"I can't believe summer is already over. It feels like it only lasted a week", said Veronica Lodge while walking to class with Betty Cooper.
"I know, I'm so excited to be back at school", Betty responded, pushing her glasses to her face.
The hallways of Riverdale are flooded with fresh new faces, and some familiar ones. The students are looking for their new lockers and where their classes will be for the year. As the girls make their way to first period, they see one of the most familiar faces of all. Archie Andrews stumbling down the hall towards them. You see, the girls used to fight over this boy. They even almost lost their friendship because of him. In recent months, the girls began to notice that he was romancing both of them. Even though they already knew this before, they were blinded by love and allowed it to happen. However, the girls began to realize that it wasn't a good way to show that they respected themselves, so they had dropped him. This left Archie alone and with the title of being a player over his head. Archie stops in front of the girls
"H-hi Betty. Hi Veronica, how was your summer?".
The girls stop and act friendly, catching up with how their summers went before going on their way, laughing at how they almost lost each other over that boy. I mean, how old school is that? Allowing a boy to have two girls without being fully committed to one and letting the girls fight over him. Yeah, right. Betty waves goodbye to Veronica as she walks into Miss. Grundy's class. Later that day, the girls meet up at Pop's Coffeeshop, where they have been regulars since they were young. Archie is there with his best friend Jughead. The girls were introduced to Jughead years ago, but the only thing they really knew about him was that he was able to eat 10 times more than the average human.
"Wow, Jughead. This is the first time I have seen you without a burger in your mouth", Veronica said.
"Ha, very funny. Is daddy still paying for everything since you lack the ability to be independent?", he shoots back at her. Veronica smiles and glares at him.
The girls sit down in their usual spot with their usual three shot lattes with almond milk. Veronica begins to tell Betty all the fresh gossip she has learned on the first day of school which Betty usually doesn't care to listen to, but you can't shut up Veronica once she gets started on gossip. So, Betty sits back with her copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac and prepares to drown Veronica out as she goes on.
"Oh my god, so apparently Midge is cheating on Moose with Reggie. Too bad Moose is too dumb to realize though, huh? I mean, how can you not notice when you're being cheated on. All the signs are basically there. Her going out of time for the summer with just her family, my ass."
"Yeah, sure. Uh-huh. That's crazy", Betty says back, not even sure what she's responding to.
Veronica had a bad habit of gossiping. A lot of people had lost respect or trust with her, because they never knew what she would repeat to others. Especially with her family being richer than God, they knew she could get away with just about anything. Betty always joked she was surprised Veronica hasn't been beat up yet by someone she shared incorrect information about. It seemed the only person who could handle Veronica at Riverdale was Betty, and for that, she was always grateful. Betty, of course, wanted to know what Veronica said behind her back but knew it probably had the word "nerd" in it since she was in fact, a nerd.
"How bad of an insult could that be?", Betty thought. "I mean, I do always have a book in my hand and I tend to be teacher's pet. Oh well, people get called worse things", Betty thinks, putting her bookmark in her book.
Betty gets up from their booth and lets Veronica know she must get home to start on all the first day homework she was assigned and wants to make sure she gets home before the sun goes down. Veronica hangs around the coffeeshop with Reggie.
During Betty's journey home, she comes across a group of people celebrating one of the newest insane policies President Donald Trump approves.
"How did our country come to allow reality stars to be president? I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe where everything just gets worse", she thinks to herself. "It's only a matter of time until the world loses it's mind and sets off all the nukes in the world. Thank god the government built those vaults, so we have somewhere to go when the inevitable happens." Shuttering at the thought of it, she picks up her pace to get home and ignore the world in her homework.
The closer she gets to her street, she notices sirens all over town. Not knowing what was happening, she bolts home. Crashing through her front door, she asks her family what is happening. She notices the fear across her parents face as they are glued to the TV set. She turns her attention to it, as well.
"There have been explosions all over the country. We're getting reports from all the main cities. Prepare to evacuate to your assigned vaults, immediately. God Bless all of you and be safe out there.", the news reporter says. Soon after, the line goes off the air.
"How is this happening? It's too soon. I thought we all had more time. What's going to happen to all the people who aren't able to make it to the vaults? What about the homeless? Are we going to be ok?", Betty frantically thinks to herself as she runs along side her family to the vaults, nothing in hand.
As soon as the Cooper family gets to the entrance, she sees Veronica, Jughead and Midge. She runs up to them and hugs them while they all cry about what's happening on the outside. They look around to see other people from their high school, but notice a lot are missing. Moments later, they see a large boom happen and Archie running to the entrance. Before he makes it, the door shuts on him. The girls run to beg the engineer to please open the door to let him in. The engineer lets them know, he cannot, or he will be endangering the other inhabitants of the vault. The girls turn to each other and sob, not knowing what just happened on the outside.
A lady approaches the girls. She's tall, strong and intimidating. "Hello, ladies. I am Overseer Victoria. I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but I can't put others in danger for the life of some boy"
"SOME BOY? HOW DARE You…", Veronica yells, as a nurse injects a syringe into her neck and she slumps into a near-by chair.
"Wh-what's happening? Why did you do that?", Betty asks the Overseer.
"I won't allow for any hysterics in my vault. There're others under a lot of stress here. I will not allow someone to start a domino effect", Overseer Linda says, "Now, if you'd like to follow me, we will be holding a meeting in the cafeteria to discuss how this is all going to go."
Betty reluctantly follows, catching up with her family to feel somewhat safe. She whispers what just happened to Veronica to her mother.
"Well, Veronica does have a tendency to be dramatic", Mrs. Cooper says, hoping to relax Betty.
"Mom, I think Archie is dead. That's why Veronica yelled at the Overseer. I'm scared of what's happening here. Are we going to be ok? I don't think we are", Betty responds.
Her mother stops and look at her with confusion in her eyes as she sees her confident and strong daughter start to fall apart at the seams. "I don't think so, hun. I'm sure they'll open the doors later on once the dusts settles and look for those who weren't able to make it to the vault in time."
"I can not tell you how thrilled I am to have all of you here", the Overseer says to all those who joined her for the meeting, "I can assure you that you will all be safe here. Think of it as another chance at humanity. We will build from the inside out, until we are ready to go out into the world. We have been blessed with this amazing opportunity. I hope you find yourselves at home here. We will be continuing classes for children tomorrow. I think the quickest we get back to our normal lives, the easier this will be. You have all been assigned a living quarter. Please, enjoy your new start here"
When Betty and her family make it to their new home, she asks he dad if he thinks that this has been planned. Mr. Cooper lets her know that he doesn't want to think that deep in it, and he agrees the quicker they go about their normal lives, the easier this will be. Annoyed, Betty goes to find Veronicas quarter.
Walking in, she sees Mrs. Lodge fanning her daughter back to conscious. "Veronica, are you ok?!", Betty shouts, running to Veronica.
"I-I think so. What happened? I just remember Archie. Is he ok? Where is he?", she responds.
"I don't think he made it but listen to me. There's something very odd going on her. We just had a meeting with the Overseer, the bitch who ordered you to be sedated. This all seems planned. They want us here. Somethings wrong.