13:57

A/N: Back to the glorious world of AU and post-apocalyptic settings. This time, with a little more mystery! Anyway, if you've read my other stories, you know how it goes. . .Sam/Finn/Jesse = comic relief, Blaine/Kurt/Quinn = angst. This story, however, will include Lauren (she doesn't die right away!) Mercedes, Artie, etc. etc. a lot more, since I've finally learned how to manage large casts of characters! Yay!

It's a joke. It has to be a joke. Or a bad dream. Yeah, that could be it, a really bad dream, and if he pinches himself, he'll wake up.

Ow. Well, that didn't work.

Maybe he's hallucinating. Maybe it's all in his head and. . .

He ducks under a tree branch, and thinks that maybe it wasn't the best idea to run away from city. Not that anybody had been willing to help him. He'd been running down the middle of the street, screaming, and nobody had lifted a hand. He'd seen them, ducking down below in the windows in their cars, pulling blinds shut in their houses, yelling at their kids to come inside. No, it had been made quite clear that he was on his own.

His breath was coming hard and fast now, and black spots were dancing in his eyes. His side burned, but he couldn't stop. He'd never been so thankful for those years playing football, or the fact that he loved to sing in the shower. Those three a days that he'd always bitched about. . .never mind, Coach, totally an awesome idea.

There's a little spring in front of him. It's tiny, really, and he thinks he can jump over it. That'll be good. A stroke of luck, really, because don't They hate water? Maybe it'll be enough to get Them off his back. . .

He hears another low growl from behind him. One of his shoelaces is untied. The creek is coming up, though. It's like an oasis in the desert, he just knows that if he can get over it, he'll be okay. If he can get over it, he can. . .

Oh, who's he kidding? Even if They stop for the night, he doesn't have anyone to run to. He's been Marked. Even his own parents won't let him back in. His little brother and sister will run away from him. He doesn't think that he can stand to see the terror on their faces.

It's here, now. A deep breath. One, two. . .

Fucking shoelace.

He's skidding down the bank, losing traction. He grabs for a bush, a root, anything to slow his descent. He's not afraid of being hurt. . .it really is a tiny stream, really, and a tiny embankment. . .but he needs to get back on his feet, he needs to keep running. . .

The crashing in the undergrowth has stopped. The growling hasn't.

He skids to a stop, finally, mud smeared across his hands and pants. He struggles to his feet, eyes the other side. There's a sharp pain in his ankle and he can't catch his breath. The black spots have been joined by a weird black border all around the edges of his vision. He tries to take a step, but his ankle won't hold him, and he teeters to the ground.

Oh, God, he thinks. Please not here, not like this. He closes his eyes. He's no hero. . .he's never seen one of Them, and he really doesn't want to. He'll just die with dignity.

"Take my hand."

The voice is low, hissed, almost angry sounding. But it's human. Sam's eyes jerk open, and he takes in the first deep breath he can remember taking in a long, long time. He'd thought the voice was human, but he's staring at an angel.

"Tilor," he whispers. The angle blinks at him, and he almost cries when those beautiful hazel eyes disappear for just a second.

"Just take my hand," she hisses again.

"Nga yawne lu oer," he says dumbly, because apparently angels reduce him to speaking only in Na'vi. He does, however, take her hand. The minute her fingers close around his wrist he feels a strange tingle, almost like brushing his fingers against an ice cube.

Then. . .silence.

He turns around. There's a little murmur, as the angel is whispering into her wrist, but that's it. The crickets aren't chirping. The leaves aren't rustling in the wind. The brook isn't even making any sound. Wait a second. . .

Sam stares down at his feet. All of a sudden he's back to hyperventilating, because the water isn't moving.

If he were more of a hero, he would quietly freak out.

He's not a hero, so the freak-out isn't all that quiet.

"Shut. Up."

The angel's talking, so he shuts up, until he realizes that. . .

The water isn't moving. Freak-out take two. The angel whispers something into her wrist again, before rolling her eyes. She reaches out two fingers, and touches them to Sam's head.

Everything goes black.

Xxx

He wakes up staring at a ceiling. He rolls his shoulders a little, and it's strange, because he feels fine. His legs kind of hurt, like he'd been running, or just had a three a day, or something. And there's a dull pain in his right ankle. And. . .

Wait, where is he? Because, now that he thinks about it, the last thing that he can remember is running through the woods being chased by one of Them. And regardless of where he actually is, one thing is for certain. He is inside.

Sam nods decisively. Yes, indeed. He is more definitely inside.

Inside where is the bigger question, because nothing really looks familiar. It's certainly not his house, or his old high school. It's kind of creepy, actually, the way everything is so startlingly white. Come to think of it. . .Sam glances down at himself and yes, sure enough, he's wearing a weird white bathrobe thing. He doesn't know what's creepier – that he's apparently wearing some kind of space-age dress, or that somebody dressed him while he was unconscious.

Yeah, probably the second one.

While he'd been pondering his new wardrobe, a door had slowly creaked open, so that when Sam finally looks up, he sees somebody new standing in his room. For a minute his heart leaps into his throat in the desperate hope that it's the angel that he only vaguely remembers, but then he actually looks and. . .yeah, not an angel.

Instead, there's a freakishly tall boy standing there, about his own age, with short brown hair and brown eyes. He's not wearing a white dress. . .just a pair of jeans and a white polo. Totally unfair, Sam thinks.

"Oh, cool, you're awake," the new boy says enthusiastically. "Will will be pumped."

"Will will?" Sam asks curiously.

"No. . .Will'll. . .I mean. . .wait. . ." The boy seems absolutely flummoxed by whatever he's trying to say, and Sam finally realizes that he must be trying to say a name.

"Will who?"

"What?" the boy looks up at him again and grins. Sam feels a sudden urge to pat him on the head. The other boy walks forward, and thrusts out his hand.

"I'm Finn."

"Sam."

"Cool. It's going to be awesome having another guy around here," Finn does, indeed, seem overly enthusiastic about that. "I mean, Kurt's a guy, I guess, but it's not the same."

Sam is trying to keep up, but Finn isn't really leaving him many clues, and there certainly aren't any in this stark white room.

"Where. . .um. . .where am I?"

"In New Direction," Finn says, laughing a little. "It's Will's house, really, but it's ginormous. Way too big for just the six of us. Well, seven, now that you're joining us."

"Joining who?" Sam asks.

"The X Factor. You know. . ." Finn suddenly trails off, and his face screws up in an almost pained expression. "Oh. . .that's Will. I was supposed to take you straight there when you woke up. Shoot. Now I'm going to have to do chores."

Sam still has more questions, but he doesn't bother asking them. It's pretty clear that as cheerful as Finn is, he isn't going to be terribly helpful in figuring out what is going on. Still, he follows the other boy through the hallway, fully expecting to find himself in an aluminum spaceship, headed off to either Tattoine or Pandora, or something. Instead it seems to be a perfectly normal hallway, one that could belong in a hospital (or a prison, the unhelpful part of his brain says).

Finn's walking a little to fast for Sam's exhausted legs. He figures that he should probably ask for the other boy to slow down, but he's too busy gaping into the different rooms that they pass. They're all the same. . .plain white rooms, similar to the one he'd woken up in, and all similarly empty. He paused by one that's a little different. . .there's a Technicolor, zebra-striped blanket lying across the bed, and a massive sound system against one wall. He leans in, trying to see a bit more through the small window to the side of the door, but there's no way that he can angle himself to see any more. When he turns around again, Finn has disappeared.

"Aw, shoot," Sam says, but he's honestly not too upset. He figures that he should be more upset by all of this. . .the fact that he's in a strange place, where he doesn't know anyone. Then again, the previous night he'd been running for his life, so he figures this is just looking up.

As he's walking by a door that appears to open to the outside, he hears a clear voice singing. He pauses for a minute, just to listen to the voice. It's practically runs, evidently, trilling up and down like birdsong. A smile flits across his face. It's a beautiful voice, high and crystal clear. He thinks it must belong to his angel.

When he opens the door, however, he doesn't see the beautiful blond visage. Instead, a tall, thin boy turns to face him. The boy raises one delicate eyebrow.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Uh. . .yeah," Sam says, rubbing at the back of his neck, a little embarrassed. "I'm looking for a girl. . .blond, beautiful hazel eyes. . .she was just here, I heard her singing."

"Did you now?" the boy asks. His voice is high, for a boy, extremely droll. He looks Sam up and down, his gaze slow and exacting. It stays for a while on Sam's hair. His lips quirk a little. "You dye your hair?"

"What. . .no," Sam says, uncomfortably. He wonders how the other kid knew. "Anyway. . .have you seen her?"

"Who? Quinn?" the boy asks. Sam doesn't know how he's supposed to respond to that, since he doesn't know who Quinn is, but the boy seems to have lost interest in him. He just waves a hand. "I haven't seen him. Aren't you supposed to be talking to Will?"

"Oh. . .yeah. . ." Sam chuckles a little. "I. . .uh. . .kind of got lost." The boy laughs a little at that.

"It's not your fault. Let me guess. Will sent Finn to fetch you, didn't he?" The abashed look on Sam's face must be enough, because he just rolls his eyes. "Of course he did. All right, come with me, then."

Sam's feet are moving before he even has time to process what the boy says. Just as well, he figures. The boy, for some reason, looks a little upset.

"Sorry," he says, inexplicably. "Sometimes I forget about that. My name is Kurt, by the way."

"Oh, Finn told me about you!" Sam says. It's a little pleasing, to realize that there's at least one bit of information that he has at his disposal, that he remembers. "He said you're the only other guy here."

"Wow, Sam counted me with the guys," Kurt seems genuinely pleased with this. "Normally he considers me one just an honorary girl."

"Why would he do that?"

"Never mind."

Clearly Sam has said something wrong, because Kurt stops talking after that. He just continues leading the way through the mansion, and although Sam really just wants to peek in the different rooms, he finds his feet unerringly following Kurt, until finally they come to stand in front of a massive pair of industrial looking double doors. And suddenly, for the first time since waking up, Sam is scared.

There's something inside him, warning him that his life will change the minute he opens that door. Nothing will be the same. He's going to be asked to do things that he doesn't' want to do, to be someone he doesn't want to be. He turns around to ask Kurt, but Kurt doesn't' seem to have the answers. He's just standing there, a look of abject terror on his face. Sam gulps.

"Oh, there you are!"

There's a loud thump! as Finn comes careening around the corner, skidding down the hallway, his arms akimbo. He crashes into one of the doors, grabs a handle desperately in an attempt to stay upright.

"I thought I lost you," Finn says. Kurt's face is back to normal now, no longer looking terrified, but wry and amused.

"You did," he says. Finn looks affronted.

"Did not! We just got separated for a bit. I got him here, after all, didn't I?"

"Yeah, because he had the good fortune to run into me," Kurt says. "Otherwise he'd be wandering all over the place. Wandering outside." Finn's eyes get a little big at that, and he vehemently shakes his head.

"No way. You wouldn't go outside, would you Sam?"

Before he can even answer, however, Kurt has lifted one finger. "Where do you think he met me? For Barbra's sake, Finn, sometimes you are just so hopeless."

Sam still wants to know why he isn't supposed to go outside, and he still wants to know who this Will guy is, and, oh yeah, it would be nice to know where he is, but he never gets the chance to answer any of those questions. The double doors suddenly fly open, one hitting Finn directly in the face. A slender man walks out, his hair a mass of overly gelled curls. He has a massive mouth. Seriously. It might be bigger than Sam's.

"Where. . .oh, sorry, Finn. . .Kurt, where's Tina?"

"Really?" Kurt asks. "You're asking me? It's hardly my job to keep track of the girl."

"Right, right," the man says distractedly. "Listen, go grab Quinn. Apparently Artie just called up."

Kurt's face instantly drains of what little color it had. Even Finn, standing up shakily with one hand pressed to his nose, seems concerned. And the curly-haired guy is freaking out like it's his job. He cocks his head for a minute, and his lips start oving, though no words are coming out.

Sam gets that. Sometimes talking out loud helps him to understand things, too.

The man seems to jerk out of his daze, and nods again, before turning to Finn. "Right then. I'll find the girls. . .Finn, what happened to the new kid?"

"Uh, that would be me," Sam says, raising his hand. "My name's Sam. Sam I am. And I do not. . ." He's cut off before he can finish that line. Probably for the best.

"Right, nice to meet you," the man says, before instantly turning to Finn. "Look," he says. "Idol called, so you know this is a big deal. Take Sam down to Tina. . .she's in Command Central. We'll have a debriefing after I get back."

And then the man is off, dashing down the halls. Sam wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly ripped off his tweed vest to reveal a red S under his clothes. He's getting a definite superhero vibe from this whole place. Then again, he doesn't think he's ever heard of a superhero living in what appears to be a mental hospital.

"Well, that was Will," Finn says, obviously trying to be helpful. Delicately, he takes his fingers away from his nose and peers at them. "Hmm," he murmurs, and then glances at Sam. Faster than he can react, Sam suddenly finds himself staring up the taller boys' nostril. "Am I bleeding? I don't see any blood, but it kind of feels like I'm bleeding."

"Um. . ." Sam shakes his head. "No. I don't think so. I don't see any."

"Great," Finn says. And just like that, he's over his nonexistent injury. He grabs Sam by the shoulder, roughly steering him down the hallway. "Come on, let's go see Tina. She's. . .uh. . .she's really nice."

Now Sam knows the girl is going to be a disaster of epic proportions. She probably has three eyes or something, because Finn is pulling out the personality card. Still, things seem to be going okay, other than the fact that he still doesn't know where he is, so he's willing to follow the other boy around.

This time it doesn't take long. Will apparently likes to be nearby Command Central, whatever that is. Two doors down, Finn abruptly turns in to another of the completely generic, metal doors. Sam follows him in, not sure what to expect.

Okay, that's a total lie. He knows exactly what he's expecting. He's expecting a massive supercomputer, or at the very least a cool videogame a la Tron. Maybe one of those holographic screens from Star Wars. At the very least he wants a Cerebral hook-up, or some creepy Matrix drips. Instead, he finds himself standing in what seems to be a completely generic, high school computer lab. Filled with. . .gross. . .Macs. Not the new, sleek ones, either, but the gross, colored monstrosities from the 90s. He twitches a little, looking at them.

He's so fixated on the disgusting computers, in fact, that he doesn't even notice the little Asian girl hooking one of the computers up to a projector.

"Hey, Sam, this is Tina," Finn says, finally pulling his gaze forward. Well, Sam realizes, at least she isn't ugly. She's petite, with long black hair currently painting through with bright pink streaks. She glances up at him, and extends one hand. There are three skull rings on it.

"Nice to meet you," she says, and then goes right back to ignoring him.

"She's going to hook up the video feed for us," Finn explains. "So that we can watch all the action. Tina, do you want me to get the pop corn?"

"No," she responds, crawling out from beneath the desk. She flicks the monitor on, and Sam suddenly finds himself staring at a grainy video feed of the street right outside his home. "I have a feeling. . ."

"Video feed of what?" Sam asks, leaning forward a little. Finn opens his mouth to respond, but before he gets the chance, another voice interrupts.

"Nothing, today."

Sam turns around, and finds himself staring face to face with a short man, a few years older than himself. And that wouldn't be so unnerving, except that he is absolutely certain that he'd closed the door when he came in, and he's positive that he didn't hear it open. Apparently he's not the only one to be surprised, at least, as Tina gasps and puts a hand over her heart, and Finn practically falls over his own feet.

"Dude!" Finn yells. "You said you wouldn't do that anymore!"

"Sorry," The man saids, shrugging before turning back to Sam. "It's nice to see you again, Sam."

What.

The.

Hell.

A/N: Reviews are love! Also, they inspire longer stories. Not even kidding. Anyway, this story will be largely Sam's PoV, but still lots of Klaine, Finchel, Quick, etc. etc. Some of the characters may take a while to appear. . .my apologies, but I promise they are ALL HERE (except Emma, 'cuz I don't really like her very much.)