Westvale

IV

IV

Awaking in complete darkness and jumping from her couch, she looked around carefully as to not stumble or hit anything. Adjusting to the brightness of the night, she went into her bedroom 10 meters away from the couch as to check the time on her alarm clock. It read "1.46". That is when she noticed the frantic and desperate knocking of her front door and occasionally, the front window. With the lights turned off, it was easier for Clara to look outside from her bedroom and attempt to identify the person or persons making the loudest noise possible at that time. Failing to do so, she cautiously moved towards her front door, when suddenly the person knocking shouted.

"Clara!" "Clara wake up!" "Open the door! Clara!".

Recognizing Ben's voice, Clara retracted all her suspicions and unlocked the front door, opening it.

"Ben! What the heck are you doing here at this hour? What is Denny doing with you?"

"Clara pack your things, we're leaving town."

"How so? What happened? Apart, for the radiation crisis and the explosions."

"Denny, tell her."

"Alright so I was playing around with frequencies around Westvale in order to see if the explosion that killed the towers disrupted all of the frequencies. I managed to hack into one of a military general or something of that nature, with the machine I built myself. He was on a walkie-talkie with another man and I listened in. The military is going to block all the town's exits, so no one can enter the town nor leave it. They are going to be monitoring everything around the town, such as the mountains, the lake, the town itself, etc... We are getting locked in. I still don't know why, however, it most surely has to do with the crisis."

"Why didn't you say anything earlier?"

"I overheard the conversation 30 minutes ago and had to run all of the way to Ben's firehouse to warn him, then you, because the firehouse is closer to my house. I thought he would have his car there and then we would be able to get to your house faster, but it turns out he didn't. We both ran to his house to get his car, and then came here although I told him I could've just ran to your house to warn you while he would get the car, but he said it would be safer to stick together."

"This is good though. I'm more than sure they're here to help, they should have come sooner. Plus, why wouldn't the military react to something like this?"

Ben tried the persuasion game along with Denny.

"But Clara, think. Why is the military the only force responding? Why are all communications cut? What or even who blew up the towers? Where are the decontamination units? Why isn't the town being evacuated, why are we getting locked inside?"

"Are you sure that our only option is to leave town? Can we not do anything else?"

"We need to be quick about this. Right now, this is what we have."
"Also, the firehouse responded to the explosion, and luckily no one got injured or killed. Again, we were the only ones to be there, although we tried contacting other emergency services to come help. We have reason to believe, it's not 100% sure, that the towers were blown up by someone. We found traces of explosive devices. Unfortunately, camera footage has been destroyed in the explosion. Something definitely obscure is happening in this town and it's time to leave, especially with the addition of this military lockdown."

"Alright give me two minutes. Let me just get some stuff."

Clara scrambled back into the house, disoriented, as if she had never lived there, while the other two got into the car. They would return to Denny's lab briefly, in order for Denny to retrieve some of his equipment, then leave right away. Clara rushed into her bedroom, went through the closet to grab some clothes, then opened her safe hidden in the bed and grabbed some money along with some of the valuables she had, and hurried to teh living room just down the hall to grab her purse, coming out of the house around two minutes later, stopping a few seconds in order to lock the house. She had left a mess behind, but clearly didn't have the time to clean up or care either. Her heart had never been racing so fast in her life, along with the vast and uneasy feeling of uncertainty. She ran to the car, shoving her gathered materials in the back seat. Ben left without a thought, making a screeching noise that disturbed the silence of the night, a little like the bombs that had shocked the town hours earlier. As they drove through the soon-to-become prison town, they could barely see the road in front of them, not only because of the darkness of the night, but also because of the town lights that had been deactivated, along with most things requiring electricity supplied by the town. No noise could be heard apart for the roaring of the car; however, a heavy sentiment of fright and doubt were present.