Another week another chapter...I really like this one ^.^ And if you're bored with the story right now, I promise it'll pick up with the actual Killjoy bit...right after next chapter, in fact. This is all prologue, actually, but it is still important ;)

CHAPTER 3: LET THIS WORLD EXPLODE

Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles

12:54 PM

Gerard wasn't so happy anymore.

For twelve hours, the four had stayed perched on top of the hill. Their beer had run out around three in the morning, leaving four tired, hung-over, hot, miserable teenage boys stranded atop a burning mountain.

But of course they wouldn't leave their location. They weren't stupid—they knew they would certainly die if they went back down into the valley.

"I told you so," Frank said for the sixth time that hour. "I told you it was true."

"I'm going to shove you off this goddamn hill in a second if you don't fucking shut up," Mikey grumbled.

And of course, their rising tempers weren't helping.

Ray was passed out, using his hoodie for a makeshift pillow. Gerard sat moodily away from the rest of the group, his arms wrapped around his legs as he stared intensely into the mess that was now Los Angeles.

He was thinking about the future. Ninety percent of his city was dead, his parents most likely gone, too. He was the oldest, the only legal adult, of the boys on top of the hill. He would support his friends if it came down to it—even if it meant sacrificing his young adult years.

But more and more, Gerard found himself thinking how four teenage boys couldn't survive in a post-apocalyptic world with nothing but spare clothes, cell phones and potato chips.

He probably should have thought that one through better.

A Deserted Warehouse, the Mojave Desert

1:17 PM

Mike sat on the floor with the portable radio, a tin of baked beans beside him. He frantically fiddled with the controls.

"Find anything yet?" Billie called as he lugged a cardboard box to the far wall of the room.

"Negative," Mike called back. The exhaust and boredom was evident in his voice.

Tré's frown became more pronounced, and he savagely kicked his box. He had been in a bad mood ever since he found out that there was absolutely no chance of returning to civilization anytime soon.

The truth was, there was no civilization to return to.

Before they had lost the radio connection, they had found out that it wasn't just California or even America that had been devastated. Europe was battling intense snowstorms and avalanches that buried entire villages at once. Asia was combating tsunamis and tidal waves bigger than anyone had ever seen before. Japan, apparently, did not even exist anymore. It had literally sunk into the ocean.

All over the world, people were dying—an estimated two billion so far. There was no sure safe place left. The news station had just gotten word on the flooding in New York when the connection suddenly cut to static. After a few futile minutes of trying to regain the station, Mike had carefully disengaged the stereo from the car and brought it inside the warehouse, where he had spent the past couple of hours painstakingly twiddling the knobs, trying to pick up a connection to any station he could.

Billie and Tré, meanwhile, had been clearing out a living space for the three men. The tall stacks of boxes were pushed against the walls, leaving a still-massive rectangle in the center of the room. In the rectangle were their three air mattresses, a camping stove, the radio, a small television that only showed static, and a pair of rusty armchairs that they had found in a back office. It was actually starting to look quite homey.

Tré flopped into one of the armchairs, grabbing a can of beer and turning on the TV.

"It doesn't work," called Billie from the other side of the warehouse.

"I know," Tré responded lazily. "But it makes this situation seem at least a bit less crazy."

Edgar Wesley-Moran Academy, Beverly Hills, California

12:01 PM

Hayley's screams echoed through the empty building. She ran down one hallway, then another, then into a room, slamming the door closed before realizing that the fire had already burned through the back of the room. She tugged the door open and stood in the hallway, watching the fire at both ends. The only way out was up, and she couldn't fly, although she had never more desperately wished that she could.

Silent tears began to roll down her face, and she stood, chest heaving and fists clenched, awaiting her fate. "Help me," she whimpered, one last plea for a savior before her certain death. "Help…"

Hayley closed her eyes, gulping down her fear and waiting. Then a voice cut through the omnipresent silence.

"In here!"

Hayley's eyes opened again, and she looked around wildly, sure she was hallucinating—until a hand grabbed her wrist.

"C'mon, quick! We don't have much time!" She looked up into the eyes of her savior, and was met with a vaguely familiar boy that she knew to be in the grade above her.

Hayley tried to get herself to move, but she seemed stuck. She glanced down at her feet, then looked slowly back up at the boy, her hazel-green eyes shining wetly.

"I"—she swallowed, staring at him.

"Move!" he said impatiently. "You can do it!"

Hayley took a step towards him, and pain shot up her leg. She realized it was the one that had been burned. It was injured worse than she had realized—her entire thigh was pink-red and raw, the skirt and tights cleanly burned through.

The boy's eyes dropped to her leg too, and he muttered something angrily. Quickly, he slid his arms around her, one by her knees and the other under her shoulders. He lifted the tiny fifth-grader up and carried her into the janitor's office. Hayley clung to his neck as if her life depended on it—which it did.

"Taylor!" the boy hissed as he entered the office. "Taylor, open the door!"

Hayley gasped as a dark-haired boy jumped out from behind a heavy metal desk. She knew him—Taylor York. He was her age. She had never paid much attention to him before.

"Is that Hayley Williams?" Taylor asked curiously.

"Yeah," the boy who had saved Hayley replied, "and we can talk to her once we get out!"

Taylor wrenched open a door at the back of the small office. Hayley had always assumed it was just a closet, but to her surprise, a set of stairs appeared instead.

The older boy carried her down the stairs, Taylor following them closely. He shone a flashlight ahead. A musky odor pervaded Hayley's nose, and she realized that they were in a basement.

She watched the ceiling as they passed rapidly under the school. Horrified, she realized the fire would soon be here, too—small portions of the ceiling were glowing orange with fire, and embers drifted down through the air around them.

"Help her up," the older boy said, and suddenly she was back on her feet. Taylor's arms were at her side in an instant, though, supporting her and helping her to stand.

The boy fiddled with something in his pocket, before there was a metallic click and a door swung open, revealing bright, clear light. He scooped her up again and carried her, bridal-style, up the flight of stairs, Taylor rushing behind them.

As the trio exited the burning building, it suddenly struck Hayley that she didn't even know the boy's name. "Who are you?" she asked, staring up at him with admiration and gratitude

"Jeremy Davis," he replied, depositing her at the foot of a tree a safe distance from the fire. "Now would be an appropriate time to thank me for saving your life."

The Pacific Ocean

7:11 AM

Terry was very glad that he had gotten off the ocean. From the reports pouring in, the sea was not friendly today. There had been no deaths, but a capsized motorboat and a few craft stranded off the coast still made it seem like a formidable monster at the moment.

He was still curious, however, about the large boat outside his window. It hadn't moved in two hours, and he could swear he heard screams echoing off the water towards him from the ship. There had been nothing on the radio about it, though, so Terry figured he would be alright.

Exhaustedly, he lifted himself off the couch to make himself another cup of coffee. He was tired of listening to the constant static blasting out in his ear.

He turned his back from the window when the radio suddenly crackled noisily. Then a high-pitched scream broke the air inside Terry's house.

Through the static came a single word, repeated over and over: "Help. Help. Help!"

Terry ran back to the device's side, picking up the handheld transmitter and shouting "Where are you?"

"Oh, thank God," the voice on the other side sobbed. "We're on a cruise ship off of Los Angeles. We're burning! We—oh, the deck, it's split—we're split in half! We're sinking! Please, come save us!"

The ship! Terry stared out onto the stormy horizon hopelessly. Out there, less than a mile away, people were dying.

"I'll call for help," he said gruffly, and hung up the transmitter. But when he picked up the telephone, all he heard was a dial tone.

"Shit," he muttered, realizing the storm had probably taken down the telephone wires. He couldn't go back out into the raging storm…but there were people dying out there. He had to do something.

He had to do something.

Sighing heavily, he donned his heavy rain jacket and stepped out into the storm, ready to save someone's life.

The Bennington Residence, Westchester, Los Angeles, California

3:01 AM

Chester had realized why the fires were such a big deal.

He could clearly smell the smoke hanging in the nighttime air and outside the windows; the neighborhood had already caught aflame. He knew he didn't have much time. He wasn't even sure if he and Amy would be safe in the basement, but he would protect her to the bitter end.

Hurriedly, Chester sprinted up the stairs to his bedroom. Logistics first, he thought to himself, heading to the closet and grabbing a few pairs of jeans and a handful of his favorite t-shirts. As an afterthought, he also took the clothes of Amy's that had accumulated at his place over the years as well as some of his oversized flannel shirts that she loved.

Then came the important part. Chester bundled the clothes together and threw them down the stairs, then lifted his guitar into his arms, cradling the instrument. It was his prized possession, the one thing he could not live without. With the old wooden acoustic, he had written a multitude of songs and even won a school talent show. This was what he was risking his life for.

He lugged the instrument back down to the main floor, placing it at the door to the basement before gathering the contents of his kitchen into a freezer bag. He stood a moment in the empty, moonlit foyer, running through a mental checklist, before deciding he had already cut his timing close enough and should probably retreat to safety. The air around him had grown much too hot in his fifteen minutes aboveground.

Amy was still asleep, her black hair fanned out over the pillow like a halo. Chester set the emergency supplies down next to the old, threadbare couch and sat down.

He was tired, and yet he couldn't tear his eyes away from his girlfriend's sleeping form. There was something calming in the gentle rise and fall of her stomach as she breathed, in the peaceful look she wore on her still face. She looked angelic in the dim light.

She mumbled his name in her sleep, and an odd emotion began to rise inside him. It was affection, joy, longing, safety, hope…

It was love, Chester realized.

Quietly, he reached for his guitar and began to strum softly. Amy did not stir.

The lyrics had been rolling around in his head for a while. He had just needed that word to complete the song.

Somewhere in Amy's subconscious, Chester's voice pervaded, his soft lyrics filling her dreams with a pink haze. "And I fall into the ocean, inside of your arms, taking me deeper where all the pain goes…"

A Carnival Cruise Ship, off the Coast of California

7:08 AM

"Shit," Lacey gasped. "Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit."

The heavy wrenching sounds continued, and the deck shifted inwards. Lacey screamed, clutching onto the railing to keep her anchored in place.

"Don't look down, don't look down, don't fucking look down," Lacey chanted to herself, before disobeying her own instructions and looking down into the gap between the two halves of the boat in time to watch the terrified cruise assistant sink into the swirling watery vortex. She did not resurface.

Lacey's legs suddenly went very weak.

She didn't have much time. Her arms were already tired, and all she wanted to do was let go of the railing and to slip into cool oblivion. But another, stronger, part of her floating just beneath her consciousness was screaming to make a plan, to get out—to live.

So Lacey assessed her options. She could let go and hope to grab something—far too risky, an almost certain way to die, she reasoned. She could slowly work her way up the railing to the prow of the ship—but no, her arms were weak from just holding on, she could never muster enough power to tug herself all the way. Or she could jump over the railing.

The ship was taking on water now. A third of the deck was underwater, and every moment more people dropped down to their deaths. She could almost feel the cold sea at her toes.

Then, snapping out of her daze, she realized she could feel it.

The jolt gave her the motivation to move, and gathering the last remains of her strength, she heaved herself up until she was semi-standing against the railing. Pausing to survey the scene, she realized she had minutes, if not mere seconds left to make her escape.

She desperately flung a leg over the edge so that she was straddling it, half of her body dangling out over the void. Then, slipping her other leg over the top, she balanced on top of the railing for a fragile second. She glanced down into the cold, unfeeling ocean, slate-gray in the sparse morning sunlight.

Then, steeling herself for the drop, she shoved herself away from the railing. Lacey plummeted like a stone, her brown hair forming a trail behind her, and she plunged into the water far, far below. Her world was engulfed in waves.

Route 15, The Mojave Desert

9:30 AM

"How much farther do you want me to drive?" Rob mumbled, his head drooping. He wasn't used to being awake this early the night after a show, and the entire band was exhausted by the early hour.

Joe yawned, stretching his arms overhead. "I dunno, you're the one who brought us out here. How far do you want to go?"

Rob furrowed his eyebrows and stared hard at the road, as if willing something to appear out of the desert dust.

In the back of the van, Brad and Phoenix had fallen asleep, Phoenix's head resting on Brad's broad chest. Joe had pulled out his smart phone and was desperately trying to find news about the sudden fire on the Internet. Mike sat next to Rob in the passenger seat, offering moral support to his best friend.

"Find somewhere to pull over," suggested Mike. His hand grazed Rob's on the clutch briefly, before he pulled it away. "It doesn't matter where. We'll just hide there until all this shit stops happening."

"There's nothing out here!" Rob growled angrily. "I was stupid. I should have followed the crowd. We could be in Arizona by now!"

"Arizona's burning, too," Mike reminded him gently. "It was a good idea. We'll be fine."

Rob relaxed, his anger dissolving into exhaustion. "I don't know how much further I can go," he confessed.

And then, as if in a dream, something did rise out of the desert. Mike gasped, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.

"What is it?" Joe asked, leaning forward anxiously.

"It's a…" Mike peered out of the windshield. "…a gas station?"

The small building stood, seemingly empty, on the dusty desert road. A large sign proclaiming Dead Pegasus Garage rose above the two deserted gas pumps.

"A gas station means food," Joe reasoned. "I want food."

"Us too!" Phoenix's tired voice rose from the back of the van.

Mike and Rob exchanged a glance. "Looks safe enough," Mike shrugged. "And I'm hungry, too."

Rob floored the pedal and the wheels screeched into the lot.

The first one out of the car was Phoenix, who was sprinting towards the store with Brad on his heels. "I guess they were really hungry," Rob chuckled, before his face lit up. "Dude! The gas price! That's the cheapest I've ever seen it!"

With the rest of his friends occupied, Mike wandered over to the plastic newspaper dispensers outside of the store. There were three different papers: the New York Times, Los Angeles Sun and the Herald. The most recent dated back to July 31st. Much more recent were the porn magazines on the rack next to them. He was tempted, but he turned instead to the soda machine.

It was unlike any he'd ever seen before. There was no logo. The entire thing was instead painted white, with four large buttons on the front labeled Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Water. There was no slot to insert money.

Tentatively, Mike pushed the button for Diet Coke. The machine clanged and whirred for a moment, before a can rolled out into the slot at the bottom. A metallic voice beeped 'have a nice day.'

"Hey guys!" Brad called, walking out of the small store. His arms were loaded with junk food, and he clutched a six-pack of Coors Light in each hand. "There's no one on duty in the store, and it's full of food!" Phoenix followed him, his arms similarly full.

"We could stay here for a while," he added.

Joe plucked a bag of potato chips from Brad's stash. "Are they safe to eat?" he asked suspiciously, turning it upside down to check the expiration date.

"It's all pretty old, but it's definitely good!" Phoenix crowed, and before anyone could stop him, he took a massive swig of coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

Three shouts rang out from Mike, Joe and Rob, and they watched with bated breath as Phoenix swallowed.

His eyes closed for a second, but then he smiled and looked back at them. "See? All good"—he said before he was bowled over by the others rushing to the store.

Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles

2:37 PM

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot," Ray chanted, straightening his hand until it was flat. "Argh," he moaned when he saw that Mikey had scissors.

"Ha!" Mikey exclaimed, marking a line next to him in the dirt. "Now we're twenty-nine to seven."

A few feet away, Frank and Gerard lay side by side, staring up into the blue sky. "How is that even remotely amusing?" Frank murmured.

"I don't know, man, I don't know," Gerard replied, equally softly. "Hey, I found a grenade."

"Looks more like a turtle."

"Turtle? Where the fuck did that come from?"

"I dunno, man, just looks like a turtle to me."

"I don't see it." Gerard cocked his head to the side, staring at the cloud in question.

"Look, there are the legs—"

"Those aren't legs, dude, or the turtle must have been born very deformed."

"Then it's a deformed turtle. Happy?"

"Still doesn't look like a turtle, but whatever you want."

"How much longer are we gonna stay up here?" Frank asked abruptly.

Gerard huffed angrily. "I already told you, I don't know!"

"But what do you think?" he pressed. "I mean, it has to end sometime…doesn't it?"

The two lay in silence, mulling over the question for a minute. "The world ends on December 21st," Gerard said finally. "So it should stop at midnight on December 22nd, right?"

"Or maybe it doesn't stop," Frank replied gloomily.

"We'll just have to hope it never gets to that point."

A Deserted Warehouse, the Mojave Desert

5:26 PM

"Well, this is sure exciting!" Tré grinned fakely.

"Oh, shut up or I'm not going to feed you," Mike shot back.

Tré glanced down into the skillet atop the camping stove, where Mike was attempting—and failing—to fry microwave burritos. "Not sure I want to eat that, anyway," he remarked.

"Hey, I'm doing the best I can!" Mike retorted.

"Well, obviously your best isn't good enough," sneered Tré, curling his lip.

"Your attitude is not fucking appreciated," Mike growled.

"Well, neither are your shitty cooking skills."

"Oh, you little piece of"—

Billie groaned loudly. "You're supposed to be best friends! Can you please stop fighting for one god damned second?"
Tré and Mike looked at him like scolded children.

"Look, we're all tired, and bored, and hungry, I know. But wouldn't you rather be here than in a burning city? Or worse yet, dead already?" he continued. "No, our situation isn't ideal and it isn't at all fun. But at least we're alive!"

Tré let out a quiet cheer, half mocking and half agreeing with his friend.

"So let's make an adventure out of it," finished Billie. "Let's at least try to make it worthwhile!"

"Awesome," Mike answered, "except our burritos are burning."

"Fuck the burritos," Billie said, waving a hand expansively. "We'll figure something out." At that moment, the TV flashed briefly, showing a picture through the static for a moment.

"Dude!" Tré ran over to the device, frantically pushing buttons in a seemingly random sequence. The TV flashed again, before a fuzzy picture began to appear on the screen. It looked sort of like a cartoon character.

A smile broke across Tré's face for the first time since they'd left home. "We've got TV!" he crowed. "Thank God!" Jumping into the armchair, he turned the volume up until they could faintly hear a dialogue running in between the static sounds.

Billie and Mike smiled at each other. Although it didn't take much to anger Tré, it took even less to distract him from the anger. Maybe they would finally all be able to get along now.

The Field behind Edgar Wesley-Moran Academy, Beverly Hills, California

12:40 PM

"Where is everyone?" Taylor murmured, not for the first time.

For almost half an hour, the three had huddled together on the fields behind the school. Hayley had not yet stopped shaking. The burn on her leg had faded to a vivid red, and it throbbed angrily. Jeremy had promised that as soon as they found a nurse, they would get it checked out—but the nurse wasn't on the field like she should be during a fire drill. Neither was anybody, in fact.

"They must have got on a bus," Jeremy said. "Or left the grounds or something."

But all of them knew this was not true.

Hayley hadn't spoken since thanking Jeremy and Taylor profusely. She was still digesting the fact that all of her friends were either dying or dead a few yards away.

She wasn't sure how she had ended up in the position she was in, but she was leaning against Jeremy, her head resting on his shoulder. It felt completely natural, almost sibling-like. She liked the protection the older boy offered. Taylor sat on her other side, his arm resting lightly around her shoulder. It was as if in that moment as if they were the only three people in the world.

"Should we go look for anyone?" Taylor asked quietly.

Hayley watched the flames intently. They had definitely grown a lot. The entire school had been engulfed. "We can't," she realized. "I wish we c-could." She felt, against her will, her voice breaking on the last word, and she fought to keep the tears from rising into her eyes.

But Jeremy noticed. His only response was to pat her shoulder comfortingly. "We all do," he whispered. "We all wish we could, but we've got to stay here—we're safe here. We'll be fine. At least we'll be fine."