Hey guys. :)
Wow, another new story. This one I've been cooking up for quite a while now, and the time to publish it's finally come.
I don't own Total Drama, or anything involved with it. There will be a few OCs mentioned in it, which in no way have any relation to the contestants, but only one of them will be seen… quite a lot, actually.
-Prologue-
Natural disasters can affect a lot of things. A tsunami, for example, would devastate the population of the city and/or country it hit. Flooding could leave people homeless, and all their belongings washed away.
But when you have the sinking of an island summer camp, in the middle of a lake with the same name – that's still a disaster. Just not natural. Yet, it does have its major effects.
One could be the loss of a reality show's reputation, with many of the fans angered because some of their favorite cast members were blown away in supersize balloons.
Another could be the damage done to the show's main location.
But in this case, there's a lot more to it than what's right here.
Chapter 1 – Saved
The early evening sky was dotted with stars, some shining brighter than others. It was a fairly pleasant night, counting the brilliant full moon and the calm waters down below.
Well, they weren't exactly that calm.
Various bits of debris were scattered around the lake, ranging from chairs and tables to bunk beds, and even whole buildings. On some of those buildings, there were people – mostly teens at that. They were four the six contestants that were not stuck in balloons, along with the two hosts. It was mostly silent, the only sounds being the water gently lapping up against the walls, and brief small talk.
"So… we should be getting out of here soon, right?" Mike asked, turning around to face the glowing lights of the mainland.
"After six hours of waiting around on this cabin doing absolutely nothing, I think that someone should have sent out a rescue helicopter or something by now." Gwen replied, wincing as she nursed her sprained ankle. "Where are the others though? Sam, Sierra, Lightning…"
"Something tells me that they would have at least popped out of their balloons by now, and be safe on solid ground." Cameron continued, his expression creased in concentration. "Just where exactly did they land?"
"If one thing's for sure, it's not near here at all. My bet is that the closest some of them are is at least Chicago."
"I don't get why Chris didn't tie down the balloons." Zoey put in, folding her arms and sighing. "Surely he would've known if they were going to blow away. But now he's… possibly in trouble. Unless the ballooned people didn't go too far."
The four teens went silent again as they looked around, hoping for a contestant to suddenly fall into the water, or for the sound of a helicopter or boat to reach their ears. They do end up hearing something – but unfortunately, it was neither of those things, but someone swimming over to them.
"Ugh, finally." A raspy voice groaned.
"Nice one on losing the mutant freakshow shark." Gwen quipped, rolling her eyes as Heather slowly and painfully pulled herself onto the cabin.
"Whatever." She scoffed, flopping onto her back and closing her eyes. "No one disturb me. I have been treading water for hours on end, and I'm almost numb from head to toe. What kind of show is this anymore?"
"Uh, you do realize that we're not on camera, right?" Chris called from atop the main lodge.
"Yeah, we all know that." Zoey interrupted, casting an annoyed glance in the host's direction. "We'd be all going to make confessionals every five minutes if we were."
"Well the confessional's… currently MIA, so of course that wouldn't be happening."
"It'll be filled with water anyway, so why would we use it?" Mike put in, shrugging.
"Alright, another roll call. Who's missing?"
"Uh… just Alejandro and Owen now, I think." Gwen replied, straining her eyes to look ahead. "Actually, I think I can see Alejandro."
"Wait, really?" Heather exclaimed, her eyes now wide open. "Where is he?"
Zoey, who was also scoping out their surroundings, had spotted a figure swimming through the water some distance away. Suddenly, a bright light came into her view, and she gasped.
"I see a light!" She cheered. "I see a light!"
"Yeah, there's lights on the mainland. Of course we'd see one." Heather scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"No, there's a very bright light not too far away from us!" Cameron added, smiling in excitement. "I think it's the headlight of a boat!"
"Did I hear the words 'bright light'?" Chris asked, standing up to check out what was happening. "Well hallelujah! We are safe!"
"Call out to them!" Gwen said frantically, shuffling to sit at the end of the cabin and then starting to wave her arms madly.
"OVER HERE!" Zoey shouted, sticking a hand in the air.
The light rapidly grew bigger and bigger, as the boat got closer and closer. Soon enough, it became evident that it was a search and rescue boat, and had people on board all ready to help them.
"Hold tight, we're going as quickly as we can!" A tall woman in her mid-thirties called from the boat, armed with a coiled up rope.
Eventually, the boat stopped about twenty feet away, and the rope was chucked out, a lifesaver ring attached to the end of it.
"This is for anyone who is suffering from any injuries." A slightly older man instructed, presumably middle-aged.
"Yes please." Gwen responded, grabbing the life ring with one hand and Heather's arm with the other.
"Why are you taking me?" Heather asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well let's face it. I know we hate each other, but we're also pretty much in the same boat here."
"Uh, thanks, I guess."
"Ready?" The tall woman called, ready to pull the rope back towards the boat.
"Ready." The two nemeses replied.
"Okay, on the count of three, we're going to start pulling. There will be assistance once you get to the boat."
A couple of others joined on the back, and gripped onto the rope.
"One!" A somewhat familiar voice began, the owner presumably standing off to the side. "Two! Three!"
The three on the rope started pulling, making short work of their job as Gwen and Heather reached the boat within seconds.
"We'll send it out a couple more times, so sit tight!" A young adult male instructed, rearing up the small line.
The three remaining teens quickly slipped off the cabin and grabbed the life ring as soon as it was thrown to them.
Spitting out a fountain of water, Gwen found herself hauled onto the boat along with Heather, and looked up at who had helped them on.
"Wait, Bridgette?" She exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought you lived in Moncton?"
"Oh, I'm doing volunteer search and rescue work based in Toronto for this half of the summer." Bridgette replied, pulling her friend up to a sitting position. "That includes first aid as well."
"First aid? Well that's great, because I sprained my ankle during the final challenge. You got something for that?"
"I… think we might have run out of bandages. I'll just check." Bridgette turned around and walked off, going down a set of stairs not too far away.
Sighing, Gwen leaned against the boat, noticing Chris and Chef climbing on out of the corner of her eye, as well as Zoey sitting down next to her.
"Well at least we were found." She remarked. "I didn't know if there was even gonna be someone who would think of coming out here. Oh, and apparently there's a big rainstorm coming."
"That explains the dark clouds up ahead." Gwen replied, shifting her gaze up to the large, menacing storm clouds not far away from them.
The boat then started to move, just as Bridgette came out from the cabin, a bandage roll clutched in her left hand.
"Turns out we had one left!" She called, walking over to the two girls.
Meanwhile, in the boat's cabin, Heather was tightly wrapped in a blanket and lying on a mattress in the corner of the room.
"Ugh, so cold." She grumbled, trying to roll over. "And I still can't move. Great. Now what?"
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached her ears, and she shifted her gaze to the stairs, spotting the tall blonde woman carefully going down them, the middle-aged man right behind her.
"So you're saying that they had trackers on their ankles?" The woman asked as Chris stopped at the top.
"Yeah, the producers were pretty adamant on having them if we lost the guys in the balloons." Chris replied, shrugging. "There's a different tracking device for each contestant."
"And these devices," the middle-aged man continued, sitting down on a small stool, "where have you got them stored?"
"Oh yeah, they're in the office on the mainland. Which is in central Toronto."
"Alright, we'll get there as soon as possible and get all of them. Now another question, but how are you going to find each one of these missing contestants if they're potentially scattered all over the continent?"
"Uh, yeah… about that. You see-"
"Sorry for butting in, but I think that who you've got should be alright." The woman interrupts. "They seem to know what it takes, and will be good to go after a few days of rest and recovery."
"That was actually… what I was going to say, but okay then!"
Still lying on the mattress in the corner, Heather quietly groaned and rolled her eyes.
"No thanks." She muttered under her breath. "Had enough of that crap." Casting her eyes across the room, she noticed a huddled form in the opposing corner, also wrapped up in a blanket, and to her surprise, staring right back at her with all too familiar greenish blue eyes.
Back up top, Mike, Cameron, Bridgette, Gwen and Zoey were all seated in a roughly shaped circle, deep in conversation. Additionally, the four rescued teens had an emergency blanket each.
"Wait, so Owen managed to… get back to the mainland?" Gwen exclaimed, a tone of surprise in her voice.
"Yeah, he was curled up on a collapsed picnic table just thirty feet away from the shoreline." Bridgette replied, nodding. "He apparently lives in Toronto, so one of his family members came around to pick him up."
"Wow."
"Sorry to interrupt, but do you know much about the others in the balloons?" Zoey asked as Bridgette turned to face her.
"Oh, not really, except… I did see several balloons float across the sky earlier today, but didn't think that much of them. Now that you mention it though, I think it was probably all the guys who are… well, missing."
The boat ride was fairly uneventful, but once fifteen minutes had passed, everyone was back on mainland and had been transported via bus to a hotel in central city, which was where the eliminated contestants had been staying, while Chris and Chef headed to the producers' office.
The first thing that was on all the contestants' minds was showering, and in five minutes most of them had cleaned themselves up and gotten into dry, warm clothes. Then, they all gulped down a simple meal of roast lamb with various vegetables on the side.
Later on, Zoey was seated on one part of a three seater sofa in the common room of the hotel, hot chocolate in hand and dressed in her pyjamas with a light pink hoodie overtop.
"So how do you think the others are going to get back here?" Gwen asked as she hobbled in, taking a seat on the opposite side of the sofa.
"I have no idea." Zoey replied, sitting up. "I overheard something about them having trackers on their ankles when we were still on the boat… but that's it."
"Yeah, I remember that. Chris and Chef went to collect the tracking devices, right?"
"Right. But as for now, I guess we just wait and see. Who knows what happened?"
Across the room, Heather was sitting on an armchair, wearing a soft blue dressing gown and her feet soaking in a hot tub of water.
"Brr, still cold…" She muttered, groaning. "How long is it going to take until I'm warm enough to move around? Until tomorrow?"
Sighing, she looked out the window next to her, noticing the storm clouds that were almost directly above the hotel. Additionally, there were several droplets of water on the outside of the glass, and they were slowly increasing in numbers.
Outside, a black limousine pulled up in front of the hotel, and Chris got out, a covered bundle held with both of his arms.
"Alright, let's get these things inside before the rain gets worse." He said as Chef got out from the driver's side, walking straight around to the entrance.
Bridgette, who had been patiently waiting in the hotel's lobby, noticed the two hosts walking over to the entrance, and ran off to alert the others.
Soon, those who weren't already in the common room had gathered in there, spacing out so a majority of the couches and sofas were taken up. Alejandro, who was, back on the boat, on the opposite side of the room to Heather, had a similar problem, and was also in a bath robe with his feet in a hot tub, yet on the far end of a long, curved lounger in one corner of the room.
Chris stood a few feet away from the doorway, a bunch of odd yet identical devices at his feet.
"Alright, so as you all know, most of your fellow contestants are stuck in balloons and are at unknown locations." He began as Bridgette walked in, going over to an empty reclining chair and sat down in it. "Well we've… sort of found where they're at, and so far, there's seven headed in the general direction of Chicago, but the other's strayed off and seems to be bound for either New York City or Philadelphia."
"So all that information is on… those devices?" Mike asked, briefly pointing at the devices.
"Yep, these are the tracking devices. One for each of you at least."
"Wait, there's six of us, but eight devices." Cameron interrupts. "Correct?"
"Oh… well yes, that is correct. Darn, thought there was enough of ya."
"Uh… I guess I could help out, if it makes it easier." Bridgette volunteered, raising a hand.
"Never mind then, we should be good. Sunrise tomorrow, you'll head off."
"Tomorrow?" Gwen echoed. "Can't we at least have a couple of days' rest before we get into this? And besides, we don't know who's going where yet."
"Hey, I'm not- ugh, okay, fine." Chris frowned in annoyance. "You can wait for two days. No later! Now get yourselves off to bed or something. You all look like you've just done an awake-a-thon."
"Gee, thanks." Heather deadpanned, scowling. "So do you."
Glaring, Chris strode out of the room, leaving the seven teens to mull over what could happen in the next few days. The rain then started to come down more steadily, so much so that it could be heard from inside.
"Well I'm… just gonna go upstairs." Zoey said tiredly, yawning as she got up. "It's been a really long day… oh, where do we sleep? Are there specific rooms allocated to each of us or something?"
"When I got here, that's how it seemed to work." Gwen replied, slowly standing up, holding onto the wall for support. "But I was only here for a night or two, and then it was back onto the island for the finale. So I guess it's still the same system. But I don't know which room you're in, though. Unless there's a couple of rooms with nametags on them."
"Oh, okay. Hey, do you need help getting up the stairs?"
"Uh… yeah, I probably will."
Eventually, the others start to move out of the room as well, and go upstairs to their bedrooms. And as luck would have it, Zoey found the door to a room with her name on it, as did Mike, only with his name.
Heather finished putting on a plain pink pair of pyjama pants, turning around to face the bed once she was done.
"Okay, where's the stupid electric blanket switch?" She muttered, shuffling over and getting down on her knees, only to find the switch already on, the pointer facing the '3'. "Well… never mind then, I guess." She pulled the covers back and slowly crawled under them, sighing as she did. "Ahhh… that's so… warm."
The rest of the hotel started to quieten down for the night, with most hallway lights being switched off except for the odd few, should anyone need to get up later on for some reason or another. Chris and Chef also left, going their separate ways to unknown locations, yet presumably to get some sleep.
As for Bridgette, she stayed at the hotel, and took a room with no nametag on the door.
Outside, Toronto itself was also dimming down – shops were closing for the night, lights were going off in residential areas, and most of the city's street lights shone brightly for anyone driving into the night.
Lake Wawanakwa was very quiet as well. The moonlight shone down onto the water, which was still full of various bits of debris, such as trees, picnic tables and other things. Rain drops punctured the surface, slowly but surely becoming more.
The only living thing left in the lake was Fang, who was swimming around aimlessly, seeming to be on a search for none other than Scott. Of course, there was probably going to be no success in that area. Scott wasn't even near the former campsite at all. And nor were the other missing contestants.
The tracking devices were the only source of knowledge about where they were. As Chris had mentioned earlier, most of them were headed in the general direction of Chicago, and one other was bound for New York City or Philadelphia.
But now, some of the balloons had drastically changed their course, and had gone way past Chicago. The only question that remains is… who was headed where?
xx
And there we have it, the first chapter! Hope you guys all enjoyed reading it. :)
Next chapter will be up in two weeks' time, at best. Oh, and if you haven't already, check out my other new fic, Waking Up in Vegas. It stars the sisters from RR, but mostly Emma.
Until next time!