This was written for the Hurt/Comfort Bingo February Hiatus Challenge on Livejournal...and now that it's September I think it's about time I posted it here too.
The prompts used are: Accidents, Plane Crash, Nightmares, Wild Card: Post Apocalypse
Warnings: character deaths (multiple)
Disclaimer: I really don't own Glee.
Not even a whimper.
This had been meant to be it; the first competition they'd gone to without some kind of major disaster beforehand. No-one had terrible secrets to be spilt moments before the competition, no major fallings out, no betrayals or snap transfers to other schools, no leaked set-lists or babies due to be born any second; this was meant to be the one that went smoothly.
All fourteen members of New Directions, now that Kurt had returned to them bringing Blaine with him, had boarded the bus full of smiles and excitement, ready for what they'd all promised to be a trouble-free competition. Mr Schue, Coach Beiste and their new ally Jesse St. James had gotten on board as chaperones-come-supporters, ready to watch New Directions finally get the performance they knew they could have, minus the usual drama beforehand. It was going to be perfect.
They really should have known better.
Everyone's seen a disaster movie, right? One where the world pretty much ends and only a plucky band of survivors seem to escape all the devastation and go on into an uncertain future with smiles on their faces because miraculously everyone they care about seems to have survived too, there's hope for the survival of the human race and someone gives an incredibly moving speech about survival and love and hope and all that shit, right?
There's always advanced warning before the apocalypse arrives though; no matter what. Someone will have a bad feeling, there'll be strange weather patterns or seismic activity, or hell, people will start getting sick; there's always something though to make the heroes realise that something seriously bad is coming their way.
Nothing like that happens in real life.
There was no warning, no science-y types theorising and coming up with answers just a little bit too late. No chances for people to get together with their loved ones, or to even say goodbye. No moving speeches from the people in authority. There was nothing at all.
The world didn't end because of global warming or nuclear war or some new kind of disease that picked everyone off one by one; none of the stuff people had been worrying about for years. No, none of that.
There was no bang when the world died, there wasn't even a whimper. The world ended because practically everyone just stopped. Stopped breathing, their hearts stopped beating; that was it. Everyone just died. In an instant; exactly where they stood. In a split second it was all over.
The one thing that was similar to the movies though was the plane crashes. No matter what the disaster movie, there always seems to be a plane crash. The apocalypse begins and the planes start dropping out of the sky, causing even more trouble for those on the ground.
At the time they thought it was the plane crash that had caused the accident. That the driver had been so caught in the moment of watching the plane crashing in the distance that he lost control of the bus, or maybe he was so distracted by the crash that he didn't notice another car coming in the opposite direction, swerved to avoid it, thus causing the crash. It was an easy enough conclusion to come to, but it didn't account for the fact that only four voices out of eighteen screamed out in terror as the bus came off the road.
It didn't account for the fact that only four people survived a relatively minor bus crash.
Jesse was the first to regain the use of his voice after the shock of realising that they had just crashed wore off. Calling out to see if everyone else was Ok, he was shaken to only receive replies from Quinn, Mike and Blaine.
Then everything turned to chaos.
That's when Quinn started screaming and Mike started panicking as the four of them began checking on the others only to find that everyone else, all their friends, were dead. They checked, double-checked, triple-checked, then checked again, to be certain that what they had found was correct; that they were the only ones left. None of their phones worked, not that they had any clue where they were anyway even if they could call for help. By this time Quinn was crying softy into Mike's shirt, him holding her close looking completely lost, while Blaine just sat beside Kurt's body holding his hand gently. All of them were looking to him for leadership though and that just terrified him.
He'd been brought down to earth with one heck of a bump when he'd started UCLA, and that harsh introduction to the real world had been what had prompted him to go back to Lima and at least attempt to make amends for what he'd done in the past. They had given him a second chance, and he was really glad of that, but this...this wasn't what he'd signed up for.
He glanced up the bus to where Rachel was; she'd yet to fully accept his apologies and now she never would. Pushing away all those regrets and the desire to breakdown like the others, he pulled himself together and told them what their only viable option was: they had to go and find help.
None of them wanted to leave their friends there, in the middle of nowhere, but they had no choice.
As they walked away from the bus he told them not to look back. No-one did.
It took nearly a day until they eventually reached a nearby town, but all they found there was more death. They tried to find survivors but there were just none to be found. Everyone appeared to have just died exactly where they were, people sat in their cars, on the pavements, at tables in restaurants. There were a few people that looked as if they had been hurt in accidents, from cars whose drivers had died seemed to be the most common cause; the thought that maybe they would have been survivors too is fleeting, but they try not to dwell on it. There's no point in dwelling on anything anymore.
If thoughts turn to family and friends that may still be out there somewhere, survivors just like them, then they don't share them. They don't share thoughts on anything now.
Their lives used to be full of noise, with a song for any and every occasion, but now there was just silence. They didn't talk to one another, gestures were enough.
This wasn't survival; it was existence and nothing more.
It doesn't take long for the nightmares to start and Mike seems to get the worst out of all of them. He doesn't scream though, doesn't cry out; the silence has taken over all of their lives so much now it's even preventing them from expressing fear and pain. He tries not sleeping for a few days and they don't even realise until he collapses and scares the hell out of them.
It becomes clear that things have to change.
They still don't talk, the silence continues to prevail, but they silently decide to start surviving again; existing isn't nearly enough anymore.
They start collecting up supplies instead of just using what they need when they need it. Jesse comes back one day with a car that has a full tank of fuel; no-one asks whether there was a body in the car when he found it, they don't want to know anyway. They stock up on water and non-perishable items of food-though Blaine has to wait outside when they go to the supermarket as the smell of rotting food, not to mention rotting corpses, becomes too much for him; it doesn't do much for Mike or Quinn either but they do what they have to do, regardless. A first aid kit, spare clothes and other essentials are acquired along the way and soon they are ready to go.
It's common sense to avoid towns except in emergencies, as they'd found in the supermarket everything was starting to decompose and soon disease would be rife; they may have survived whatever killed everyone else but they didn't want to be taking any unnecessary risks against things that they knew could kill them.
As much as they dreaded the idea of going back to Lima and finding out whether or not anyone else had survived, there were few other places they could go and for their own peace of mind they had to at least try.
Jesse and Quinn took turns driving while Blaine and Mike sat in the back and kept an eye out for any signs of other survivors; not that they saw any, not in the middle of nowhere.
There wasn't a CD player, no radio either, but they didn't need it; the car engine making the most noise any of them had really heard since the day the world ended.
They eventually ran out of petrol a few hours away from the border to Lima and the farm that they all knew was there. Gathering up what they could reasonably carry they began walking; Mike and Jesse in front, Blaine and Quinn following behind.
They were about ten minutes away from the farm when something happened that brought all of them to a very sudden stop.
Out of the silence came the sound of a child laughing.
After all of the death and the all-encompassing silence of the past week or so, the laughter is so gloriously incongruous that Blaine let out a yell of joy before jumping onto Mike's back, Mike laughing and smiling in a way they haven't seen since this all began.
As their two friends began celebrating Jesse looked to Quinn with tears in his eyes.
"I think we're going to be OK."
This was it. This was what they had all been hoping for. There were other survivors; this was the salvation she had been hoping and praying for. The tears that she hadn't been able to cry since that night finally came to the surface. She managed a smile for him though, between her tears and nodded.
"I think we are."