High School Apocalypse

Chapter IV: What I've Been Looking For (Reprise)

DISCLAIMER: Disney, I'm not trying to steal anything! Just letting you know.

Also, a note to all the faithful readers of this story; thank you for reviewing and following this strange piece of fan fiction. I apologize for not updating it as constantly as I would like, but I'm a senior in high school and I'm still trying to get my life sorted out (still working on that!) I will do my best to update it more often, especially over the summer when I'm not as busy. With that in mind, here is the next installment! I hope you enjoy it.

Troy leaned his head against the cold concrete wall, eyes closed, hands pressed to his forehead in frustration. He groaned, still sore from whatever torture devices his prisoners used to extract information from him. His mind was filled with too many conflicting thoughts to sort out—too many questions to answer. How was Gabriella's mother involved in all of this? What about Gabriella herself? Who bombed East High? These men denied having done it, but were they telling the truth? Troy wasn't sure what the truth was anymore. Nothing was as it seemed. Nothing was. And Troy wasn't sure he wanted to be, either. He scanned his cell for something sharp—something that he could use to cut an artery….

"No! Damn it, Troy!" he screamed. He usually tried not to swear, but the circumstances and his accompanying frustration demanded some form of catharsis. He pounded his fist into the wall. Of course he didn't want to kill himself. But he just lost everything he had ever known. Images of East High, caving in on itself as it descended into the earth, popped and flashed in his mind. For the first time since it happened, he came to grips with what had occurred. It was all gone. Everything. His friends. His family, most likely. With the push of a button, some nameless, faceless monster dropped that bomb and ended an entire world. Not just his world, even, but so many other worlds. Lives that had just begun.

It was all gone.

Troy prided himself on being a man and not crying, but were some circumstances when he couldn't help it. When the tears arrived, much like an unwanted visit from an in-law, they wouldn't go away. They descended in thick streams down his cheeks, attended by grief-stricken sobs. He rested his head on his palms, hiding his face from the security camera that scrutinized his every action. In the safety of his high school, he thought he was strong. Basketball star. Popular kid. He could even bench press twenty pounds more than the strongest kid at the school gym! It didn't mean anything anymore. It wouldn't help him here.

The metal door at the end of the cell clanged. Two armed guards entered. One trained his gun on Troy, and the other gave Troy a tray with soup and crackers on it. They both left, neither speaking a word, and Troy decided to eat. It gave him something to do to keep his mind off of everything. The soup was thin and processed, and the crackers were drier than Mrs. Darbus's humor. He dumped the rest of the soup down the iron grate at the center of his cell and nibbled on the crackers until even they couldn't keep him interested.

So, he waited for something to happen. It was a feeling of absolute loneliness and uncertainty, the kind that can only be felt when someone is truly lost.

The routine for the next day was fairly predictable. Every five hours, two armed guard would come into his room with a tray of food. The food was invariably bland and processed, and Troy could barely swallow it. When Troy wasn't eating, he was thinking about Gabriella and all the questions running through his head. When he wasn't thinking about that, he was struggling to repress the trauma that continued to plague him. He knew it wasn't a good idea, holding all these feelings back, but he had to stay strong for now. If he let himself feel, he wouldn't be ready to face whatever dangers faced him next.

The dangers quickly came.

Soon after he had finished Meal #4 (his mealtimes were the only measure he had of the passage of time), he heard screaming down the hall. He got to his feet and peered between the iron bars. A contingent of guards darted down the hallway running perpendicular to his own, followed thirty seconds later by another contingent. He tried to catch what they were saying, but they were screaming at the same time and Troy couldn't make anything out. While he was focused on watching the guards run, he was suddenly thrown back against the wall. First the force came, and then the sound. A huge swoosh, followed by a series of pops and flashes. He heard men screaming in pain. He stumbled to his feet, ignoring the blood that now trickled down the back of his head. He glanced blurrily down the hallway and noticed that a huge chunk of it had been reduced to rubble. The dismembered bodies of the guards littered the remains of the hallway, still fresh with blood. Some of them struggled to get to their feet but, upon discovering that they had none, wailed in despair. Troy turned away, panicking. His breathing was sharp and frantic.

"Medics! We need medical attention over here!"

"What the hell…."

"Damn it, we need men over here now!"

Their voices dissolved into muted nothingness. Troy tried to block it all out. He couldn't get the images of those dismembered men out of his mind….

The cell door clanged open and a guard appeared. "Get to your feet. We're evacuating. Are you well enough to walk?"

"What?"

"Are you well enough to walk," the guard repeated, much louder.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Troy had enough of his sense left to ask, "Where is Gabriella Montez?"

"The hallway was engulfed in flames. We couldn't get to her block."

"No. No, you can't just leave her!" Troy cried. "Get fire extinguishers or something. I don't know! You can't leave her like that!"

"We have no choice, Mr. Bolton. Follow me."

"I won't follow you! Where is she? Where is Gabriella?"

"You can't get to her, boy! The hallway is on fire!"

"I don't care!" Troy screamed. "Tell me where she is!"

"You take a left at the intersection up there," the guard conceded. "Then your immediate right."

"She's so close, you idiot! Why can't you put out the fires?"

"The whole facility has been compromised, kid! We don't know what's out there. You do what you have to do at your own expense. Your life is yours." The guard vanished down the hall, attending to the wounded.

Troy didn't hesitate. He took the left, then the right, and he was staring at a hallway filled with fire. The flames were so thick that he could barely see the other side. He screamed down the hall. "Gabriella! Gabriella! Are you there?"

No response. Troy screamed again. "Gabriella! GABRIELLA!" He was getting desperate. What if she couldn't hear him? What if she was unconscious? "Gabriella! Please! I came looking for you!"

Troy heard a voice. It was weak, barely able to form words. "Troy…."

"It's me! It's me! I'm going to get you out, okay?"

"Troy, the door is locked…."

"I'll get it open. Don't worry, Gabriella. Just hang on, alright?"

"Okay," was all that Troy heard in response. He hurried down the hall, rounded the corner, and cried for help. But it was too late. The hall was empty. All the remained were the corpses of the fallen and a few scattered limbs. Troy fell to his knees, trying to avoid looking at the dead. For that moment in time, all was lost. He wept, and the tears fell like rain. Not just any rain. Not a light drizzle on a late spring afternoon, but a storm in the depths of night, shaking with thunder and wind and pain.

Yet all storms end, even the worst ones. Troy's eyes fell upon a man he thought was a corpse only a moment earlier. The man's hand was outstretched, a key ring dangling on his finger. "Here," he said. "I… I heard… you needed this…." Troy knelt at his side and retrieved the keys. "Thank you, Sir," he said, his eyes still red from crying. "I'm… I'm sorry."

The man looked down at the shrapnel which had buried itself in his chest. "So am I, kid. So am I." The man grinned, locking eyes with Troy, and then, slowly, the life faded from his eyes. Troy couldn't look away. Slack-jawed, the man sat there, his skin pale, eyes unmoving, arms slumped at his sides. He imagined Gabriella in the man's place, motionless, cold, unfeeling. He hurried back to her hallway and shouted through the flames. "Gabriella! Gabriella! I have the keys."

"Troy," she replied, though her voice was weak. "Troy, get out of here. There could be more of them."

"I'm not leaving without you," Troy replied, but when he looked at the fire, he had second thoughts. Could he make it through without burning alive? Even standing ten or twenty feet away, the fire was so hot that it nearly scorched his skin. The thought of running straight through it frightened him.

"Troy, you'll die! Please! Don't die for me. You don't even know me. You don't know what I've done…."

"You've done nothing wrong, Gabriella!"

"Do you really know that, Troy?" Gabriella's voice was swelling with intensity. "Troy, my mom dropped the bomb."

The key ring clattered on the hallway floor.

"No. Don't lie to me, Gabriella."

"I'm not lying to you, Troy."

"So what? You were in on it, too? What the hell, Gabriella?!"

"Troy, you don't understand…."

"I understand perfectly!" Troy bellowed. "Your mother killed hundreds of thousands of people. What about that do I not understand?"

"I didn't know, Troy! Not until now. I promise you."

"Then why? Why did they capture you? And me? Why the hell are we here?"

"Troy, please don't get angry!"

"ANSWER THE QUESTION."

Gabriella whimpered. "They thought I was involved, but I told them it wasn't true! They took you in because you were with me, I guess. I don't know! It doesn't matter. Just leave me, Troy! Save yourself. I'm sorry for everything!"

Troy shook his head. His eyes landed on the keys and stayed there for what seemed like ages. Finally, he said, "So am I, kid." Then he clutched the keys tightly and ran through the fire.

It was pain he had never experienced before. His whole body protested every movement he made. Every inch of him roared with agony. The pain was so great that he could hear it, screaming in his ear. It was the scream of a dead man in total misery. He feared it was his own scream that he heard.

Then, he emerged on the other side and rolled back and forth on the ground, extinguishing the parts of his clothes that had caught on fire. It felt like every part of his body was being scraped with sandpaper. He struggled to his feet, fit the key in the lock, and opened the door.

"Gabriella!" Troy said. He shuffled through the door and she threw herself into his embrace, burying her head in his chest. She touched the sides of his face and looked up into his eyes. "Oh, Troy!" she whispered. "Your face. It's so warm. And you're all burnt…. Oh, Troy!"

"Are you okay?" he asked. His voice barely worked. He was in so much pain that it hurt to have Gabriella in his arms, but he ignored it.

The fire was getting hotter at Troy's back. He stepped closer to Gabriella, closing the door behind him. Gabriella replied, "I'm okay. But you're so stupid! You could've gotten yourself killed. You probably still did. We can't get out the way you came. You can't take another beating like that."

Troy grabbed Gabriella's hand and pressed it to his cheek. "We'll get through it together, okay? I found you. I found you. That's all that matters."

But as the fire crept closer to the cell, Troy doubted his own words.

I had been looking for Gabriella, and I found her—but she wasn't the only thing I found. I found out that we lived in a dark, terrifying world that doesn't have mercy on anyone. I found out that people died, sometimes for nothing. But I also found out that some people are worth dying for.

From the diary of Troy Bolton.