Bain Winslow happened to have a convenient not-yet-invented car parked a block away. Under normal circumstances the author wouldn't have resorted to such a copout chapter beginning, but the story was going nowhere at all. It needed some mode of transportation.
They sped away from the broken trellis and heartbroken Shiloh.
There were four people in the car, and about ten conversations.
"Duck! You called me a --"
"What in the name of Bob…"
"BAIN!"
"And Fanfiction.net? What are they sniffing? 'Satine's thoughts after death,' what's that about?"
"DO YOU THINK I LOOK LIKE A DUCK!?"
"What in the name of Bain?"
"STOP!"
"But if that's the summary, then--"
"That light was red. You just ran a red light."
"—what it's about."
"I HATE YOU SO MUCH! It's your fault…all your fault…"
"—far too literal. I'm trying to complain and you –"
"Maybe no one cares. Oh, I want a digital camera. I need a --"
"I hate you…"
"You're so FLIPPANT about it-"
"THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SOUND OF MUSIC!"
Dead silence.
"You know," Cheney finally said crossly, "That's really been overdone and it's not funny anymore."
Awkward silence.
"I hate you so much," Christian muttered.
"I hate you more."
"I hate you like –whoa-."
"I hate the fact that this story has NO PLOT WHATSOEVER," the author said.
"I don't like the Elms," said Rock4Life. And that was all he said.
Ten million Elms fangirls attacked him all at once.
Bain drove on.
By some odd impossible twist of fate, they ended up at Cedarville, perfectly miserable and wanting to die.
It wasn't that Cedarville made people want to die. No, things weren't that simple. It was the combination of the heat, the lack of electricity, the pollen…many, many things that when put together made one want to crawl miserably into a cave and disappear.
They retreated to the lounge of Faith Hall, which made the story slightly less impossible as girls –and- guys were allowed to be there, together. It was also one of the few places in the immediate area that was airconditioned, and none of our heroes wanted to walk any distance in the heat. None of them wanted to move again, ever, to be quite honest.
So there they sat, caught up not in a story but a random venting session, as Christian tried helplessly to hook his laptop (we're in the 21st century now, kids) to the T1 connection. Cheney and Bain lethargically watched, while Victoria simply curled up on the couch and closed her eyes, trying to sleep or go into a coma, they weren't sure which.
"Mmm," Cheney said.
"Ahhh," Bain said.
"Die," Christian said. "Die, die, die, die…"
"I'd like to," Cheney mumbled, wondering why in the name of great beans from the north the air had turned off. Oh, there it was. Along with the infernal beeping.
"What," she said, "is that infernal beeping?"
No one answered, because no one could muster up the energy to care.
Exactly ten years and fifty-two dollars later, Christian had managed to buy a PCMCIA card, one of those mysterious devices that one is told one has when one truly knows otherwise. And there was Instant Messaging and there was Internet, and it was good.
Defying all laws of time, he and Cheney and Bain and Victoria were still sitting in the lounge of Faith Hall, even thought it was ten years and fifty-two dollars later. Nothing had changed, except the internet worked – except it didn't work at the moment, because the electricity was out and so the servers were down.
"Or whatever," said Christian, who found he didn't care about servers and PCMCIA cards at all as long as they did what he wanted them to. Which was rare.
The lounge our foursome sat in was quite busy, because it seemed that a good number of people who also most likely wanted to die had sought refuge in the air conditioning. This left Bain, Cheney, Victoria and our resident typist, with whom the author is identifying herself with at the moment, very put out, as they didn't care to be sociable or even out in public. And the latter would have been content to sit alone and type antisocially for a good long while. In fact, she – er, he would have liked that very much. He had found, however, that in doing this people were often rather scared, because it seems the general population of the world doesn't enjoy sit ting about typing intensely. He did, however, have the guise of schoolwork, and so no one paid him any mind, assuming, perhaps, that he actually had a paper to work on, instead of this unique source of catharsis.
"I want to diiiiiie," Cheney moaned again, meaning it.
"Goodness, this is morbid," Bain commented.
"I wonder how long Chuck's is open," Victoria asked of no one in particular. The very thought of food in this heat made her ill, but she was curious as to if she would be able to eat after her meeting. She needed a dish. Ramen would do away with the troublesome matter of eating dinner at a normal time, and also with the troublesome matter of journeying farther than she wished to in the heat.
It was with much sadness that the author realized she had lost the plot entirely, that there was no longer any story but rather just a heat-induced rambling.
"Make the beeping stop," Christian complained.
"No," Bain whined miserably. "I hate you."
"I hate you both," Cheney snapped.
"I hate everybody," Victoria declared. "And I'm rather content with that."
They sat in petulant silence, hating each other.
"67%," Christian said randomly to the air.
"That fast, eh?"
"Unfortunately."
"At least it's not the Sims," Bain said. "Then it would die…"
"Die," Christian repeated. "Die, die, die, die…"
It was around this point that Cheney realized everyone else was studying, that it might not be a bad idea to do so and that it was a very good time to study, indeed. But there was nothing terribly pressing for her to do – nothing she felt she could keep her mind on. Which was, of course, her fault.
"64%," Christian said miserably.
The door opened. People walked in. The door shut. The beeping continued.
"This is truly a most fascinating story," Victoria commented.
"Jennifer likes reading about mundane details of life," Cheney commented, "And Eliss likes picturing the characters she knows – which is one – I suppose that could be remedied." She pondered. "At least right now she can picture Christian bemoaning the 64% of battery life he has left."
"62," he said mournfully.
"62," she conceded.
"53," he said, before our foursome was abandoned for an earth science book.