Ephemeral: An Apocalyptic Novel

Chapter 9

Dulce

The table was silent as the recording played out my breathing and running with Elijah. It was then cut off abruptly.

No one said anything. I looked around. We all looked like shit, to be honest.

All our clothes were ruffled and wrinkled--there were even some rips on Junho's sleeve. Isaac's blond hair was a mess, more curly than wavy now. Not that it looked terrible, though. Acid had her dilapidated braid still done and hadn't released her hair, even through sleep. Reya's curly hair was now in a large ponytail.

Even though I hadn't looked at a mirror yet, I knew that my dark, puffy under eyes had worsened since last night and my hair was staticy. My unbrushed mouth felt gross. All of the water rinses I did in the restroom did nothing to cure my halitosis.

Acid was the first to speak. "Why are they talking about naps?"

"The hell are Freers?" Junho questioned.

We all started spitting out questions with no answers. Derek finally stopped our fury of plummeting questions.

He shook his head. "This isn't right and doesn't make sense. We can't be cooped up in here and not know anything except for when we have to sneak around."

"If they're talking about improving this place, then that means they know that things aren't going to get better anytime soon." Isaac stated promptly.

He was right--they both were.

"They kept talking with this sort of authority over this situation," I said.

Elijah rolled his eyes. "Well, duh. They're police officers."

"No, you dumbass. I didn't hear a lick of police chatter coming from them. I meant the whole "earthquake and people disappearing" situation."

"Yeah, they didn't talk like they were stressed or confused. It was like they knew it was going to happen and everything was playing out like it should," Derek replied.

Junho rubbed his temples. "This whole thing makes me so damn confused."

"We're just scraping as much information as we can from this little conversation," I assured, taking a big bite of my sandwich. "The hell?"

The sandwich was just white bread and two pieces of ham.

"How is this supposed to be any good?" I complained.

"We need better food, a shower, and new clothes," Acid said.

"Amen to that," Reya laughed.

A megaphone tapped on. Our attention directed towards the speaker. It was the same police officer from the gym who made an announcement. He was on top of the stage.

"Hello! Hope you all had a nice sleep after the *ahem* pest problem that happened in the gym last night."

People started yelling and throwing chunks of bread at the stage stairs.

"I know we're all off because of last night but I assure you that we have thoroughly checked the gym and begun sanitizing it. New information has come through that we can assume the rats were intentionally released--there have never been any previously recorded rat or pest invasions in the gym, so it points to certain pranksters who thought it'd be funny to release some rats."

Isaac looked over at Elijah and me. "You two wouldn't happen to know anything about this?"

I shrugged. "Freaky coincidence," I replied, smiling.

"We are planning on expanding the help center as there has been increasing reports of tremors. There will be a map at the front office showing where the help center will expand to. Students, school is temporarily on pause."