The Rubble

INTERLUDE 1

30th November 2023

Trapped. Not a single way out.

The dust storm shook the sides of the delivery van, rattling it like a toy. The cursed public saw the trail of dust follow a few black specks on the road, distantly. Men thronged upon each other, like trapped bees as the kids saw the truck with fear and anguish.

"Mom, food, food!" the little man held his stomach tight and pinpointed towards the truck.

"Yes, honey," the mother whimpered. She knelt down and wiped her son's tears as she looked on her husband and other men banging the iron doors.

Two bulky men got down from the truck and pulled the iron cans, walking towards the cramming public. The former signalled the latter to open the doors and as he did, they found a handful lying unconscious. Crossing the almost dead beings, they opened the iron cans and threw the food packets to the now- drooling hostages.

The men laughed hysterically and left the place, only after checking with the oxygen levels.

"Another week?"

"Yeah, if they don't fall out."

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Every day seems like a year now. The usual orderly routine for leaving the house for work or school passes in a blur as they look at the dark gable. With no difference between daylight and night, the cursed people have no choice but to look at the oxygen levels constantly, wait for food, and to stare at the same faces, every day.

People curl their hands into fists and grit their teeth, tear droplets forming at the end of their eyes. They find their stomach-lurching in pain as their adrenaline pumps due to the claustrophobia. The cold walls around the four sides were stationary, yet it closed them all in. The little air that crawled in from the beach beyond at least was some reassurance of its proximity, but they could no longer hear the waves and had lost track of time. If the sunset had been and gone, they should be out and making their way up the rocky cliff of life.

With very little or no food for days, one can notice the people being malnourished, the pungent smell of their body sweat turning the place a hell to live in. One couldn't talk much or they would see their death knocking the door with the oxygen levels going down south.

How and where they went wrong?

No one knows.

Everything was going just as smoothly when the lightning bolt struck, turning all these innocents' lives lopsided.

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"We should be meeting him in a few hours," Praanvi shrugged as she looked her watch. Few hours and this will end, they thought.

"Do you think he's going to meet us here?" Riddhi looked around the place and looked at the sky through the glass panes, buildings tampered, people hardly moving around.

"Well, we don't have a choice. Most of the buildings are gone," Adam gritted his teeth in anger as he banged his fist on the beautiful piece of mahogany. "I'd kill him, how dare he!" he showed his boss walk as the ladies felt his footsteps harming the floors.

"I think we should fill in the Government with the leads, maybe they could help us," Praanvi took her palmtop out as she noticed all their gadgets buzz.

"Who's it now?"

"It's him."

All of them saw each other in tension, wondering what his next step would be. 

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