Blackout Experiment 1.0

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Alpine, California, December 18

Something had changed. Guards. There were guards now.
Watching them, keeping them from straying too far.
They bring them food, and enforced a curfew.

They were keeping people in and keeping people out.

Ask them why they were there and they'd say that they were there to protect people from themselves and the sanity they were sure to lose. And, of course, they were there to escort the names listed that were due at the end of the week.

Kaden couldn't tell how he felt. His name, all odd and there, had been one of the 60 from California.

That's 3,000 people. 50 states. 60 from each state. That's 3,000 people that were going to be experimented on.

Tony's name had been called too. But the thought of that made him want to cry so he went back to sitting in dark silence.

There was no way the US, or most of the world really, could survive without power for much longer. Yet, the thought of his mother without anyone else, left a sad taste in his mouth.

For some reason the whole thing made him think back to his first 'big' crush in the third grade. It was on Samantha Davidson. She was a tall blonde who liked to play four squares at recess. He'd laugh way to hard at her jokes and let her win at kickball, thinking it was the way to get her to like him. On Valentines Day, the class had this huge party, and you were supposed to bring in candy and all that holiday stuff. He'd brought in the typical superhero valentines and wrote everyone's name out. But for Samantha he asked his mom for a dollar and walked down to the grocery store and bought a rose. A nice, red, thorn-less rose. When he'd given the rose to Samantha, his hands shook and sweat lined his forehead.She'd giggled and taken the rose quickly, turning and running to her friends immediately after. They laughed and giggled, and played around and the day went on. Kaden almost laughed out loud thinking about how proud he'd been, thinking he'd won the girl over for sure. But at the end of the day, as the class was leaving, Kaden looked into the trash bin to throw out a candy wrapper and sitting there was a broken, trampled rose. To make matters worse, Samantha sat with Kevin Martin on the bus that day.

It felt like he was just moving in a circle. A circle of happiness and sadness and the dreams in between.

"Kaden?" His mothers voice distantly called from downstairs.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair and pushing himself up off the ground. His hall was creepy and ominous in the dark, like it belonged in a horror movie. The narrow, steep staircase was worse. The stairs had always annoyed him. His house was a decent size and yet his body barely made it down the stairs.

Waiting for him at the bottom of the dangerous things were his mother, Tony and Tony's mother.

"Hey Tony," Kaden still couldn't look at his best friends eyes, "hey Stacy."

No matter what, Tony's mother forced everyone to call her by her first name.

"Sorry that Daryl couldn't be here, you know how he is about helping others." She made everyone call her husband by his first name too.

"Oh, it's perfectly fine." Kaden smiled, trying to come off as calm.

He took a seat at the table, next to Stacy. "I'm going." The words left his mouth just as his mother opened hers.

"What?" She sounded like she was about to be sick.

"I'm going. Mom, no one can live like this. We're all too dependent upon electricity and the internet for us to suddenly be thrown into this. I can't let you suffer. I have to go."

"N-no Kaden that's not w-what we were going to say you-." Her stuttering was cut short by Tony.

"I'm going too." His fists were clenched and he was looking down. "For the same reasons as Kaden. It's not safe like this. People are already going insane and I don't want to see how far it'll go."

Both mothers looked at each other, their expressions nearly the same, then the room exploded into words of protest.

"You are not..."
"Young man what do you think you're..."
"I will not let you do this."
"Don't be stupid."
"The world will survive."
"You're my baby boy..."

It went on for almost and hour, the argument. And they talked about how they had only two days until all the people were due and how that was going to be one day, soon.

The boys kissed the most important women in their lives on the top of their heads and said they had to pack just a few things and that they'd spend the rest of the time together.

Tony followed Kaden up to his room and two bodies collapsed against the door.

"I don't know how I didn't give in or show even a little bit of how scared I am." Tony mumbled thoughtfully.

"Neither do I." Dirty blonde locks hit the door and Kaden banged his head against it. "What's gonna happen to us man?"

"I have no idea. But we can't let any of this hurt them." Tony sounded tired.

"Agreed." But so did Kaden.

So they packed, pretending they wern't worried, trying to act like they had before any of the power went out.