Author's Note! Updates will hopefully be every Sunday, except for the 7th most likely because I'll be on vacation. And I bring you… Even more introductions! Next week the characters will (hopefully) have more to say and do. One week until SYOCs are incorporated! And just for good measure, Jill has no relation to the Siren.
Recap: The Dome has come down. Currently, the kids are mainly having a meeting in the town square, with three kids on stage.
Disclaimer: I am writing fanfiction about my own work.
Chase Parker's brother was an Army Ranger. Her older sister was a professor at MIT. Her father was a retired engineer. Her mother was a brain surgeon. Chase had large roles to fill in every aspect of her life, and the Dome couldn't have came at a better time. In fat, it had been the answer to her prayers to have no adults and no expectations.
She knew how the old FAYZ had turned out, though, and this time, they might be worse off. Where the old FAYZ had crops, they had a gardening store. They also had an arrangement of useless stores, and food that was sure to be stolen in the panic that followed. She was surprised that the kids were standing in an orderly herd in the town square.
The three kids that wanted to be the leaders had finally stopped discussing among themselves, and the boy in the T-shirt was standing up front, holding a megaphone from ACE Hardware.
"Hello, everyone," he said in a deep voice. "My name is Robert, and this is Jamie and Max-" he gestured at the girl and the fancily dressed boy- "And we are gathered here today because a second Perdido Beach Anomaly, also known as the FAYZ, has taken place. We have decided that we will try to do better than the kids in the old FAYZ have done. The first step is to elect a leader."
"Although us, on this stage, are interested in being the leader," Max said, "You can vote for anyone. Jamie will be handing out slips of paper. On them, you should write the name of the kid you would like to vote for. Robert will be along with a top hat in which to put them once you have finished."
Jamie descended the stage and started handing out slips of paper. Chase put her hands in her pockets and waited for her to get there. The little boy on the stage was wailing now that Robert had left, and Max was attempting to comfort him.
In the chaos that was the kids talking amongst themselves, nobody saw if anything special happened that night. In hindsight, it had probably started then, but Chase didn't realize it. All she saw were yellow orbs, hovering just in her peripheral vision. She blinked and they were gone.
Dismissing it as the hallucination of a stressed-out teenager, Chase waited for the paper slips to get to her.
Riley Foxx felt the ground shake an inch beneath his feet. He was fifteen, just outside the Dome, and there to visit the Dome and his younger sister, Jill Foxx. The Dome was opaque, so he couldn't see through it. The minor earthquake was barely acknowledged by the scared watchers and the police in charge of supervising the whole thing. Riley wondered if Jill could see inside the dome. She was afraid of the dark.
Riley leaned up, against it. Images of the Perdido Beach survivors flashed through his mind. The girl on the Today Show who had written LOL after saying she had killed people. The boy burning a toddler.
"Can you believe it?" a young girl asked. "Twice?" she said.
Her mother appeared to be in tears. "No," she whispered. "Why does it have to be her?"
"Don't worry, Abby will be okay."
A few feet away, a soldier was talking on his phone. "Mr. Wessner, I'm not sure you understand me here. I am telling you that your daughter is trapped in an impenetrable dome, and you say good?"
Riley still felt like what he was touching was impossible. Barriers didn't plop themselves down in thin air. It totally violated the laws of physics!
His mother sobbed away from the Dome. "Jill," she whispered, "Come home. Please."
Cayan and his extended family were on vacation, driving to Breckenridge, when they decided to stop and get gas in Karamat. His cousins were in the same car that he was in, as well as his Aunt Sharie and Uncle Dennis. His parents were driving a second car, one that had better fuel economy. Cayan had wanted to ride with his cousin, Matt Neema, even if he didn't like Danny, Charlie, or Sharon Neema.
About two hours ago, Aunt Sharie, Uncle Dennis, and Sharon had disappeared. Charlie was left sucking his pacifier, and Danny, at six, was confused. So was Cayan, despite being twice his age.
The Shell gas station still had all the cars in it, but the two other people that had been getting gas were just… gone.
"It's magic!" Danny Neema exclaimed for easily the thirtieth time that day, as they walked down the road, determined to get to Breckenridge, about 20 miles away, one way or another.
"No, Danny, it isn't magic," Matt said, easily for the thirtieth time that day.
"It has to be!"
"Magic doesn't exist," Matt said.
"Be nice," Cayan hissed. He took a sip of water from the bottles they had stolen.
Matt frowned. "I consider not telling lies to be nice, Cayan," he said.
"What does that mean?" Danny asked. "Cayan?"
Cayan sighed. "Relax, Danny," he said. "It's nothing. Just focus on your walking."
"But I'm bored! Tell me a story!" Danny complained.
"I can't right now, Danny. Sorry."
"I'm not moving until you tell me a story!" Danny sat down.
Cayan picked Danny up.
Reed's first thought when the Dome came down was grateful. He was in the counselor's office, being told that he needed to put some effort into his schoolwork. He already knew multiplication, and wished she would just go away.
And then she did.
Reed yelped and backed away from where she used to be, then stopped.
"Ms. Brady?" he asked. "Ms. Brady? Where are you?"
He heard voices.
"They're gone!" one had proclaimed.
So Reed had left. Slipped out the back door. And he had been gone.
And he had gone to his house to see his mother. But she had been gone, too.
He had looked at her workplace, the Writing Nook. He had looked for his father, but found the barrier. And Reed was alone.
He had locked himself in his room, then, with the book he was reading, and gotten lost in the text. For twenty minutes, he had forgotten about the Dome and his parents.
But lightbulbs didn't last forever, and his burned out, so he left to get one from ACE Hardware. He had twenty dollars, and the fact that the adults were gone hadn't occurred to him.
When it was empty, he just took one from the shop. He saw the Town Hall, though, and someone was there, so Reed walked over.
Someone who definitely wasn't the mayor was there, sitting on the steps.
Tanner Cox had his fourteenth birthday on the day the Dome came. As his reward, he was going to work with his mother, who worked at the WN.
Once she had disappeared, he had gone to the plaza, guessing that it was where anyone would be if there was anyone. Instead, he had been told to come back an hour later.
The mayor-woman had looked at him and said one word.
"Garbage."
It took Tanner, who had thought that maybe she liked him, a second to realize that it was his job, not a description of him. It was still sad, though. He had never wanted to be a garbageman, but didn't want to complain in this strange new world. "Come back at ten in the morning tomorrow. Next!" the girl snapped. Tanner didn't know her name.
Tanner backed away from the hall and left, going back to his house. His parents weren't there, and neither was his older brother.
"Mom! Dad!" he yelled, knowing it was pointless. There were no adults, that was what the kids had been saying.
"Mom! Dad!" he yelled louder.
"Mom?"
James was technically too young to be in the square. They had told everyone eight and under to leave, but if the little boy on stage was staying, then so was he. He had the power, and nobody could make him leave. He clenched his teeth in determination, but stopped when they began to hurt. He put his hand to his face and sucked the pain away from them, holding it in his hand until there was someone he didn't like to give it to.
James was young enough that the world was still evil and good, with a black-and-white distinction, but he was old enough that he didn't feel certain that everyone he knew was in the white. He had already voted for his big sister, Michela, to be the leader. He was afraid she might be too young at fifteen, but knew she was the best leader ever.
Come to think of it, he didn't know why she hadn't came yet. He didn't care that much, though. No Michela meant that he could stay up all night eating candy if he wanted to, but he didn't think he would because he would be too tired.
James King waited as they counted the votes up on the stage. But he soon grew bored and wriggled out of the crowd of kids. He decided to go home and eat candy. Even if he got tired too easily to stay up all night, he could still cram his mouth full of sugar and jump up and down like a rabbit all day.
James ran to his house. It was only about ten minutes by foot from the park, and he had walked there even on super-cold days.
When he arrived, he was shocked. The glass on the windows was cracked, and he heard kids inside it whooping.
James was afraid of them. His parents had said to not talk to strangers, and he didn't know them. So they were strangers.
James turned and ran back the way he had came.
Colin was barely old enough to stay in the meeting, and he took pleasure in his nine-year-old freedom. It as his birthday, and his wish- no more parents!- seemed to have been answered. But why were people in charge? His freedom seemed to be short-lived.
He took the pink Post-It note they had given him and a pencil from school and carefully wrote his own name on it. He wanted to be the leader.
Afterwards, he struck up a conversation with the older kid next to him. "Hey," Colin said. The kid looked at him.
"Hi," he said.
"I'm Colin, what's your name?"
"Mikey."
"How old are you? I'm nine. Today was my birthday!"
"Happy birthday, Colin."
"Thank you! I wished my parents would disappear and they did!"
"Okay."
"Isn't that cool?"
"Yes." Colin didn't understand how Mikey wasn't impressed.
Kira was close to the stage when the new leader was announced. They did it slowly and systematically, reading off each name and how many votes they had gotten.
"With six votes, Maria Lethbrange. With six votes, Kaya Ibbie. With six votes, Dwayne Matthew. With six votes, Matt O'Neill. With seven votes, Abraham Mattens. With seven votes, Max Keyon. With seven votes, Lucy Thicke. With eight votes, Pierce Jacobs. With ten votes, Christopher Jackal. In third place with 13 votes, Jackson Parker. In second place with 17 votes, Robert Stewart. And in first place, with 26 votes, Jamie Dayo!"
Max seemed happy despite being eliminated, but Robert stormed off the stage in a rage, carrying the younger boy in his arms. "Thank you so much!" Jamie said.
"Now, I know you all have a lot of questions, and I have a lot of answers to give you. First off, I know we're going to have a lot of issues. First among those is food. Please bring any food in your house to King Soopers by Wednesday. If you need it, you can consume small amounts of it, but please do not eat that much. Second is keeping the peace. We will have about ten kids in charge of being police officers, who will also help out with other jobs. In addition to that, we need ten kids to work in the daycare and ten more to work in the hospital, which will double as a pharmacy. Kids nine and older can take care of younger kids. Please do not enter a house until it has been searched, which twenty kids will start out doing. After that, they will switch to gardening, taking care of water, rations, and any other jobs that need doing. We feel that kids nine and over can do most of the work. Would anyone like to volunteer to be the chief of police?"
Three boys raised their hands.
"Excellent. You three report to the police station afterwards. Would anyone like to be their deputies?"
Eight more volunteered.
"Great. You also should report to the police station. Who would like to be the daycare manager?"
Two kids.
"And who wants to work in the daycare?"
Five more kids.
"Report to the daycare after this, please. Who wants to be the hospital leader?"
Kira volunteered for it, along with three others.
"Excellent. Report to the hospital after this, along with hospital workers- raise your hands up high!"
Four.
"The remainder of you, please come to the Town Hall at least an hour later to get a job. Kay?"
Kira already hated the new ruler.
Alena Wessner was fourteen years old when the Dome came. Her hair was dyed electric blue and her eyes were gray, with flecks of brown in them. She was tall and skinny, and on Dome Day, she wore a thin Disneyland Pluto T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She was from Manhattan, New York, and was being shipped to the youth correction facility, which everyone called MWCTK, evidently, for a series of thefts culminating in a joyride in a hotwired Ferrari.
She had committed the crime, and knew she had to pay the time. Her parents had never liked her, and she was an only child, so when the Dome came, she had nothing, or more accurately no one, to lose.
She was in a bus driving on the freeway when it came. She was in it with four older kids, headed for MWCTK with her. When the Dome appeared, though, she was left alone.
Alena was holding on to the ceiling pole with one hand and leaning against the side of the bus. When the driver disappeared, he had just turned onto the road to MWCTK. Alena was lucky. She was seated near the front of the bus, and there was nobody coming to hit the bus, even though it was slow.
Alena ran forwards and sat in the driver's seat. She pressed down on the brake pedal until the bus stopped, then looked behind her. Cars were barrelling down the freeway, their drivers missing. Alena shook her head and turned her attention to the task at hand: getting away from MWCTK. She didn't know what happened, only that everyone had disappeared.
For a second, she thought she was the only person on Earth. The thought was not a sad one. Then she realized that it was impossible. She saw the DOme, rearing up, in the distance.
More impossible than that?
Yeah, Alena thought, that would be me getting what I want.
Alena decided to stay in the bus. She carefully pulled it forwards, up the road, until there was a small turnaround spot. She edged the bus around until it was facing away from MWCTK, away from her punishment.
She pressed down the gas pedal. She slowly pulled it down the road, then waited ten minutes to make sure all the cars had stopped if they were going to. Alena knew that she couldn't just throw them out of her way, in case people were in them, but she knew most of them were empty, and it was very tempting.
Alena pulled the bus onto the highway and started driving it. Then, realizing that the keys were in the ignition of almost all the cars, she slid away from the driver's seat and examined the controls, looking at the mess of buttons.
Alena looked out of the windows, making sure that nobody was in the way. When she saw that it was clear, she raised her right hand and sent a beam of power through the doors, blasting them open. They were slightly melted, and she made sure to avoid the doors themselves as she jumped down.
She walked to a white Ford F-350 with the key in Drive. She made sure to put her seatbelt on before steering it off the road, to a place she had seen from the bus.
Questions! Answer 'em!
Winter vs. summer.
Jamie. Good or bad?
What characters should see more screen time?
What characters should go die in a hole?
