The dim, dank smelling apartment was dead silent as Mark and Garath looked hard at one another.
“I could be wrong,” Garath continued, “but I'd bet the government and military are just as leaderless as everyone panicking right out there,” he said, pointing a finger out the window at the streets below.
The eyes of the group of neighbors gathered in his living room followed his gesture to look outside and each of them, Garath included, silently hoped he was wrong. What they saw was raw chaos. Fires were already littering the landscape from car crashes - some had even spread to nearby buildings. Garath couldn't help wondering just how much money the insurance companies would have to pay out if anyone lived long enough to file a claim.
“At best, 'the authorities’ will be able to organize on a VERY local level,” Warrion said - making exaggerated air quotes with both hands.
“Like shouting distance local,” Garath agreed.
“Still,” said Sarah from the love seat, “Mark might be right. Even if there are monsters or whatever, we're on the thirteenth floor. How would they even get up here?”
“Depends on the monsters,” said Warrion with a shrug. “Flying monsters, or teleporty monsters, or…”
Garath cut him off, looking from Mark to Sarah and back. “Or they could take the fucking stairs? Or even spawn inside buildings? The only factor that matters is that we don't know anything.”
“Well I think it's safer here,” Mark said stubbornly. He had been looking for a place to set his glasses on Garath's coffee table but the various paraphernalia and empty pizza boxes didn't leave him many options. He put them back on and looked at Sarah, Sharon, and Warrion in turn - hoping for some backup.
“Do whatever you want, Mark. I'm not going to be stuck in here when the monsters start coming,” Garath told him coldly.
“I'm with G,” Warrion agreed. “If monsters do manage to get in here, then this place is gonna be a fracking death trap.”
Garath looked to Sharon, hoping she wouldn't be as stubborn and stupid as Mark about the whole thing. He'd never known his own grandparents, and Sharon had never had children. Over the years, the gamer and the prickly old bird had become friends in a way, but more than that, too. Garath even considered the crass, bitter old woman family - and he went out of his way to keep an eye on her more than he ever had with his actual family, even before some game-like apocalypse rocked the world. She returned his gaze with a considering expression for several seconds before speaking.
“Do you really think we should leave?” she asked Garath with a delicate tone he'd never heard from her. For the first time in the years he'd known her, Garath could tell that Sharon was truly scared and returned the consideration of thinking before he replied.
“Yeah, I really do.”
Sharon#142 gave him a look that was both stern and yet, somehow, still genuinely concerned - an expression that didn't fit his taciturn neighbor at all.
“And are you sure you even want me to come along?” she asked.
Garath opened his mouth to speak but she raised her hand to silence him.
“Think before you speak. Really consider it, because I am not as spry as I used to be. I can't run or jump or fight. I would just be dead weight.”
“I’m not having any of your defeatist bullshit, Sharon,” Garath told her seriously. “You're coming even if you don't want to. I just hope you have enough sense to make the call on your own.”
Garath was done trying to convince anyone of anything. He knew what to say next to head off any further arguments and hesitated to firm his resolve for only a moment before saying it.
“I want you all to leave my house right now,” he told them in a tone that did not suggest the topic was up for debate. “I'm leaving in a half-hour. If you want to come with me then go home, get whatever you want to bring with you, then meet me in the lobby. If you want to stay, best of luck.” He looked at Mark with mock sincerity. “I really hope it works out for you.”
Fourty-nine anxious minutes later, the hodge-podge gaggle of neighbors met up in the apartment building’s lobby on the first floor. Garath was surprised, but not exactly relieved when Mark showed up with a bulging briefcase hanging over one shoulder. Sarah made it down not much after Mark did with a carry-on-sized teal duffel bag. Warrion came down in a hoodie with nothing but an energy drink in one hand. They had to wait a while for Sharon to make it down thirteen stories of stairs, she adamantly refused to be carried and stated repeatedly that she would make it on her own time when Garath pushed for her to pick up the pace.
Together, the five of them made the short walk to the high school. The only grocery store between the group's apartment building and their destination was in ruin. Windows broken, door ajar, panic-stricken citizens ransacking everything within. As they passed, Garath wondered if the same thing was taking place all over the city, or even all over the world. Stalled cars were strewn across the streets, left where they had died when electronics had ceased functioning. It had only been a few hours since the prompt had appeared to shake the world and the streets already had the feeling of a true apocalypse. It made Garath sick that people had spent the last few hours looting stores instead of actually preparing. But at least they'd have snacks...
When they arrived, the group of neighbors huddled below the red brick building's front awning. The rain was finally letting up and a pale blue had begun to, almost imperceptibly, lighten the sky over the mountains on the eastern horizon.
Tarzan stayed
