[REDACTED]

IV

chapter name: 2

Karl kept walking around Walmart for about another hour, until he got bored and looked for somewhere to go on his phone. There was an arcade nearby so he decided to go there.

The walk was about 15 minutes and Karl was hit with the AC as soon as he walked into the small building. He saw a small bar that was advertising pizza and drinks, then he saw a rollerskating rink and the arcade. Karl decided he would rollerblade first. He got some shoes from behind the counter and slipped them on. It had been a long time since Karl had rollerbladed, especially alone. The vibe was nice because he was humming with the song playing on his phone. "Send me your location, let's focus on communicating, cause' I just need the time and place to come through...." Then Karl heard a voice behind him. "Nice voice."

Karl spun around forgetting he was on his skates and fell backwards onto the floor, he hit his head and then slowly opened his eyes, when he opened them he saw someone leaning over above him. "Are you ok? That fall looked painful." Karl laid there dumbfounded for a second before he responded, "Yeah I'm ok. Who are you." The other boy smiled, "I'm Nick." Karl took his hand and stood back up, wobbling on his feet from being in front of another person after so long. Then Karl looked around and realized that the entire rink was full of people.

He slowly looked around him, "what the fuck is going on...?" Nick looked confused. "What do you mean, are you sure you didn't hit your head to hard, you're acting like you haven't seen a person in years." Karl looked straight back at Nick, "One year, almost one year exactly." He sat down on the floor of the rink and quickly pulled off the skates, he ran to his bag and put on his shoes. Karl quickly went outside and looked at all of the people, and the moving cars. "What the hell." He did a full circle and eventually came to face Nick. "Bro, you don't look ok." Karl quietly scoffed, "No shit I'm not okay, I haven't seen another living person in almost a year." Nick just stood there, looking confused.

Nick reached out to grab Karl's shoulder but when his hand made contact a shock ran through both of them. When Karl opened his eyes again everyone was gone, everyone but Nick. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"