"What the hell just happened?" Rob couldn't believe his eyes. To say that everything was gone might have been pushing it, but something had carved a swatch right through the middle of the iMPACT zone!
"I dunno. Where's Tommy? And Ken? And everybody?" Jeff screamed
"I don't know." Rob tried to calm the upset Hardy. "But maybe we should try to find them?"
"But how?"
"We just have to start digging. I just wish I knew what had happened." Rob stepped out and stood upon a section of the floor that seemed study enough. What had happened was a very localized tornado had touched down and sucked up the middle portion of the building, including the ring and parts of the locker rooms. There were going to be casualties, but exactly how many was still indeterminate. "You coming?"
Jeff was mesmerized by what he saw, then his mind went someplace it shouldn't have and he ran off, not heeding Rob's warnings to be careful. The parts of the structure that were still standing didn't seem too sturdy in his opinion.
"Where are you going?" He shouted
"I gots to find her." Jeff called behind him.
"Her?" Rob thought, but rather than ask for clarification, he followed. Heaven help me if I fall into a bottomless pit.
...
"What the fuck just hit us?" Alex Shelley groaned. One minute he was keeping an eye on Beer Money, the next he was in total darkness. "Sabin? Bro? You okay?"
The only sound was the echo of his voice bouncing around the small enclosure. "Tom... Hardy... can you hear me?" The bathrooms had been less than ten feet away from where He and Sabin had been standing when the shock hit, so he should've been able to hear Alex's cries for help. Should've being the key word, but once again there was only silence and blackness.
Looks like I'm on my own.
Now that he knew that help wasn't going to appear out of nowhere, Alex began to explore his prison, hoping to find a way out. It was difficult since he couldn't even see his hands at arm's length.
...
"Where are you going?" Rob asked for the seventh or eighth time. "What exactly are you looking for? We should see if there's anyone else who needs our help back there instead of running all over the place."
As with every other time he'd asked, he'd received no reply from Jeff. It looked like the only way to get an answer was to physically confront him.
Rob sped up and, while still managing to avoid the obstacles in their path, was able to catch up enough to grab onto the young Hardy's shirt and pull him to a stop.
"Would you slow down for a minute, please?" He said into Jeff's ear. "Running around like this isn't going to help anyone. For all we know, Tommy and Ken were pinned under some of the crap you just jumped over."
"She might be hurt." Jeff whined "Why can't you see that?"
"For one thing, I don't even know who you're looking for. Who's this 'she' you keep referring to?"
The answer totally dumbfounded Rob.
"Bunny." Jeff stated like it was the most obvious thing in the whole wide world. "She was in my locker when it happened. I gotta make sure she's alright. She's too little to take care of herself."
"You mean we're chasing through this disaster area for your stupid rabbit." Rob grabbed Jeff by the upper arms and started to shake him, hoping that would shake some sense into the boy. "There are people, real people, who may need our help."
"You sayin' Bunny doesn't matter?" Jeff sniffled
"I'm saying that Bunny isn't real." Rob answered
"She is too!" Jeff argued, the tears beginning to form. "And if you're not going to help me look for her, then you can fuck off and forget about me sucking your dick ever again!" Jeff ran away, leaving a very confused Rob Van Dam perched on a pile of debris.
"Suit yourself." Rob turned back the way they'd come. If there were people trapped, starting at the edge of the debris seemed like a good idea.
...
A small green square of light suddenly illuminated the dark prison in which Alex was captive.
"That'll give me something to work with." Alex had found his cell phone and luckily it still worked. But seeing what little else he had to work with was scary. Dirt, rocks, concrete, it made a nice crypt, but there were little pinholes of light here and there which made Alex breathe a little easier. At least he wouldn't suffocate.
He crawled over to the one hole and started to work on enlarging the hole. It was tricky work. One wrong move and the whole pile might collapse in on him. He dared removed no more than a handful at a time, all the while calling out for Chris, or someone else to help him. But he never got a reply. For all Alex knew, he was the only person left alive and that thought scared him.
...
"C'mon, pick up the damn phone!" Matt shouted "The moment he'd seen the weather channel update, he'd anxiously tried calling either of his two brothers, with the same results both times. Rings, then voice-mail in Jeff's case, Tom's was just dead air.
"I gotta get to Florida. Something's happened..."
"...and these are live shots from Orlando. This is where Universal Studios used to be. As you can see from these pictures, the entire park has been decimated. We have been informed that casualties could be in the hundreds or thousands especially since we are told that the building used by TNA wrestling for it's weekly tapings, which had been set up as a sanctuary, has suffered heavy damage. We will be taking you live as soon as we can for an update, but for now that's all we have..."
That was all Matt needed to hear. He had to get down to Florida. But how, that was another story.
...
Ken always had a way of seeing the bright side of things, but even he was stretched in this case. The only thing he could come up with was something along the line of "I wonder how this will affect my new contract?"
Like Alex, there was no one around to hear him, but Ken was in a slightly better predicament. He was only half buried under falling I-beams and rubble. It was just a matter of digging his lower half out.
"This is not good." He looked up. The roof was gone in his part of the mess so he could look up at the sky. By looking at it, you'd never know that one of the worst storms in recent times had just passed through. Hot, Sunny, and not a cloud anywhere to be seen. Ken wriggled to get a better seating and felt a searing pain shoot through his left leg. It felt like his ankle was wedged between two pieces of building material and most likely broken.
"Okay, Anderson, don't move that part of your body." A command Ken knew he'd never be able to follow. "Just dig and hope that the rest of this pile doesn't come down on top of you."
...
Jeff didn't care that Rob was no longer following right behind. He didn't care that co-workers, or maybe even close friends were probably dead or serious injured under the piles of rubble that he was dodging in his haste to find the locker rooms. He had a little girl that needed his help.
Don't worry, I'm coming Bunny. Please be okay oh please oh please oh please oh please...
He got there and the door to the locker rooms were gone, probably blown off by the wind, but otherwise the room was in decent shape. The same couldn't be said for the two bodies that were slammed against a bank of lockers on the far wall. One man, one woman, and their faces were smeared with enough blood and gore that Jeff couldn't recognize them immediately, not that he'd bother to stay around to find out.
"Where was my locker...?" Jeff looked around, but it all seemed the same. He wasn't positive which locker he'd used, but he had a pretty good idea.
"H-h-help me..." Jeff heard a faint groan coming from the inner part, near where the showers used to be.
"Is a-a-anyone there?" Jeff hoped his ears had been playing tricks on him. He waited a minute and sighed. The cry hadn't been repeated and Jeff was about to move on when...
"Someone help me..." The groan was louder.
Maybe if I ignore it, it'll go away.
Jeff stood completely still, really hoping that it was his over-sensitive imagination, added to his fear, that was making his ears hear things.
Nobody's there... just a voice... see, there's no one there...
"Somebody help me!" It was now a scream. Jeff wanted to run away, but his feet wouldn't listen. They seemed to have their own mind and that was telling them to walk in the direction of the screams.
No! Bad feet! Don't go that way! I don't wanna!
Feet did not listen. Jeff stepped into the ruined shower area. "Is someone there?" He repeated his earlier question. He couldn't see much outside a few ruined pipes and puddles of water, but he thought he saw something in the back corner, pinned under the twisted wreckage.
"Help..." The voice sounded much weaker, but as his eyes got accustomed to the darkness Jeff was able to make out who it was. It was Max Buck.
Seeing that it was one of the few people in the company that couldn't kick his ass in a straight-up fight, Jeff was more likely to help.
"I'm coming." Jeff wished Rob was still with him, or anyone else for that matter. The heavy steel pipes seemed more than he could manage. He stepped over as much as he could, being careful not to fall and hurt himself. That wouldn't do anyone any good.
"Jeff, is that you?"
"Yeah." Looking at Max, Jeff always got these strange feelings. It was like looking at a younger (and yes, skinnier) version of Matt. "Are you hurt?"
"Not too badly." Max answered "My right arm is pinned, but..."
"Don't worry, Imma here." Jeff pulled some of the smaller pieces of machinery away, and then surveyed what needed to be done. "Can you move your arm at all?"
Max strained, then shook his head. "Not without ripping it out of my socket." He sighed "Can you lift it?"
Jeff strained and pushed, but he was unable to move it more than an inch or two in any direction, and certainly not enough to get it off the ground to free Max's arm. He had to stand back and think about what he could do.
"If we roll it off..."
"Dude, you'll crush my hand." Max pleaded "Is there any other way."
"Imma thinking. Don't rush me."
"I'm not, but I'm losing feeling." Max stated
"Is there anyone alive in there?" Wonder of wonders, another voice.
"We've got a man trapped back here. We need help!" Jeff shouted as loud as he could.
"I'm coming... damn, crap..." Max and Jeff heard several bangs and thumps as whoever it was slowly made their way toward them. "Stupid benches." It sounded like one of them got tossed aside.
"Where is everyone?"
"Right here. We could use a little help. Max's arm is pinned and I can't lift it." Jeff said
"Let's what we can do." There were two people Jeff could think of that would be perfect in this situation. One was Rhyno and the other was standing right in front of them in all his seven foot glory. He didn't look all that sexy, but both he and Max were happy to see Kevin Nash anyway.
He squatted to look at exactly what he had to work with.
"Jeff, run back into the main area and see if you can find something to pry with... a two by four or a long pipe... all the ones I see around here are too short."
"Okies." Jeff ran back.
"What are you gonna do?" Max asked "If this thing rolls, I'm gonna lose my hand."
"What we're hoping to do is find something we can use to lever this thing up enough for you to slide your hand out. It's even too much dead weight for me to lift." Kevin looked around for something to use as a brace.
"Will this do?" Jeff ran back in.
Kevin took the piece of metal and stuck it between the pipe and the floor. "Perfect, Hardy. Now just help me find something to lever it against and we'll be good to go."
"Righto. We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." Jeff waved bye-bye.
"Like I could." Max didn't find Jeff's joke all that funny.
"How did you get here so fast?" Jeff asked
"I was in a meeting when the storm hit." Kevin answered "I was the only one who got out before the whole room caved in. Bischoff's dead, Hogan's dead, and ten bucks says the entire booking department is gone too. I am so fuckin' lucky..." Kevin's voice trailed off. "so fuckin' lucky."
"But we're gonna make it, right?" Jeff didn't like the way Kevin's voice had softened. "If we survived, there must be others, right? RIGHT?"
"Right." Kevin agreed, finding exactly what he was looking for. "Now let's free the Young Buck and then we can decide what our next move is gonna be."
"Find as many people as we can?" Jeff asked hopefully.
"And hope the rest of the building doesn't collapse." Kevin nodded. "That sounds like a plan to me. Let's go!"
Their lever in hand, Kevin and Jeff returned to free Max and then see if there was anything left of Total Nonstop Action worth salvaging. Based on what they'd all seen, the answer was probably no.