doomsday. [ yellowjackets ]

cinquante.

xxx.

chapter cinquante.
chapter fifty.

2021.

xxx.

       When the Yellowjackets had been rescued, they had been swarmed by dozens of people, on a never ending journey to figure out what happened to the survivors for the past 18 months, one that they would never fulfill. There were very few moments of peace between those that survived, but those moments were spent with a sort of strained connection amongst them.

       There was one that Alex remembered extremely well despite it having happened over twenty years ago and seeming to be forgettable in hindsight.

      They were sitting in a private waiting room in the Canadian hospital they'd been sent to by the rescue team, as it was the closest one and they didn't want to risk having to transport them across the country to a New Jersey hospital; instead, they contacted the authorities about their whereabouts and their status, and let them know that they would transfer them across the border when they could be certain that they were physically cleared to leave the hospital.

       A few of them were still being treated in the hospital rooms, like Lottie, who doctors were desperately trying to get to speak to them, or Theo, who might've been saying too much. They had pushed Tara into an emergency surgery, Alex only briefly heard a doctor explain to the police officer that it was an infection that they needed to treat ASAP, and Travis had opted to sit in her room instead of with the rest of them. Taissa, Shauna, Van, and Alex were left in the waiting room then, sitting in silence as the sounds of human life occurred around them.

       The beeping of distant heart monitors, soft voices whispering amongst each other from the nurses' station, and the occasional scratching of a pencil against paper. The noise of writing was the loudest of them all, however, as Shauna scribbling frantically in her journal. Taissa and Van exchanged a look, but they said nothing as they tried to relax in their chairs.

      Across from the three of them, Alex sat with her arms folded against her legs, her back slouched so the hood of her navy blue zip up with sit over her head. Her fingers held the edge of the sleeve tightly against her palm as she stared in Shauna's direction, but not quite at her.

       After a fleeting glance her way, Taissa inched forward on her chair to whisper, " Alex— "

      " We don't talk. " Alex echoed Taissa's earlier declaration, when she had told the survivors that they needed to promise not to say a word of what happened in the Wilderness. It was the only time that they had all been together since being flown out of the woods, and likely the last time they would have with privacy again to make such a promise. Alex barely lifted her head, shifting her eyes up to look at Taissa with a guarded expression, " We can do that. Theo and Lottie can't, so what about them? "

       " We know what's going to happen to Lottie. " Taissa insisted with a tight lipped expression, her face hardened; they had overheard one of the psychiatrists advising that Lottie's parents be recommended to a mental institution based on how she was behaving, and, knowing Lottie's history now, they knew that was exactly what they would do.

       Anything to fix their precious daughter.

      " And Theo? "