Hysteria

Chapter 5 - Sorting Station

It really was an eerie sight, Brooke had rarely been in the town centre and even when she did she barely lingered long enough to pay much attention. Now she stood in the centre surrounded by abandoned shops with smashed up windows and items scattered everywhere.

"Hey what do people need, I mean who's going to stop us" Lauren exclaimed running into one of the shops. She was surprised to see most of the products still there, many of the looters and rioters had just wanted to trash the shops rather than steal from them which was a benefit to them right now.

Though hesitant at first the girls soon got shopping. For the first time in ages Brooke was actually having fun with real people, any memory of the hours talking to her imaginary friends seemed banished from her mind. In no time at all she had a new wardrobe just the way she liked it and happily dumped her old tatty clothes, she felt so empowered like she could take on the world in that moment but knew something was bound to bring her down to Earth with a bump.

Elsewhere Saba had bagged herself the most expensive items left in the shop, she enjoyed pretending to be on a catwalk strutting her stuff in style. Lauren grabbed the latest games console though changed her mind after many comments about how she was going to power it. She decided to head into the food section as they were all going to need that however there was little left; this was the section that the looters had really been after. Chloe had run straight for the perfume counter, her eyes sparkled as they skimmed over the various bottles. A tantalising through but reluctantly she moved away, as much as she wanted them they didn't know what attracted the creatures and she didn't want to post a target on her herself.

Eventually the novelty wore off and the girls came back together each boasting about their new items. Brooke was positively glowing in her new threads, Saba was still trying to stuff the designer jeans into her already over stretched bag while Chloe had relented and grabbed a bottle of her favourite perfume and Lauren having decided against the games console in the end had instead picked up the latest tablet and gear though faced the same problems.

"How do you plan on powering that" Chloe prodded.

"And that, how do you plan on transporting that lot" Lauren hissed back pointing to Chloe's two bulging bags. Brooke tried to hide her bags, she had started out with two bags she now had four.

"Well, we wave down one of the trucks and they transport it for us" expressed Chloe forming the plan quickly though she was quite proud of it.

"Alright" Lauren responded after a while then shivered violently. "Where can we wait, somewhere out of this bleeping wind."

Brooke motioned over towards the remains of a coffee shop, at once they hurried over. To their satisfaction they were out of the wind which raised the temperature if only slightly and the shop still had a fair amount of its products. Though shocked Saba grabbed a spare plastic bag and started filling it with everything she saw, she hovered slightly by the door wondering whether to go into the kitchen. Deciding not to she continued packing up the products.

Already Chloe was feeling the weight of her bags; she decided that it was because she had packed them badly so set upon repacking them. Brooke however barely noticed the difference; she had spent many a night training herself for the recruitment tests hoping that when she was a successful pilot all the bullies that once tormented her would weep with envy, though even she had started to repack her bags. After much pushing and shoving she got it down to three bags, keeping the fourth connected onto another just in case she needed it later on.

Taking a brief look around Lauren slumped down into a seat almost making it topple over; she was soon fast asleep despite Chloe's constant mutterings.