2. The White Room
Charlie's head throbbed excruciatingly painfully and he found he was lying on a hard surface. His cheek was squished against it uncomfortably. His first thought was that his head had exploded, but then he came to his senses a little and realised that wouldn't really be feasible, seeing as he was still alive. But then, how was that possible, given that he had felt the explosion shake him to his core?
He ran through the events he remembered last, leading up to the explosion. He had fallen and blacked out, and that was it. He had no idea how long he'd been out cold, but he was starving and his throat felt dry.
He opened his eyes to find his vision fuzzy but slowly returning. All he could see was bright white, both on the walls and the floor of the room or whatever it was that he was in. The join between the wall and floor seemed almost indistinguishable, the light from the walls causing him to squint. The excessive whiteness made him feel dazed so he shut his eyes again.
Where was he? Some sort of heaven? No, he probably didn't deserve heaven, and he ached too much anyway. Wherever he was, it wasn't anywhere he'd been before, or heard of. He stretched his arms high above his head, taking a deep breath and sighing. He sat up groggily, shaking his head in an attempt to clear his mind.
“So you're awake too, huh?”
He jumped so violently that his back smashed into the wall behind him. A groan of pain escaped him. Charlie blinked several times, massaging a bruise on his back. A boy with curly blond hair and glasses was looking at him. He had his legs crossed, leaning against a wall and casually playing with the laces of his decaying trainers. A bruise on his cheekbone was a violent purple shade, standing out in the whiteness of their surroundings.
“Where...what...” Charlie's voice was cracking and rasping from lack of use. He licked his dry lips.
“No idea.” said the boy cheerfully. He had inquisitive, brilliant blue eyes behind his glass, and freckles that dotted his cheeks and his little nose. “I'm Peter West.”
“Charlie Anderson.” Charlie rubbed his eyes, trying to make sense of his circumstances and persuade his vision to return to normal. “How long have you been awake?” He continued.
“Dunno, about half an hour. I'm so bored and I really want to know what's happened to us.” Peter smiled half-heartedly.
Charlie struggled to his feet, desperate to stretch properly. He took one step forward and tripped over something, crashing to the ground. He saw Peter smirk a little. “Yeah, you might want to wait a few minutes before you try and get up. Mind you, that’s better than I did. I couldn’t even stand up.”
Recovering himself quickly, Charlie scanned the room, which was a reasonably sized square, and spotted what he had tripped over. A leg lay limply where he had fallen. This leg belonged to another boy, who was unconscious. Now that Charlie looked, he realised that there were actually five people in total in the room: Him, Peter, another boy and two girls. The other boy and the girls were all unconscious, lying on the hard white floor.
The girl closest to him lay with her head to one side and her left arm outstretched. She had a small mouth that was smiling slightly in her sleep, showing a faint dimple on her cheek, but dark circles under her eyes betrayed sleepless nights. Her extended arm was relaxed, with her hand splayed on the floor. Charlie noticed her wrist had a little burn on the side. Vaguely, he wondered how she had got it. Mostly she seemed like a perfectly ordinary person, but her most striking feature was her hair. Medium length, it came down to the bottom of her shoulder blades. That was normal. However, it was also bright red. Not so much ginger, as literally fire engine red. He wondered if she had dyed it that colour. It was certainly too vibrant to be natural. Other than that, she was quite plain.
