastimes...envisioning future political scenarios; with Hector Williams and D.A.M. out of the picture he would be forced to sacrifice some of his muscle power for political capital with the current ruling clique in Washington. To a layman this would not seem like a particularly desirable tradeoff, but this scenario allowed one the leverage they would need to force the current President to fill the open seat on the United States Supreme Court with one of their subordinates; considering the low popularity of the current administration they would jump on this chance for a victory no matter how hollow. By 2024 the pieces would be in proper alignment to ensure not only a Athene presidency, but would also set the stage for the ending of democracy all together. This natural disaster effectively annihilated any chance his enemies had of stopping his ascension or should he say apotheosis; generations would remember him as the man who unified the world.

Enraptured by his delusions of grandeur Pierre had no time to avoid colliding into someone who resembled a park ranger and of course the collision sent him spiraling to ground...least he reminds himself that this was the second fucking time he had fallen today. A few thoughts ran through Pierre head in between the initial collision and eventual impact with the ground, the first and foremost of these concerning the lack of the strange empathetic ability he displayed back in the Lodge; it seemed that it was just a strange hallucination as it did nothing to prevent warn him of Ranger Rick here. Did this idiot not recognize a VIP when he saw one; he vividly recalled specifically instructing his staff to brief these park yokels about the important people bracing this pathetic nature reserve with their presence and to stay out of the way the security. Great another thing D.A.M. failed to do, those goons not on the security detail were supposed to keep the immediate premises clear of both tourists and the government funded tour guides. If this buffoon happened to be assisting in the evacuation of those that attended the benefit they were not doing a good enough job at it; from Pierre's perspective this joker seemed to be dazed and confused...well you know what they say about government functionaries not the sharpest crayons in the box.

A hand was jutted into his frame of vision interrupting his inner monologuing, the hand seemed to be connect to arm which in turn was connected to a chest...well look at that not a bad rack for someone who seconds before was assumed to be a man, they were not super model material, but it was far from being repulsive; just the kind of rack that would belong to a bimbo who knocked you over in the woods. Pierre was far from being a gentleman when it came to dealing with women who were not worth millions or billions of dollars. Typical of someone who viewed those lesser than themselves as servants he allowed the woman to help him up whilst leering at her chest of course; why should he exert the extra effort to lift himself off the ground when it was her damn fault.

He noticed the particularly head wound the young woman was sporting. 'No...No...No No No...Fuck No' thought Pierre as he regarded his suit and what do you fucking know it was caked in fresh blood. Could this day get any worse?

Once on his feet he took a deep breath dusted himself off then reached into his left hand jacket pocket and produced a flat, square blue and-white packet with a stylized gypsy girl dancing in a swirl of smoke along with diamond and gold plated lighter; he then pulled out an unfiltered Gitane cigarette from the packet and placed it in his mouth. He lit it and took a deep draw eventually blowing a puff of smoke out of his nose before addressing the young woman in an extremely patronizing voice; a voice that is usually reserved for small impressionable children.

"You see smoking is just one of my small pleasures in life and I haven't had the heart to give it up; it is like second nature to me now...much like how having your pretty little head in the clouds must be second nature to you, but I digress as I would not want you to hurt your head even more by dwelling too hard on what I just said. You may have noticed by my attire that I am an a very important person...attire is just another word for my clothing if you were confused. Now I know it must be a tough job making coffee or whatever special little tasks you are assigned to do throughout the day and it is adorable that you are assisting with the search and rescue effort, but you need tell me where your boss is as he needs to alert the proper authorities. My name is Pierre Athene and remember I am a very important person; I work in Washington D.C. isn't that exciting? That is where the President lives. Is your boss the one who set off the flare? Are there others searching; perhaps army men? Stop me if I am overloading you...I can repeat this slower if you wish"

Sean the Gamer

There was one thing that that always bothered me no matter where I was... Monotony was BORING!

I never handled boredom well. If I couldn't apply variation to something I was doing then I would quickly lose my enthusiasm for it around the dozenth time, or minute, or hour, or something in between, and this was even worse if I had to force myself to do it in the first place. Even with the warped land-scape, the occasional body, and the random debris scattered about it was getting old enough in the back of my mind to make me bored, and with boredom came a wandering mind that I truly did not need.

I slowed my pace to a brisk walk and pulled out my smart phone to check the time, after I turned it on since I had been preserving it's power. "One Fourty, I've been on and on for almost two hours overall, the flare wasn't that long ago." Talking to myself was not successfully distracting my mind back to not thinking about what was happening, so I had to do something more effective... I really wanted to conserve every ounce of power in each of my devices, but it wouldn't matter if I slipped my bit in the middle of the forest, so music it would be!

I pressed the button to put it on random, and I just couldn't help myself when a catchy and completely ironic song started playing, I had to sing along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4HjlkKw6do
That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes,
an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn,
world serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
In my own head I zoned right out of paying attention to the song itself, or my surroundings, for a short time I forgot about the slowly rising fatigue and the disturbing atmosphere entirely as I sung along with a stupidly cheery sounding song about the end of the world!

...

Right up until I suddenly realized that I had managed to walk right out of the forest and into the open and the main road by the lodges where it bisected the lost lake creek at the very edge of the Roosevelt lodge grounds. I stopped as soon as I heard the differing smack of my shoes on stone and looked around huh, whataya know, I was closer than I thought... and I'm not alone. I noticed a few people from this position actually, comically in just the right positions as groups of two to not see eachother around the lodges themselves.

I took a quick moment to check my phone, leaving the music playing as it became quickly unimportant for me, and brought up a saved map of the lodge grounds http://www.yellowstone.co/images/lodges/rooseveltcabinmap.jpg "Okay here, here... I'm here... Right then, lets see if that practice works!" I slipped the phone into my pocket, still leaving 'end of the world' playing on speaker as I started a jog to get close enough to be heard... I really wasn't thinking of what anyone would think of 'me', scout pants, hiking pack, camouflage jacket. Then again, yellowstone did have a fairly high position in terms of sea-level, maybe I looked like someone who'd just come down from a mountain station or something, or maybe some lunatic who was walking around the forest in an over-heated fucking parka with all kinds of long red hair pouring out of it's hood!

Of course, I had arrived late enough not to catch much conversation, so with the image in my head of a bunch of panicked people cluelessly standing around doing nothing useful I called out with a pointless but entertaining constable accent "Oi! Wha' 're you lot doin' jus stand'n round?! Init common sense an established procedure to organize wif other survivors of a disaster and work together!? Yer all spittin' distance from each other an haven't even noticed! Hop to you lot! Some ought be lookin fer medicals and the rest fer other survivors need'n elp! That girl's even bleed'n from er ead! Sun'll be down soon gardless wot tha clocks say, got setup a place to hunker for the night!" Of course I murdered the accent as badly as that one half melted corpse nearby.

I completely shrugged a strange sensation of familiarity from the one blonde gal and started moving towards her and the other guy who was near her... Mostly because I recognized the one in the other group of two, 'Pierre', and had no desire to put myself in his vicinity until necessary, there were much bigger things to worry about. As it was several of the cabins on the coyote trail were crushed under the same massive boulder, several by lost creek were just missing entirely, and countless others were in varied states of damage from the event, nevermind the actual lodge farther back that looked to be crumbling. This time I dropped the accent though "Alright lady, you look the most panicked, what's freak'n ya out?"

Jason nodded in response to the woman. He slung his rifle and moved to begin checking on all of the destroyed cabins. It wasn't good... he found bodies in most of them. Although at the same time, the boy noticed that things that used to be heavy to him were just a bit lighter. Nothing particularly special. So he noted it down as adrenaline powering him to do more.

Jason turned to look at the woman. " Have you found any survivors in the cabins yet? I've found none" He said softly as he looked at her. The arrival of a new person almost made him draw his rifle. The young man looked over this new arrival. "Don't stand around asking why she's freaking out. Get over here and help us look" He ordered.

Nathan woke up the same place he had blacked out. The talking Alligator-Fish creature was at his toes, trying to gnaw away his expensive Clarks.

He now knew that whatever fucked the world upside down is real, this was not the coke, or his own hallucinations. Nathan tried to shoo the creature away, it kept persistent in gnawing. He had to do something, his right arm sneaked around the swamp dirt as he looked for a stone or a stick.

He kept searching with his arm, his eyes furiously staring at the creature in an attempt to shoo it away before getting physical. His arm was doing a lot of exploration and the terrian changed from a swampy dirt land to grass. Then bushes. Then trees.

Nathan looked back at his arm, feeling it was just where it should be. In reality he saw his arm, or what it was once, stretching a few feet beyond him and into the nearby bushes. He freaked out, there is no logical explanation. Talking creatures that are half fish and half alligators are believable. More than whatever his arm is doing, he also noticed leaves and more twigs growing out of his sleeves.

The creature stopped bothering Nathan, it walked back, Nathan retrieved the normal length of his arm and tried to sit up. It hurt but he managed to sit up. The creature glowed and spoke to Nathan, only in words he would never comprehend.

"Various Valves, very venomous valves, visit valves, vengeance via Venora, Vanquish valves, Vo Venora's Vigilante."

The creature walked back to the swamp and a Nathan suddenly felt he was able to move. He got up and needed not flex his muscles or crack his joints for he felt none. It felt like roots and leaves, stems and vascular tubes all inside his body. He remained Nathan Thumberstock on the outside however, with the addition of a tiny twig that grew out of his cheekbone, now sprouting a tiny leaf.

He decided to head to the flare, he was extremely thirsty for some reason and he needed hydration.

"Venora's Vigilante? " he wondered.

Darla Ann

I let out a laugh. And then another. I had noticed the placement of this guy's- Pierre's- eyes as I helped him up, and as he had started to lecture me, everything clicked back into place. The fog from my head lifted, though the wound still bled. The panicked knot in my chest untied. This complete asshole had been a godsend. "I'm not assisting in any rescue missions, and judging by the change in scenery, no one is sending any rescue teams." I nodded towards the new mountains in the distance. As I began to pull tissues from my backpack, I continued talking, "Don't let my attire confuse you, I'm not a park ranger." I paused to place the tissues on my wound and put my hat on to keep them in place. "Washington D.C. is pretty overrated... And nobody is important now. Didn't all of the dead bodies and lava clue you in on that? But since you are a live body, and my head is finally working again, it's nice to meet you Pierre. I'm Darla Ann, not that you particularly cared. I gather you also saw the flare? Could be the 'army men' you're hoping to see, but I doubt that." I did indeed doubt that there would be any rescue parties thrown together so soon. It had been only a few hours since the Cracking, not nearly enough time for any group to reorganize. Certainly Yellow Stone wasn't hit the worst as the super volcano had remained silent. "So Mr. Athene, I guess we have a few options. 1) I let you live in your important fantasy world and hunt down the army men or 2) you take it down a notch and we head towards the flare together? And when I say take it down a notch, I also mean your eyes can move up a bit." I said the last part a little more aggressively than I had wanted to.

At that moment, I felt a warm buzz in my pocket. Not wanting to remove my gaze from Pierre and appear like I was backing down, I ignored the buzz that had emitted from my phone. The thing was probably just dying as I had forgotten to charge it last night and it would no doubt be hunting for service in vain.

Pierre Athene

Pierre half-listened to the girl prattle on in her rather grating voice as he continued to puff on his unfiltered Gitane cigarette, while he mulled over the enticing idea of just walking away from this opinionated bimbo. He restrained rolling his eyes at her ridiculous conjecturing about the state of the civilized society; there was no doubt that whatever happened here at Yellow Stone equated to nothing less than a unmitigated disaster and is also no getting around the fact that people are dead, but it is not like the park was some kind of microcosm of American society as a whole and a disaster here does not mean the dissipation of the social hierarchy. Even if he chose to follow her defeatist rhetoric and conceded the rescue was impossibility for the time being, they were in no ways equals as even without access with to his essential finical holdings Pierre was assured his name carried weight on its own and the promise of future wealth would assure his safety much like when Julius Caesar was kidnapped by Sicilian pirates.

However, something was nagging him about just leaving Donna…err Dani…Daria? Regardless of whatever her name happened to be Pierre strange empathic sense had abruptly returned and unlike his experience with Hector this woman’s emotions seemed to evoke a difference response, he felt calmed by her mirth instead of sickened by it. Something in the back of his mind was trying to provoke him into doing something with this knowledge, but he simply could not piece together the pieces of this subconscious puzzle. Maybe it was hunger driving these odd sensations as he suddenly felt famished; when exactly was the last time he had eaten? His stomach let out a loud grumble as Pierre flicked his cigarette over his shoulder. He supposed since they were both going to the flare anyways, might as reduce the amount of unnecessary stress and it never hurt in situations such as these to have a human shield around.

“I am sorry about my lack of finesse and social grace…I…I just seen so much in these last few hours and you happened to be the first living person I have come across since my…friend Hector died.” The mixture of truth in lies flowed from Pierre’s mouth in a quite believable way and it would take somebody who witnessed the events in the lodge to contradict his statements. “I…never saw death up close before as I was a sheltered child…seeing Hector skewered on a pole coughing up blood desperately trying to get the air he needed overwhelmed me and caused me to revert to a hostile state and for that I apologize. I just wanted to put the memory of what happened in the lodge behind me…some many people dead. My heart goes out to all those poor woman and children that were ripped from their mortal coils. No matter who is on the end of that flare it would be best if we approached it together as you suggested; I was being rather irrational, so it would be best if you took the lead.”

Throughout his response Pierre’s outward facial expressions showed the expected blend of disgust, remorse and horror making his performance seem rather genuine, but on the inside he was the same old conniving politician as cool and unrepentant as ever. Pierre knew the woman would not be won over by this impromptu speech and would continue to harbor doubts or perhaps even resentment towards him, but all he needed was one little strand of sympathy and he would eventually ensnare her in his proverbial web. Again Hector was a most convenient tool; the gigantic moron with his arm perpetually stuck under that pile of rubble was probably cursing him to high heavens right about now…if Hector still retained any cognitive functions or was still alive at this point, perhaps under the weight of his current predicament the bastard shot himself with his flamboyant luger; who would even waste the money bejeweling a luger? An idiot that is who…an idiot whom was no longer in a position to deny Pierre his long awaited destiny.

Pierre followed Daria to the location where the flare originally originated from and managed to stifle his disappointment at the lack of any military forces though that did not deter hope that a rescue mission was on its way. They were far from the only group to arrive a few others arrived in tandem with the duo as evidenced by a girl with brown hair bounding over to greet them; before she was in earshot Pierre could tell she was annoying by the stupid fucking grin on her face as no normal person was naturally that happy especially during a situation such as this.

“Oh, my gosh more people! I was under the impression until this point I was the only one that survived, but no here you guys are! My name is Mckenzie Green and it is sooooo nice to meet you; I find it heartwarming that a father and daughter overcame the odds to survive these trying times. I just love uplifting scenarios like yours as it shows that even in the most dour times hope endures. Oh, I forgot to tell you that I am 22 and I am an amateur comedian; you bring the bucks, I’ll bring the yucks."

Pierre massaged his brow as he did not know what offended him more the fact that this newcomer insinuated that he was old or her attempt at comedy. This woman presented him with a catch twenty-two as if he laughed out of politeness he ran the odds of encouraging her to crack more jokes, but if he remained silent she might crack more jokes to get a rise out of him. He let out a sight of sheer exasperation as this day managed to get even worse.

Darla Ann

I really enjoyed people, I truly did, but to get stuck with THE Pierre Athene, number one douchebag of D.C. and now this loud girl Mckenzie, it was almost too much for my head wound to handle. As the other girl prattled on, I tried some of the meditation breathing techniques to try to calm my now pounding head. They didn't work. Instead, I reached into my bag and pulled out my migraine medication, swallowing the pill down with a gulp of water. "Mckenzie? Are you the one that sent off the flare, or are there more people? My dad," I looked sideways at Pierre and grimaced, "had been hoping there might be some army guys around, here to save the day."

Again, my pocket buzzed. And buzzed. And buzzed. Incredulous, I pulled the phone from my pocket. "FULL BATTERY, PLEASE UNPLUG" flashed across the screen. "Stupid thing's broken," I grumbled under my breath.

Diane hadn't signed up for this. She had signed on for the trip raffle and won it with every intention of a good time, and getting her kids to learn some stuff about Yellow Stone. Did you know that it was Teddy Roosevelt who made the first national parks? Miss Bright had ensured that her children had known about it, but now...That information couldn't help them in the least. Diane reached up, running her hands through her hair, eyes wide. Wide and wet, a few tears beginning to make their way down her face. People were arriving. One who had seen them and come to help, while others were more content to just...mingle! Didn't they...? Diane shook her head. She raised a hand to the first one who came up to help, something she did with her own children. She could handle herself and her own discussions.

Diane took a deep breath, before she focused on the man who'd come up. "Children...in the cabins...My class..." Diane shivered, her hands becoming shaky as it was all starting to settle in on her head. Her kids...Diane glanced back to the cabins, before she shakily reached into her bag, and pulled out a small pill bottle. She unscrewed the cap...before dumping three into her hands. Small, simple, green and orange pills. She popped them, and swallowed, before putting it away. The girl stood there, taking a few deep breaths. "They...seem to all be...dead..." Diane shivered on her feet, beginning to slowly lower herself onto her ass, and pull her knees up to her chest. She gave out a short, sharp, humorless laugh. "They're parents...are going to be pissed..." Diane shivered, before she tugged out a notebook and pen, and began to doodle. Blocking out everything around her, and just doodling suns.

Everyone had a coping method. This was Diane's.