Wicked Atmosphere | Aris Jones [2]

1 || Settling In

"Piper. Piper, can you hear me?"

I tossed and turned at the sound of Rachel's voice, panting hard. "Rachel?" I muttered.

"Piper. Forget about me."

"What?"

"Forget about me. I'm gone now. You need to let me go."

"No. No, Rachel, I--"

"Thank you for being my friend, Piper."

Suddenly, I felt someone shake me awake. "Hey!" It was one of the men that rescued us. "We need to go right now! Come on!"

"What the--" Before I could finish my sentence, the man pulled me out of the helicopter, causing me to nearly fall into the sand below my feet. I was expecting the sun to blind me again, but I was only brought with bright lights coming from above me as it was now dark outside.

How long was I asleep?

"Cranks!" someone shouted in the distance.

"Keep moving, kids!" someone else shouted as we ran towards a building, the sound of gunshots filling our ears.

So we continued running through the sand, stumbling and tripping over our feet. After struggling for quite some time, we all made it inside, the doors closing behind us. We looked around, taking it all in, still in shock and confused. Where were we at?

I noticed that our group was a lot smaller than it was before I fell asleep. "Where's everyone else?" Aris and Cora looked at each other, then back at me. "What is it? What happened to the others?"

"They were taken to another facility while you were asleep," Cora replied. "This is the rest of us."

I looked around and felt my heart drop. Harriet, Sonya, Maeve, Lillie, Gwyneth, and Emily were not with us. I shook my head in disbelief. "No. No, they can't be gone." I looked at Aris with desperation all over my face. "Aris, please tell me they're not gone."

"They are, Piper," Aris told me. "I'm sorry."

I fought the urge to cry, shaking and clenching my fists. This wasn't happening. I just lost Rachel. I couldn't lose any more of my friends.

"So where do we go now?" Jane asked us. "Do we just wait for someone or...?"

"Okay, kids, let's go!" a soldier shouted at us, trying to get us to follow him.

I stormed up to him and lunged for his throat, anger written all over my face as he tried to hold me back. "Where are the rest of my friends?!" I shouted as Aris and the other girls succeeded at pulling me off of him. "I want my other friends back!"

"Piper, calm down!" Aris shouted.

I turned to Aris, breathing heavily. "Some of our friends aren't here with us and you and everyone else are acting so sticking calm!"

"There's nothing we can do!" Jane stepped in. "It's just us now and we're going to have to stick together!"

"She's right!" a new voice called out from behind us. We looked to see a man strolling towards us, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a jacket, looking casual. His face looked almost similar to a rat. "You kids doing okay?" Rat Man asked us.

"What does it look like to you?" I snapped.

"Piper!" Aris hissed at me.

"I understand your frustration," he replied. "Sorry about all the fuss. We had ourselves a bit of a swarm. Of course, it's common around here, but you're safe now."

"Who are you?" I asked.

Rat Man smirked a little. "I'm the reason you're all still alive and it's my intention to keep you that way."