A/N: Again, sorry this took so long. Thank you for all you lovely people who review and favorite and alert! Enjoy chapter 3!
Warning: Some violence and...that's all I can think of right now...
Disclaimer: I do not own Big Time Rush...but really, the only thing here that's Big Time Rush-ish are the names of the main characters; Carlos, Logan, Kendall, James, Jennifer, Katie, Camille...you get the point. This just poofed into my head and as far as I know it's original to me...But if there is something in here that anyone can place to a thing that already exists...well either i didn't recognize it or I subconsciously wrote it in...basically, if you can place it, it ain't mine.
"Every man's memory is his private literature." -Aldous Huxley
Carlos and Logan were now sitting in a small cave hidden in a cliff that once overlooked a beautiful blue green ocean that would lap up the sides of the cave, but was now only reduced to a few browned puddles, endless waves of sand, a few dried pieces of coral and seaweed, and a couple skeletons of some unfortunate fish or other previously live animal.
A small fire crackled between the two, being lit with a strange metallic square that Logan had never seen before, but somehow managed to light the few materials thay had to keep the fire going. It outstanded him to no end, but Carlos smiled gently and refused to let him play with it, pocketing it again in the battered bag he seemed to always keep by his side.
After a couple minutes of idle silence, Logan cleared his throat and looked to his new companion asking a bit awkwardly,
"So...how old are you?"
Carlos, not looking up from the fire, responded, "Nineteen."
"For...how long?" Logan asked, again awkwardly.
Carlos shrugged. "Why do you need to know?"
"I'm curious. I noticed the coded dogtags...those things haven't been used by any of the Councils to retreive information for almost 60 years now..."
"Smart. Observant..." Carlos nodded once. "You're right. And it's actually been about 70 years since they've used the dogtags..." He was silent a moment, his lips slightly pursed as if contemplating whether or not to tell the obviously younger boy.
Finally, after Logan giving up any hope he'd answer, Carlos said, "187 years."
Logan's head snapped up and looked at him so quickly, Carlos jumped back a bit; surprised his head didn't roll right off his neck.
"187 years?" he asked in complete shock. "...Isn't that when-"
"-The Empress first took control?" Carlos interrupted. Logan noticed the disdain his voice held when he mentioned Queen Alezandria.
Carlos nodded, staring at the fire again. "I've been here the entire time...every second, every minute..."
"That's incredible."
Carlos smirked a bit darkly. "Sure. Incredible. Yeah."
"Well I mean, to see all that advancement...all the changes..."
"To see all your family be tortured and killed, your friends be torn to peices..." Carlos muttered.
Logan looked to his hands, feeling rather guilty now. "I-I'm sorry," he stumbled on his words. "I didn't realize..."
Carlos shook his head, waving a hand at him. "Don't worry about it."
Logan, not sure whether to continue the conversation or not, asked quieter. "How'd you do it?"
Carlos glanced at him then back to the fire. "You survive...adapt...don't hold onto anything. Don't get too attatched, don't be too trusting."
"What about that bag? You seem pretty attatched to that thing...I mean, when we traded our clothes earlier today and that guy asked about it, you looked like you were about to kill him right then and there..."
Ignoring the keen observation, Carlos lied down with his back to Logan, and said quietly, "Get some rest...we'll be traveling a lot tomorrow..."
"Okay..." Logan responded, equally as quite and sighing a bit discouraged. Lying down, he was soon engulfed in the hazy blackness that came with sleep. And as soon as he closed his eyes, he was asleep; images and memories of the day and of his life swirling around in his head.
-(**)-
Carlos looked over his shoulder, taking in the form of the sleeping hybrid. Quietly, as to not wake his aquaintance, he sat up and pulled the gray dusty threaded messenger bag closer to him and carefully took out a folded paper. Unfolding it, Carlos dusted off the few sand particles that lay strewn across the old picture. He gingerly held the slightly torn and brownded sides of the faded photo and smiled a little down at it; his own self smiled back along with his parents, grandparents, three younger sisters, and girlfriend Erin and her family. They were standing in front of the highschool in the small town in Minnesota and he and Erin were wearing long navy blue gowns and graduation caps. Everyone was smiling proudly and excitedly. It was one of the few pictures he had of his whole family that survived the beginning of the end...
Carlos leaned back against the cave wall and closed his eyes. The end...he remembered the day so well...
September 21, 2828
19 year old Carlos Garcia leaned against the large tree that sat in the courtyard of the University of Stellar Exploration and Space in a more secluded area of Maine. It was Erin's birthday and he was going to surprise her.
After a few minutes, the main door of the large building disappeared and students began filing out, some walking out with their noses in books, some in large groups chatting and gossiping amongst themselves, and a few class clowns riding out on small anti-gravity boards. Finally, once just about everyone cleared out, he spotted the short auburn haired girl trudge out, struggling with her papers and books. Smiling, he quickly went over in attempt to help with the mountain of work she was carrying.
"Oh hi!" She called upon seeing him, dropping everything.
The boy chuckled. "And people say I'm clumsy..." he stooped down and helped her pick up her things.
She rolled her eyes and lightly hit his arm with a notebook.
Once everything was picked up and sorted, he kissed her, again smiling. "Happy birthday."
She giggled, blushing a bit and started walking down the cobblestoned path with him. "Thank you. I know! Finally 19...woo!"
Linking his arm with hers, he said. "It's not that great...it's just like 18. I mean, you're still going to school and stuff..."
Pouting, she said, "Don't ruin my birthday. It's exciting...like you're more of an adult...truly grown up."
He laughed once. "Truly grown up?" He shook his head. "Okay. I'm sorry...lemme try again..." He stopped walking and made a loud excited gasping sound. "Ohmigosh it's your birthday! You're 19 now? You're so old! Oh it's gonna be the best day ever!"
Carlos started jumping up and down and clapping. Laughing, Erin lightly hit his arm. "Okay okay..."
Smiling, he stopped and continued walking with her.
"Mm. Guess what?" she asked, suddenly remembering something.
"What?"
"Well remember I told you some time back that we may have found two sister planets to Earth? Like almost completely identical, may be able to support life, holds water..."
"Yeah...you completely geeked out," he teased.
She rolled his eyes. "It's an interesting and incredible scientific discovery! Anyway, we have reason to beleive they're coming closer...like they're actually moving towards us."
"Weird. Are they gonna collide with us?"
She shrugged. "They're moving pretty quickly, at lightyears in fact, but it's still a fairly large distance away...the probability that they'll come even near Earth in our lifetimes is slim to none."
"You didn't say impossible."
"Well, yes. I suppose, with the right technology, money, and power, you could potentially hone in on their own gravities and atmospheres and bring them here quicker, but even then it would take years and years..."
"You space science people are weird."
She laughed once. "Oh really? You police academy brutes are any better?"
"Hey! You're supposed to be nerdy, not mean..." Carlos pouted and used his puppy dog eyes on her.
Erin smiled and rubbed his arm. "I'm sorry. What'd you do today at the academy today?"
"Learned how to track laser signature, or any key signature, in weapons and how to scan and code tags."
She nodded once. "And you still beat everyone at the obstacle course?"
He smiled proudly. "You know that's right."
The scientist to be and policeman in training walked hand in hand, away from her school and towards the large, colorful swirling mass a few feet away. Paying the man sitting in the booth next to it three pounds of uranium each, they both walked through and instantly were back at their apartment complex in Santa Barbara, California. Happily, they both went to their apartment where after putting their stuff down, he told her to get changed. And finally, after a lot of questions answered by 'just get changed' she went and did just that. He also went and changed into clothes that were a bit nicer and not stained with grass and mud.
When she finally came out of the room (after what seemed like forever) in a simple strapless olive green dress that ended above her knees and in a pair of black flats with black bows where her toes were covered, he smiled at her and quickly tied a dark red blindfold around her blue eyes and began leading her outside before she could start protesting.
He carefully guided her down three sets of stairs (cursing himself for not just putting the blindfold on her after they climbed down all the stairs) until he just picked her up, carrying her birdal style down the rest of the way.
He put her down at the end, earning a feirce blush from her and her aimlessly trying to fix her dress. He then led her to another portal, paid their fees and guided her inside the somewhat cicular shape of churning colors and lights.
"Okay, I know we took a portal...where are we?" Erin asked in an anxious, excited voice.
But Carlos didn't answer...
"Carlos?" she asked. "Are you still there? This isn't funny..."
Still no answer...
Erin pulled off the blindfold, about to yell or scold him or something, but instead what she saw shocked her even more. Wherever they were was in utter disarray. The grass beneath them was brown and black from being left untended to or being burnt, the buildings that weren't reduced to complete rubble were broken with corners at where the walls met at the ceiling missing, or complete walls just gone. There was a pile of cars sitting in the cracked road, some burning, and all with broken windows, missing doors...most resembled heaps of crushed metal and some material rather than actual cars. The sky was red and the only light they were provided with to see the disasterous scene were the fires that ranged in sizes all around them. Aside from a few mutilated dead bodies lying in the street and a couple heads, limbs, and bones strewn just about everywhere, the place was completely empty. And silent. The only sounds the two could hear were the fires crackling menacingly and the pounding of their own hearts.
"C-Carlos...where are we?" Erin whispered scared to him.
"Minnesota..." he whispered back. "I was gonna surprise you for your birthday..."
"What happened here?" she asked a bit louder, her voice cracking in fear.
But before he could answer, a skeletal creature with pale green rotting skin that was bloodstained, eyes that were completely black and looked as if it had no eyes, an arm that was mostly just skeleton and muscle now, a row of bloody razor sharp teeth, a hole in its head where a gray decaying brain was visible, peeked around the corner at looked with its soulless eyes directly at them.
Both live people, took an involuntary step back, own eyes wide in shock and disgust.
The thing shreiked a bloodcurdling ear-peircing sound that still rang in their ears long after it stopped and then the thing began running towards them.
Erin was frozen in her spot, but Carlos wasn't going to give up that easy. He grabbed her hand and turned them around, running. He expected to find the portal they took to this hell hole to be there, but surprisingly it was gone, leaving them to try to outrun whatever that damnable thing was.
They got a fairly far distance away; the thing was fast, but it clearly had a broken leg which made it, what Carlos thought, probably considerably slower. Until, of course as in any horror disater scenario, he missed seeing the putrid skull that lay cracked in their path and he tripped on it; completely smashing it as he fell on it, Erin falling on top of him.
He winced a little and quickly turned over in time to see the creature come closer and closer by the second. Erin whimpered and he pulled her close to his chest, closing his eyes, waiting for his death.
The thing reached the couple and screamed its shrill bone chilling noise again.
Carlos tightened his hold on his girlfriend, Erin nestling her face in the crook of his neck and beginning to cry a little.
They waited, an agonizingly long time, but...the demon never attacked. Carlos opened his eyes in confusion and looked to see...it was dead? There was a large, bloody hole in the middle of its face, clearly not there before...what had happened? Why was it suddenly dead? Were they dealing something even worse?
That thought crawling through his mind, Carlos quickly stood up, pulling Erin up with him.
Erin wiped at her eyes. "What? What is it?" she asked, noticing the now dead creature lying at their feet.
She screamed and then both of them heard a gruff male voice call from somewhere, "Quiet! You don't want to attract more of those things, do you?"
Erin stopped screaming, but her eyes were still wide and brimming with fear.
Carlos put a protective arm around her and called, "Whose there?"
A tall man, about 6'4" stepped out from the cover of smoke and a half of a broken billboard, carrying a large gun neither of them had seen before. "Name's Dan...that sure was a close one..."
"Carlos..." Carlos repsonded hesitantly.
Dan nodded once. "Nice to meet you," he responded very casually and began to turn to leave.
"Wait!" Carlos called out, exasperated. "What...what happened here? What was that thing?"
Dan didn't turn around, but they could hear the smirk in his voice. "That was an infected...sort of a...zombie, I guess you could say. And this here? Well. You both have just entered the apocolypse...Welcome to the end."
