New Eden- The New Eden series book#1 (#Wattys2016)

Chapter 12 "kill me..."

  Whickham was pissed. We didn't get everything on the list. "When we heard the chopper we dropped everything and ran here. " Steffan apologized. But that didn't really matter at the moment. Everyone was ecstatic. Talk of being rescued and what they would do afterwards was in the air.

"Okay, everyone!" Whickham raised his voice to grab everyone's attention. We were all in the hall and the teacher was gathering us for a midday meeting.

"We're close to being rescued." He announced. Some cheers sent up but was quickly quieted down by Feroklas and some others. Yeah we were happy but we didn't need to bring the bugs down on us by making too much noise.
The electronics teacher continued. "This, however, is not the time to get too excited. We need to try and stay safe. Especially now."
 

 He went on talking, stating that none of us should ever be alone, that we should stick in pairs or groups. He also made the rule that no one was allowed to head back downstairs. Not without him.

  He talked some more. Giving out a couple more rules. After he was done, he called us who were downstairs. Brandon was with him. The two of them had become like hero and side kick, their keen minds being the common link.
"We need to make another trip downstairs." Whickham stated.

"What, now?" Nichola asked.

"Tomorrow actually," Brandon answered for him. "I know I said that the chopper saw me, but we still gotta make sure that they know we're here."

"So what're you thinking? We try to signal them?" Steffan put in.

Whickham nodded. "Exactly. Right now we're nowhere with the radio. The receiver is too corroded, that means that we're not going to be sending or picking up anything."

"So what about a flare or something." I offered an idea.

  Nichola gave a gasp of mock surprise. "You have a flare?!"
  I know she was probably trying to be funny, but I didn't appreciate her sarcastic humor.
"No. But we can make one." I shot back.
  Again, I knew this fact because of my mother's survivalist habits. Back before my Dad had died we all went camping over the weekend. They both had shown me different tricks on how to survive and get help in the wild. They had shown me how to make a smoke flare.
I remembered how to make the flare mainly because it was one of the times that I actually got to light something afire. The ingredients were really simple. All we needed was sugar, any kind of gardening supplement high in potassium nitrate, a stove or open flame to cook the ingredients and a container to hold the mixture afterwards.
  Steffan cocked an eyebrow. "We got a regular Bear Grylls here, 'migos." He said proudly and slapped my back.

"No way!" Nichola said. "He's too nerdy to be Bear. He's more of a Walter White." She burst out laughing at her own joke. I laughed too. She was funny that time.

  Okay. So we had a plan. Get the sugar we needed from the cafeteria. The chem lab had the potassium nitrate and Bunsen burners. Make the smoke flares, get the attention of the helicopter and get rescued. Boom bang. That was it.
  But the look on Brandon's face gave me the constant feeling of doubt.
"Spill it." I said to him.
Brandon shrugged. I've seen him like this already. He had something on his mind. Something he thought was important, but was unsure of. "I-I don't know." He started.
"Don't know what?" I pressed. 

"This is supposed to be a quarantine."

"Yeah...and." Nichola commented.

"You don't think that they're here to rescue us." Whickham said what was on Brandon's mind.
  Brandon nodded. "I just have a gut feeling-"
Steffan laughed. "Bro, I know what you mean. I got that same feeling too. Its called hunger. I mean- all we've had to eat these couple days are candy and chips. I'd kill for some meatloaf, man."
  Brandon sighed and relented a bit. "I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible, but I've never heard of people being rescued from a quarantine."