Notes:

So I finished the first chapter today and I got my friend Ciria to beta it, so if there are any mistakes please blame her. Upcoming chapters will have more excitement than this one, I promise. Anyways, thanks for all the reviews, everyone! I hope you enjoy the first chapter.

...

There were footsteps pounding on the sidewalk as Tori dashed through the streets of what was left of Los Angeles. She was being chased and now she was running for her life. The men coming after her were shouting at her to stop running. If she stopped, they promised they wouldn't hurt her. Tori knew better though. These were the same men who had broken into her home and killed her parents in cold blood. Nothing they yelled at her would ever make her stop running away. All Tori knew was that she hoped Trina had made it out too. The two girls had packed their bags while the men who had broken into their home and killed their parents searched for food and anything else that was of use to them. The two girls knew this day was probably going to come soon from what they heard on the streets while they stayed locked in their home. They had grabbed their bags and climbed off the roof off their home into the alleyway behind their house. From there, they had started running together until they were caught by a few of the men standing guard outside the house. After being chased and shot out, the two girls decided on a meeting point and to separate from each other. Tori hoped Trina had made it out alive. She also hoped that she would make it out too.

"Come on, little lady!" one of the men shouted at her. "Stop running and we'll make sure you're safe." She ignored their taunting and kept running. Finally, she knew where she was. She was close by her old high school, Hollywood Arts. She took a sharp corner and then ducked into a little hole that she had found a few weeks ago. It was the perfect place to hide - or so she hoped. Tori tried to calm her breathing so it wouldn't be so loud and noticeable, and tried to keep her body as tucked away from their sight as she could. The men ran right by her except for one, who seemed to stop and look around. She held her breath as she saw his feet standing right in front of her. After what felt like ages for Tori but was actually only thirty seconds, the man started running down the street to catch up with the others. She held her breath a little longer and then let it out; glad to know she had hopefully gotten away. After a few minutes of staying in the little hiding hole, Tori poked her head out and made sure no one was around. She then crawled out and started running to the meet up spot outside of Hollywood Arts.

Tori took the long, less traveled by route to the school hoping that she wouldn't run into anybody else. Finally, she made it to where she had eaten lunch for those few years. She ducked under a table to keep out of sight of anyone who happened to go by the school. The two girls had promised to meet each other there and would wait for about ten minutes. If the other didn't show up in that time, the one who was there would go on into the school in hopes that her sister was already inside or that there were others who she could trust. Tori glanced down at the watch on her wrist, seeing how long she had been sitting there. It had been for about five minutes. She glanced up, hoping to see Trina anywhere at all. With no sign of her sister, Tori looked back at the school. Half of the building had been crushed and destroyed from the bombings, but some of it was still intact. If she were to go inside, she would have to climb through the rubble to get into the actual building where she would hopefully find a hole to crawl through.

"Tori?" a familiar voice whispered. Tori's head turned away from the school and she peeked out from her spot under one of the few tables that had survived the bombs. She saw her sister Trina crawling through the ash searching for her.

"Trina!" she whispered back, hoping her sister would hear her. The older girl glanced up with a huge smile and made her way towards her little sister. The two girls hugged each other as soon as they were both under the table.

"I was so worried about you," Trina told her sister while they were still in their hug. "I hope you haven't been here for more than ten minutes." The two sisters pulled away while Trina looked at her sister in worry. She didn't want her to have waited on her for all that time and risk getting caught by someone dangerous.

"No, it's only been seven minutes," Tori truthfully told her. "I'm so glad you made it." Tori found herself hugging her sister again, but this time it was a quick one. "Let's go."

The two girls slowly crawled out from underneath the table they were hiding under and started maneuvering towards the high school in hopes of finding other survivors from school. They found themselves crawling through the remains of the building. They both became covered in cuts and bruises from crawling and walking through what remained of the building. Tori squealed when she realized that there was a body covered right underneath her because there was a hand sticking out. Her hands flew over her mouth and she looked away, hoping she wouldn't puke from the realization that there had been people in the building when the bombs went off. It had been a school day and Tori and Trina had skipped out since their parents didn't want them attending school because of the madness going on in the city. Even so, some parents still sent their children to school, hoping that it would be safer for them there. Tori glanced over at her sister, who was now walking. The two girls could no longer see anything except the rubble and the tall buildings that had somehow survived. There was no way anyone patrolling the streets could see them. They were surrounded by the destroyed building. Tori slowly stood up and headed over toward her sister.

"Trina," she whispered worriedly. "There are bodies."

"I know," Trina said, not looking over at her sister. Neither girl said anything else after that and instead continued on with their trek.

Finally, the two girls made it to the edge of the part of the school that was still standing. They searched for what was most likely the hallway and finally found an entrance. Tori pulled a flashlight out from her bag and shone it inside. Light was leaking through some of the windows of the building, but the rest of it was covered in darkness. Trina's arm hooked into Tori's and the two sisters carefully made their way through the hallway. Neither of them said a single word as they walked through the eerie hallways of what used to be their school. Trina had graduated a year earlier, but she was still shocked to see that her favorite school had been so damaged. As the two girls walked, they heard footsteps moving through the shadows. They both stopped, and the noise stopped along with them. The two sisters looked over at each other, fear on both of their faces. Tori gulped and continued on, trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible.

A click of a loaded gun sounded behind the two sisters and they both froze, already knowing that this would most likely be the last time they ever saw each other. Footsteps were suddenly surrounding the two girls and Tori knew that there was no way to escape the impending doom. She and Trina had just walked right into a trap. They both should have known better than to go here. It was too late now though.

"Well, well, well," a voice said from in front of the two sisters. "Who do we have here?" Stepping out of the shadows was none other than Jade West with a revolver in her hand, which she was slowly moving down and away from being pointed at Tori and Trina. Tori started to question how Jade had gotten the gun, but she decided the girl must have broken in somewhere during the bombings and found a bunch of weapons. "I don't know if I'm glad or not to see that you've both made it out alive," Jade said. She made a hand motion and all the other guns that had been pointed at the sisters were lowered.

A few more people stepped out of the shadows and were also holding guns. Tori immediately recognized Andre who was standing on Jade's left and Beck who was on her right. Next to Beck was his cousin Moose. There were a few others that Tori recognized from school and she was glad that this many people had survived. She was also glad that she and her sister were safe. "Well, we're just glad that you're not going to kill us," Tori said, a smile slowly starting to come across her face.

"You're not going to kill us, right?" Trina asked, making sure that it was a fact that they weren't going to get hurt.

Andre laughed and shook his head. "Of course you're both safe," he answered. "Come on." A few of the people who had stepped out of the shadows disappeared again and Tori guessed they were going back to patrolling.

Jade glanced over at Beck and Moose, a frown on her face. "Weren't you two supposed to be patrolling outside?" she asked in annoyance. "Then we would have let them come in the secret entrance."

"We were taking a lunch break," Moose replied while Beck shrugged his shoulders.

Tori noticed Jade glaring at the two guys with their response. "Well, get back to patrolling," she told them.

Jade turned on her heels and started walking down the hall with her own flashlight in hand. Andre was standing next to her and the sisters followed the two of them. Tori was starting to guess that Jade was the one in charge of the entire group from the way she was acting. As Tori shined her flashlight against the old halls, she noticed how parts of the area had been burnt and some of it was starting to collapse. As they were walking, a piece of the ceiling fell down and crashed right behind Tori - where she had just been only a few seconds before. Jade and Andre glanced back at the girl who had screamed at the sudden collapse of the ceiling. Jade sighed and shook her head.

"Sorry about that," Andre told Tori. "For the past few days, parts of the building have been collapsing. We've already lost a few people to random collapses like that." Jade nodded her head and continued walking with Trina following after her. Tori's heart was still pounding and Andre put his arm around her shoulders. "Come on, we're heading towards the old theater."

"The old theater?" Tori asked.

"Yeah," he answered. "Before you started attended Hollywood Arts, we had this theater in the basement that we used for practices and classes, but then the school built a second one upstairs for that purpose."

"Why are we staying in the basement?" Tori asked. "If the building is collapsing, won't we be trapped down there?"

Andre sighed and continued walking with his arm around Tori's shoulders. "It's complicated," he started. "The door to the basement is hard to find so it keeps us safe from people who break into the school to come after us or search for supplies. Everything is down there and hidden so they can't find it. It gives us extra protection." He paused and turned the corner where Tori caught a glimpse of Jade's flashlight starting to disappear. "The only bad part is the collapsing building. We have an emergency exit from the basement that leads right outside, but it's still very dangerous. It's also pitch black down there since there's never any sunlight coming through. It gets kind of spooky sometimes."

Tori shivered at the thought of having to stay in the basement at night. "What happens if this place collapses while we're asleep?"

"We always have someone awake to keep guard. They'd be able to warn us if the building was collapsing."

Tori nodded her head at his response and continued following the others down to the basement. She would have never noticed it before, but there was a hatch in the floor of one of the janitor closets that led down to the basement. Tori had to climb down the ladder into the darkness below. She could hear voices and see dim lights, but most everything around her was completely black. She could barely see her hands gripping the ladder. As she carefully climbed down, Tori became frightened that she might slip or miss the next bar of the ladder and fall down. It was too dark to see anything and she didn't even know where the bottom was. She was really starting to wish that she was able to climb down the ladder while holding onto her flashlight, but for some reason she had decided to put it back in her bag while going down. Finally, she felt her feet touch the floor and she smiled. Tori got off the ladder and clapped her hands in excitement. "Finally!" she shouted.

Tori grabbed her flashlight out of her backpack and flipped the switch to turn it on, thankful for the light that made this place seem less spooky. She followed Jade down the hall until she saw a set of doors in front of her. Jade knocked on the doors with what Tori was guessing was the password to let them in. Jade stepped back from the door and they opened a few seconds later. The four teens all walked into the old theater where light seemed to be plentiful compared to the rest of the basement. Tori noticed a few other students were asleep on the floor in sleeping bags or playing games on the other side of the room.

In the corner of the room was Ryder Daniels, Tori's ex-boyfriend who had used her only for a good grade in one of her classes. She started glaring in his direction as he played a card game with a few other students. She glanced over at Andre who only shrugged his shoulders in response to her anger. Tori glanced around the room some more, hoping to see a few of her other friends. She saw Robbie asleep in the corner of the room where a few others were also sleeping.

Jade turned around to face Tori and Trina with her hands on her hips. "This is basically our new home," she told them while motioning around the theater and then placing her hands back on her hips. She motioned her head towards the area where a few people were asleep. "That's basically the bedroom area for people who don't currently have their own rooms," she told the two girls. "We all have different patrol shifts, so the ones sleeping right now work nights. The people working day shifts sleep at night, obviously. We will assign you both shifts later." She glanced around the room and then motioned to where a few people were playing games, reading, and socializing. "That's basically the living room. You just can't make too much noise over there or else you'll wake up people who are sleeping." Jade then pointed to a place that had a door. "Over there is our emergency exit that leads up a small hallway and then has a set of stairs that lead upstairs." Jade then pointed in another direction where another door was. "That door leads to the hallway where we have a few small classrooms and dressing rooms. It's where those who got here first get to sleep and call their own room. It was first come, first serve. We also keep food supplies hidden from most people so that way no one sneaks food for themselves. We serve meals at specific times and if you're not there on time, you don't get to eat."

The two Vega sisters glanced over at each other, slightly surprised with how tough this place seemed to be. Trina cleared her throat. "You guys are pretty...uh...serious about this stuff, huh?" she asked Jade.

Jade narrowed her eyes at the older sister. "Of course we are," she replied. "If we don't keep this together, we may end up dead."

"Well, I mean, hiding food from everyone? Isn't that just a little-"

Trina was interrupted by footsteps rushing down the stairs. Jade put a finger over Trina's lips to hush her and started walking away from the girls to go over towards the person running into the theater. Andre glanced back and then decided to distract the two Vegas. "Come on," he said, motioning them towards the living room area. Andre sat down on one of the couches while Trina sat down next to him. Tori glanced around and was about sit down when she heard a squeal coming from behind her. She turned around only to be suddenly embraced by her best friend, Cat Valentine. She laughed and wrapped her arms around her friend.

"Oh my god! Tori!" Cat squealed. She then realized how loud she was being and lowered her voice. "Oh my god! I thought...we all thought you were...obviously you're fine!" Cat pulled away from the hug, still smiling up at her best friend. "Now all of us are here!" Her smile seemed to keep growing bigger and bigger from the happiness of seeing her friend. "You're going to love it here. If you want, you can share a room with me, Andre, and Jade. I'm sure they wouldn't mind."

"All three of you are sharing a room?" Tori asked in surprise.

"Yeah," Cat answered. "Originally it was just me and Jade, but then Andre moved in after he got tired of staying with Beck and Moose."

"Would there be room for Trina?"

Cat tapped her chin while she was in deep thought, trying to figure out if there would be room or not. "I don't know," she said. "Probably not because the room is pretty small as it is. These classrooms were always the really, really small cramped ones."

Tori sighed. "I guess I won't share," she told Cat. "Sorry. I just want to stick with Trina for now. We've been through a lot the past few days."

"Oh," Cat said sadly. "That's alright though. We can still hang out all the time!"

"Sounds great," Tori said.

"So, how did you find us?" Cat asked while grabbing onto Tori's hand and dragging her towards the couch. Cat sat down next to Andre and dragged Tori down next to her. "Tell us all about it."

"Well...," Tori started, trying to figure out how to start her story off.