PR DT: A New World

Italic text means it is a flashback

Prologue

Trent didn't know how long he had been there. Could have been hours could have been days. The light was always the same so it was impossible to tell whether it was day or night. Trent suspected that it was somewhere in between; that he was part of some weird twilight zone existence where reality and dreams merge into one. Man, he had become part of a living breathing horror story without even realising it.

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, focusing on the warm air touching his throat and working its way down to his stomach. He tried to stop his legs from shaking and tensed and then released each muscle in his body. He felt himself calm down after a time and allowed himself to relax as much as he could. His mind drifted off to distant places and times and he felt his eyes prick with hot tears.

There was a time when Trent had been happy, he was sure of it. It was back in Reefside, his home town. Ok, he wasn't born there but it was the first and only place where he was ever really happy. He did have vague memories of laughter and the company of people he loved.

---- Flashback ----

The train station was as busy as it had always been and Trent was loving every minute of his time there. Sitting by Platform 7, outside of a coffee shop that sold what could only be loosely described as 'food', Trent watched the masses of people passing by.

Trent had dropped out of his art college, St Anselm and could think of nothing more exciting than leaving this place and heading home. This wasn't something within his grasp at this moment in time so he had to make do with second best - watching other people leave town.

Goffstown, New Hampshire (I don't know if Goffstown is a country town, so I'm pretending that it is). With tree lined streets, colonial style homes with white picket fences, a playground full of well dressed toddlers and even better dressed Mums, one gas station and a small mall, Goffstown was home to folk who sought country living within spitting distance of a city.

Quaint and quiet, Goffstown was a great place to live. There was a real community feel and everyone knew their neighbour, and regularly shared gossip over the fence. And if they ever got sick of the wide smiles of the townsfolk, though this was rare, they could get on the train and ride into New Boston or Bedford or any of the larger towns in the area. And Manchester City was only a short trip on the train as well.

Still, Trent wanted out of Goffstown. He wanted to see what life was like back in Reefside. Where he could go and who he could meet. Whether any of the old gang stuck around. He had a crazy, irrational feeling that there was a part of himself back there somewhere and he needed to find what and where it was.

He had been suffering from restless feet for quite some time and the only way he could get by was to sit at the station and to dream of the day he would leave the town for good. He relished the sound of the trains as they roared into life and took people to places he had never been. He loved the smell of the diesel and the buzz and pace of the platforms as travellers rushed to their compartment, eager to get a good seat on their train so they could watch the world as it raced by on their journey to someplace else.

Trent lived for these moments, the times that he could take himself away in his thoughts. He dreamt of a far off life full of adventures and new destinations. Of a new beginning where he could prove himself to be the man he knew he was. He would sit outside that greasy coffee shop for hours and dream all his dreams, mull over the fact that he felt he needed to find himself … But mostly he would sit there and remember the day that she had left.

It had been raining for hours. The type of rain that isn't heavy but that drenches you to the bone. Trent felt that the rain had even gotten in to his very soul.

Sitting on a chair, Trent cradled a picture in his hands – the one picture of her that he had kept, that he hadn't thrown away or burned in a rage.

He looked out to his right as he heard some kids screaming in the street outside. They were running to catch a bus and were trying to dodge the raindrops as they fell.

Rain…rain reminded him of the day that she had left, of the day that his life had taken a major twist.

----

Trent had been 17 years old. He loved life and due to past experiences made sure he had fun every day. Rain in Reefside was a rarity. The city enjoyed year round sunshine, even in the winter. So when Trent woke up to yet another day of rain he felt that it signalled something ominous, something that would alter his life forever.

Kira held Trent's world together. His father and friends were great but Kira and Trent enjoyed each other's company. They loved to watch the shapes the clouds made and at the ripples in the pond when they skimmed stones. They felt as if they could talk to each other about what ever they wanted.

Suddenly though, Kira's mood changed. Up until this point in time she had always had time for Trent but over the past few days, Trent had noticed that she had become distant and when she stopped talking to him and her closest friends, he knew that something was wrong.

One night Trent heard Kira and her parents arguing. Her mum was saying something about getting away from someone in Reefside.

When Trent woke up in the morning it was raining and she was gone.

No one was never able to fully explain to Trent or anyone else what had happened – perhaps they didn't know themselves.

Trent became a loner for some months and took to hiding from his friends, looking up at the stars and wondering whether Kira was looking up at the same time and thinking of him.

Trent's self doubts crept back in and he began to think that he had been the cause of Kira leaving, was he the someone? Confusion soon turned to anger and rage though as Trent lost hope that Kira was coming back and he got rid of any trace of her from the house and his life – bar one picture.

For some reason, Trent couldn't bring himself to throw away the picture of Kira when she had just finished dancing with him at the prom. She looked at her most happy then and Trent took some comfort in knowing that at least once in his life he had made her happy.

Trent moved to Goffstown to get away from it all and soon came out of his shell and made friends again, taking pleasure in life.

But he still felt that there was a part of him missing and sometimes in the dead of night he would gaze out the window and wish himself away to another part of the country, to wherever it was that would make him feel whole again.

Trent jumped as he heard a car door slam. He shook himself out of his daydream and brought himself back to today. Even with his eyed closed, Trent knew it was still raining, He could hear the pitter patter of drops on the roof. He sighed – nothing good on TV, computer being fixed, flat mates out for the day, and no sketch pad in sight.

Making his way up to the attic, Trent laughed to himself as he remembered the last time he had ventured up there. He had been at the house for less then a week and had managed to lock himself in. He had to call on Max, one of his flat mates come rescued him. When he saw that Trent had locked himself in with no way out he had laughed so hard that he tripped up and grazed his knee. Gareth had found them then, sitting on the dusty attic floor, laughing at each other. Happy times.

Trent started to open up trunks and boxes, laughing at some of the things he found - old pictures he had drawn when he was young. And then, buried deep inside a pocket of a pair of his jeans, Trent came across a letter.

Trent crumpled the letter in his hand.

A child, Kira was pregnant?

Trent couldn't believe it. He was a father.

----

A siren woke Trent from his dreams. Another ambulance taking another person to the holding zone outside of town. It wouldn't do them any good; Trent thought to himself, the dolens virus outbreak will get them all in the end.

Gareth was the first one to go in the house. Always fit as a fiddle, Gareth was the last person anyone would expect to be struck down with a debilitating illness. The large man was soon a shadow of his former self.

At first they thought it was meningitis. Gareth had been plagued by horrendous headaches for a week and had call in sick for all of his lessons as he could hardly even see because of the pain. The doctor was evasive and whilst he took vials and vials of blood from Gareth he offered no reassurance or insight as to what could be the problem.

Max came home one evening with eyes as wide as saucers. His girlfriend's mum had just been taken away to a 'holding zone' and the family had been quarantined. He said that the symptoms were similar to Gareth's.

Trent wanted to know what exactly a 'holding area' was supposed to be and got really angry in thinking that Hilary's mother was not being taken to a hospital for appropriate treatment. But he was interrupted by a knock at the door and soon it was Gareth who was being taken away to the 'holding zone'.

Trent and Max demanded to know what was happening and what the deal was with the 'holding area'. The Paramedic couldn't give any information and told them to try and relax, that there was going to be an announcement by the President the next morning.

After a long night of worrying, wondering and a lot of pacing up and down, Trent and what was left of the house tenants sat down to watch the broadcast. The President told the nation that something big was happening, that things would never be the same again. Trent spent the rest of the day in a daze. He went to the train station to try and relax, to make some sense of what he had just found out.

But the station was full of parents sending their young children away. The first of the evacuations. Kids were crying all over the place, mothers hysterical, fathers shouting at the military men who bundled the kids onto the train, the military men themselves barking orders one minute and then wiping a tear away the next. Trent shook his head in disbelief. He wondered if he might be having some kind of crazy nightmare but he knew he wasn't. This was what the world had come to, this was real.

Back at home, things weren't much better. Max had been arrested along with his girlfriend Hilary for trying to break into the holding area. Grace, Max and Gareth's mother was beside herself with worry for both Max and Gareth. There had been no news whatsoever of her son and she had just found out that her youngest son had also been taken away.

People were screaming in the street below. Trent ran to the window to see what was happening and wasn't surprised to see their neighbour Ian being taken away in an ambulance whilst his wife Claire lost the plot. People would lose the plot – who could blame them when life had taken a dive into the unknown, into a nightmare that was actually reality?

That's when Trent decided it was time to return home. Probably hoping that Reefside was better off then this place.

----

The sound of riots in the streets of Reefside ringing in his ears, Trent crouched down behind some garbage cans. He caught his breath then poked his head around one of the cans – the gangs were throwing rocks through windows, running away with TV sets and stereos, hurling abuse at the raggedy group of army cadets that were valiantly trying to gain control of the situation.

Trent looked around – he was desperately tired. Everything hurt, his stomach was rumbling and he couldn't remember when he last slept. Curling up on the floor, surrounded by garbage, Trent closed his eyes.

Trent felt himself being dragged from the ground. He couldn't see anything and realised he was blindfolded. Hauled away by rough hands, Trent didn't have the strength or the will to struggle.

The fight had gone out of him. He allowed himself to be dragged through the streets of the city and didn't once try to struggle. Blindfolded, he was aware of the different smells, sounds and feelings of the city as he passed through it. There was all the usual noise of glass smashing, fires being lit and kids shouting at each other as they jostled for position in the place that was once home to them all. Trent could feel the change in terrain as his feet stumbled first through garbage and the paved streets of the city and then out into the countryside. Stopping a few times for a break during which time Trent was slung roughly to the floor and given a sip of dirty water from a bottle, the group eventually made their way up some rocky slopes and into what Trent could tell was a cave.

There was a distinct dampness in the air and an enclosed, eerie feeling. The group who until this time had only uttered a few grunts at each other settled in the cave and spoke of their journey and of what goods they would receive for their bounty. Trent was left in a corner, cold and uneasy, his sense of fear growing at the talk of this bounty and wondered what was in store for him.

Still blindfolded, he could sense the change in light as a fire was lit and he stretched his legs out as far as he could to benefit from what little warmth emanated his way. He drifted off into an uneasy sleep and spent the rest of the night shivering, with visions of terror in his head.

Trent was prodded awake the next morning and was moved into a smaller cave. His blindfold removed, Trent caught a glimpse of his captors for the first time. As he thought, they were big, rough guys, and Trent was left in no doubt that he would have a lot of trouble getting out of this maze of caves.

Left alone, Trent examined his new surroundings. Measuring about 6 x 6 feet there was little space to do anything other than crouch and Trent could see from the one torch that had been left with him, the crude drawings on the wall that he wasn't the first prisoner to have called this cave 'home'.

Trent settled into his new way of life and got used to his routine. Days passed – maybe weeks. Trent couldn't tell, as he never saw daylight.

Woken every day by the guards, he was thrown a little stale bread or a handful of berries and some water. Taken out to another larger cave every few hours to toilet himself and to stretch his legs, Trent never saw any other prisoner. But he knew they were there. He could hear them crying in the darkness and Trent gathered from the way the sound echoed through the cave structure that there were many smaller caves housing many other prisoners.

He never spoke. He never struggled. He just listened and took in what he could from the sounds that bounced off the rocky walls.

Slowly over passing time, Trent put the pieces of the jigsaw together and made some kind of sense as to why he was being kept and who his captors were. Perhaps fooled by the fact that Trent was so quiet, the guards started to talk in front of him and Trent learned that he was being held captive by a group of bounty hunters, sent to find people who had a price on their heads. They would stay captive until the price had been met by whoever it was that was looking for that particular prisoner. The gang had accumulated much wealth in terms of food and supplies and there didn't seem to be any particular leader, just a group of rough kids brought together by greed.

Trent felt sorry for them in a weird kind of way. There had been so much horror, so much loss that he couldn't really blame anyone for the way in which they behaved. He continued to keep himself to himself and in the time that he spent in this prison, he tried to make peace with his own feelings of loss and pain. It was impossible to make any real sense of what had happened since the virus outbreak, let alone the whole Kira situation.

---- End Flashback ----

Trent was awoken from his dreams again one morning by the guards who said it was time to go out into the big wide world again, that the bounty on his head had been paid and that someone was waiting outside for him.

Blinded by the light outside, Trent couldn't tell who had paid to have him collected from the city and held for them. Led away from the caves by not exactly gentle hands but a lot gentler then the guards hands, Trent and his mystery companion soon stopped by a river to have a rest, which Trent was glad for, as his legs were very weak after having been cooped up for so long in such small surroundings.

Lying under a tree, Trent found out who his companion was. The voice was unmistakable and as his sight grew more accustomed to the light, Trent was overjoyed to find that it was Conner sitting next to him, mopping his dirty face with a wet rag.

Conner had remained in the city after the dolens virus had struck. When his mother became sick, Conner couldn't handle it. He didn't know how to cope with the grief he was feeling. When she died, Conner didn't know what to do. Eric, his brother had withdrawn into himself and fear and panic consumed him. One night Conner ran away.

Eventually, seeing people pass through Reefside, all of them devastated with grief but still carrying on, he decided that it was time he found his brother and friends. He shouldn't be alone and nor should they - the tragedy of the virus should pull people together, not drive them apart. After searching for everyone in the city himself and coming face to face with the dangers that now lurked around every corner, Conner came across the gang of bounty hunters and decided that was the easiest and safest way to track everyone down while he made a life for them back in the city.

Slowly, Trent and Conner made their way through the streets to Conner's new home. He told Trent that the area was a little rough but that it had nothing of the dangers he witnessed deeper in the city. Trent didn't care where they were headed so long as it meant he could sleep in a bed again and get cleaned up and regain his strength.

He took one long look behind him as they came to the town, and silently said goodbye to his past – then he looked ahead and taking a long breath, looked up at the sign welcoming him to his new life… Hayley's Cyberspace.