Stay...Calm

Chapter 31

Victorine woke up, restless in the middle of the night. It was practically pitch black inside the shelter, so it took some time for her eyes to adjust. If she squinted, she could see shadow-covered outlines of everyone. Since there weren't enough beds for all sixteen of them, most had to share (no matter how much they whine about it). Victorine was curled at the very foot of Asha's bed like a fluffy pet. Parker and Jacey spooned in the darkness, while Timothy and Horace had to put a pillow between them as a barricade. Buckley and Pauline were pretty casual about it, and Melissa cuddled her baby.

The room was very crowded; so much so you could hear everyone's breathing. But for some reason, it seemed a bit easier to notice everyone who wasn't there then everyone who was. Asha had earlier sighing in relief by how many made it out. But Victorine only could perceive that as sixteen out of twenty people. Four people who weren't safe in the bunker and go on. A fifth of what they had before was rather lost in the freezing woods, a charred corpse or struggling for breath in the rubble and waste. Victorine turned onto her back, slowly so she wouldn't make a sound and wake someone, and stared at the ceiling. It was slightly cracked, with tiny holes dotting all over it. Though it wasn't much to look at, she tried to keep her eyes fixed on it until she eventually dozed off.

The next day felt long and stuffy. The shelter felt a bit drafty, though the mass of people almost made Victorine sweat. Most people didn't sit anywhere else but they're own beds. Breakfast was tiny, dry packets of cereal you get at hotel buffets. Afterward, Ms.Kion and Mrs.Daniels whispered privately to each other in a corner as the rest of the room was left to find ways to occupy themselves.

Yolanda tried to go right back to sleep, but to no avail. From the looks of it, the only way the kids could keep themselves occupied was to chatter with each other. The only forms of entertainment in the shelter were a deck of cards and a rubber ball. The twins immediately seized the rubber ball, and Pauline moved to the other side of the room. They tossed it around for about five minutes until they got bored of it and tried bouncing it off the walls. This, of course, ended up with the ball bouncing into the darkest corner of the room and hitting Lee square in the nose. That made Lee start shouting at them, one thing leads to another, and Mrs.Daniels has to take the ball away.

That left the deck of cards. Buckley and Pauline started off with playing go-fish for about half an hour until they decided that they should try something "more grown-up." So naturally, they tried poker. However, it wasn't as much "poker" as it was "Whoever had a pair or three of a kind at the first draw wins and no one even gambles." It wasn't until Yolanda woke from her partial-nap with some pocket money that they even started trying.

But that only lasted until Yolanda got so frustrated by the kids' ignorance about the game that she dropped cards on the floor, and marching to the other end of the room, yelling, "I'm out."

"That's it," Mrs.Daniels announced. "How 'bout we just stop being bored and miserable and try to do something together. Why don't we just...talk? About anything. About our feelings or our lives or anything so that we won't lose ourselves."

Some people in the room groaned, but Mrs.Daniels ignored it. "Here, I'll start. I have three young boys, who all grew up and left. All three dominated by soccer and crushed the variety show. And-"

"Haven't we heard enough about your damn kids?' Timothy called out.

"Fine then! You tell a story," Mrs.Daniels snapped. He rolled his eyes and tried to conjure up an anecdote or a memory.

"Well, I grew up in a place that was nice and far from here," he began. "I remember once Horace wouldn't stop flirting with the butler."

"You grabbed the maid's butt when you were seven!" Horace called out getting all defensive. "And dad paid her not to tell anyone."