This is going to be long and filled with ups and downs.

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It's dark and hot – very hot. The air is thick and hard to breath – it burns, and he coughs. He moves his head from the ground, he thinks. He then swoons and he tastes blood. He can't remember why it's so dark and why his foot is in so much pain. His mind was captured by a slowly vanishing haze and he can't make any sense out of anything.

He tries to move but can't make any sense of what's up and what's down. He wishes he could see.

Then it comes to him.

It had all began with a game of hide and seek Rex. It wasn't a game to him, but a few ganky freshmen had gotten their grubby little hands on his puppet and thought it would be funny. If most of those freshmen weren't bigger than him and he believed in violence he would have beat them up.

Worse of all was it was after a performance when he noticed he was missing until after everyone was leaving, and no one was kind enough to help him search for his missing puppet. Great friends…

He had wondered the blackened halls of Hollywood Arts for half an hour, singing softly to keep the Hollywood Arts ghosts Jade had told him about at bay. He walked by the off limits basement and hoped his puppet wasn't in there. He came back to the room which led to the basement and stared long and hard at the 'off limits' sign.

After swallowing his fear, and calling himself a pansy in Rex's voice, he reached for the closed door. It creaked open and he flashed his pear phone into the blackened hole of a basement. He could see another light, a soft orange near the bottom.

"Rex, are you down there?"

He received no answer but he began down the creaky stairwell, the old wood hisses under his weight. Once he's at the bottom he looks towards his left and gasps.

Jade is standing near a mountain of boxes, shoots him a flitting glance. Her attention moves back to the box before her and she continues to shift through the items, ignoring him.

"What are you doing here?" He asks and glances around nervously. Being alone with Jade in a dark place was a nightmare he had once.

"I like to be in dark places." She answers and he's not really sure if she's being sarcastic.

"Oh," he felt was his best response. "Have you seen Rex?"

An animalistic growl escaped her and he quickly prepared himself to bolt back upstairs. She threw the box down she was looking through and tore open another one. He realized that maybe the growl wasn't meant for him.

"They left him over there." Her hand waved dismissively behind her. "Can you leave now?"

Robbie looked to his left and sighed in relief finding his best friend unharmed propped against a few old paintings. He moved towards Rex just as the ground began to shake violently.

"It's an Earthquake!"

He begins backing up and looking for cover. Then all was black.

-wr-

Some of his bearings returned to him, he felt around in his pocket finding his pear phone. Relief flooded him when his phone worked – it had a long crack down the middle of it. He had insurance for that.

The light was limited but in the total blackness was like a spot light. He was surrounded, by unhinged pipes and pieces of building. Looking at his pained foot he found it was his right foot and his shoe was missing. He couldn't move his toes.

Tears welled up in his eyes and he coughed again, and searched around for his glasses with the light not finding them, but he found something else.

A few feet away he caught a glimpse of a pale, blood and dirt covered face. His heart fell into his stomach. "Jade," he croaked. He looked back down at his phone intent on calling someone to help them but he had no signal, not even a bar. He also took note that his battery life was about at half way.

After shaking his nerves he maneuvered himself carefully for the objects above him wouldn't fall, he crawled towards Jade using he cell as guiding light. Once over her he then positioned a finger under her nose. He only removed it when he was sure the girl was breathing.

He began to lightly slap her cheek softly, hesitantly. He couldn't believe he was slapping Jade West. "Wake up…" He begged. Blood was pooling around her head, and he was sure he needed to wake her up. He had heard if someone has a concussion they shouldn't fall asleep. "I don't think you're really supposed to sleep." He whispered and wished he had some water.

Her brows scrunched up first and her head tilted to the left a little. Then a fit of coughs had her whole body tensing and turning to her side. "Are you alright?" He asked as his phoned blinked off enveloping them in darkness.

He fumbled a little to get his light back on. He flashed it in her face and she hissed at him like a vampire and squinted.

"What in the he– why are you shinning that in my face?" She was clutching her head and glaring at him weakly. She lost interest in him fairly quickly as she rose to a sitting position. Her eyes roamed around taking in all the fallen debris with odd calm eyes.

"I… I think it was an earthquake." Robbie flashed his phone around. "I think we're trapped."

"No crap…"She winced bringing her hand back to look at her blood covered hand. "I don't think that's good." She mumbled to herself.

"I don't have a signal." He told her even though she hadn't asked. He focused his phone on a pipe above them which was dripping water onto his shoulder. "We're going to have wait until someone comes looking for us."

She isn't really paying attention he can tell. She is clutching her head which gushes blood. Robbie quickly pulls off his over shirt which is a sweater leaving him in a white T-shirt and motions for her to press it to her head. Without question she actually does it and leans on a slab of ceiling behind her, she's growing paler.

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