"It is 472 days since the Event.
The season is currently: the Dark Season.
This is the Survival Broadcast for March:
We have had no further contact from Washington since connection was lost, there are no new developments to report.
Please remain indoors."
The small screen crackled and went black. Someone started crying. Someone always started crying.
Kyle stood up slowly and walked away from the TV set. That was the 14th broadcast like that they'd sat through, and still people expected something different. Did they expect to be told they could all just go run out onto the streets and celebrate? No, the time when that seemed possible was long gone.
He lay down in his bunk, staring at the corrugated iron roof above him. The room was dark, the only light a faint glow coming from a ceiling light in the center of the bunker, but it was just enough for Kyle to read with. He reached under the mattress and pulled out an envelope, opening it up and sliding the contents. Slowly he began to read:
"Carbon is present in all life. It is a chemical element with the symbol C and the atomic number 6. Carbon can take many forms including diamond, coal..." This was their 7th grade science project together. It had taken them ages, with big diagrams and lots of interesting examples of carbon in the universe. He had done most of the work, of course, but he never cared; it had been so much fun, even though at the time they'd rather have been outside playing at the time. It didn't matter what they had been doing, just doing it together meant it wouldn't suck. Maybe even this wouldn't have sucked.
Kyle picked up a photo of them both at the beach. They were both shirtless, and Stan had his arm around Kyle's waste. He could remember that day perfectly, right down to the stupid grin Stan was pulling, and how he hated himself for blushing when Stan had wrapped his arm around his bare skin to pose for that photo. At this point it would be normal for someone to cry, or at least have a solitary tear roll down the cheek and drip onto the photo, wouldn't it? There was no such thing from Kyle though, because crying was linked to denial, the refusal to accept someone as truly gone, or the refusal to accept your life without them. Kyle had accepted it for a while now, and he didn't even wish Stan was still here; he wouldn't wish this life on anyone, let alone Stan. There was nothing left to cry about.
"Well what ideas have you got, Randy? Or are you just going to stand there and tell us how fucked we all are?" Kyle got up and moved quietly towards the door of the storeroom where he could hear this noise coming from.
"I - I don't know, but we can't just sit here and starve, Gerald!" Randy replied, raising his voice. Clearly people were having a not-so-secret meeting in there.
"Shh, Randy!" Sharon loudly chastised her husband, before adding in a more hushed voice, "what if the children hear you?"
"You think they don't know?! They use this store room too; they can see how little food we have left!" It was true, Kyle had seen the number of tin cans and powdered meal packets they had stored there depleting with each passing day. It was something of a miracle they had managed to gather enough to last them this long.
"Maybe Randy has a point." That was Jimbo, siding unsurprisingly with his half-brother. "We 'aint got enough food to last us till next month's broadcast thingy, so what's the point just waiting here?" Kyle got the feeling he was being watched, and turned to see Ike and Butters staring at him.
"What's going on in there?" Asked Ike, looking uncharacteristically nervous. Kyle watched as Butters instantly put his arm around the younger boy and pulled him close, that sort of behaviour being second nature to him.
"Nothing, they are just having a talk about what we're going to eat tonight." Butters said gently, "Isn't that right Kyle?"
"Er, yeah. Something about the powdered chicken curry or rice and beans."
"Eugh" Ike grunted, turning away and removing himself from Butters half-embrace. "I hate both of those!" He gave Kyle one more questioning look, letting him know he wasn't entirely sold by that explanation, before walking back across the long narrow bunker towards his own bed. Ike was probably old enough to deserve better than that kind of basic lie, he was nearly 12 now, but something about Butters' quick response was hard to argue with. Kyle wondered if maybe it was more about Butters not wanting to know what was going on in there than it was about protecting Ike.
He turned to go back to listening at the door but it swung open just as he reached it, the six or seven adults inside pouring out and pretending to be mid-way through a trivial conversation about books or something. To be honest Kyle wasn't that interested anyway; he didn't care much whether they starved down in Jimbo's nuclear bunker, which had been their home for the last 18 months, or if they went up and faced whatever the nightmare on the surface was. Dying is dying, whether you do it underground or above it. He went back to his bunk and collected everything back into the envelope.
"Stan!" Kyle yelled, "Where's Stan?!" He looked around frantically as his parents dragged him along behind them, arms full of long-lasting food and bottled water.
"I'm not going down there without him, we can't leave him!" He screamed, "You can't make me!" He tore away from his parents and ran towards Sharon as she began to climb the ladder down into the bunker, "Where is he?!"
He felt someone grab him by the waist and lift him up, unfazed by his kicks and yells. "You have to get in now, there's no time..." the voice behind him said, lifting him above the entrance and passing him towards a waiting pair of hands.
"Kyle," He looked around to see Sharon looking up at him from the bottom of the ladder, "Stan was...out...walking Sparky, we don't know where he is..." she was sobbing in between words, breathing deeply before continuing, "we looked as long as we could Kyle, he...he wasn't answering his phone...we couldn't wait any longer!"
Kyle blinked repeatedly, still frozen with his hand gripping the brown envelope as it sat halfway hidden under the mattress. He had stopped crying months ago, but the flashbacks weren't getting any less frequent, or any more manageable. It was unfair, Stan had the easy way out; he was free of this hell, so why did he choose to carry on tormenting his best friend like this?
"C'mon Kyle, let's get some food." He looked up to see Kenny standing over him, holding a hand out. "You're wasting away dude."
"Okay." He replied, taking Kenny's hand to haul himself up. "Thanks Kenny," he said, but he didn't just mean for helping him up, he meant for rescuing him from one of his cycles of bad thoughts, like he always did. For keeping him sane in this place. Even if he could think of no other reason to try and survive, and he was pretty sure he couldn't, he would try to somehow, for Kenny's sake, and Ike's. They all knew how it felt to lose people close to you, and he wouldn't inflict it on them again if he could help it.
X
Okay so this is a new story, probably quite a short one (a 2 shot most likely, maybe a little longer depending on how it goes).
As always please feel free to let me know what you think, it's appreciated!