Starting Over

[Picnicker Virgil]

It happened so fast, no one could have seen it coming. The scientists and researchers, the few that had survived, were saying it was practically impossible. There was a .001 in over a billion chance that something like this would ever happen. But it had happened. No one knew exactly what caused it. Most were saying it was all because of a large earthquake. An earthquake so large it shook the entire earth tremendously. The quake caused volcanos, some that had even been dormant for millions of years, to erupt, spewing lava everywhere. Tidal waves reached all the way to the center of some countries. Violent storms took place all around the planet. It was the end of the world.


But it was also the beginning of a new one. The earth had changed. Had the technology still existed to create a map of the world anyone could tell it was entirely different. For one, the earth had actually moved. It was no longer the third planet from the sun. The old constellations could no longer be seen in the night sky. The earth was situated in a different spot. Apparently, it was in the middle of a toxic gas field that was reacting oddly with the planet's oxygen and C02. No one could be quite sure what the long term effects of prolonged exposure to the gas would do, only time would tell. And time was just about all anyone had left now.

Everything was gone. There were no more houses, no more buildings at all. Mountains had been completely destroyed and new ones had taken their places. It wasn't the planet everyone knew anymore. The world had ended.

But for James Scream, the world had ended long ago. It had ended when Karen died. Karen had been his wife, his best friend. She was all he had in the world. He had no family, no relatives at all. She had been everything. She died from a brain tumor three years before what they were now calling 'The End'. For those three years after her death James had done nothing. He didn't make any friends, didn't go out. He had been surviving on inherited money ever since she left him. He didn't have any plans for the future. He figured when the money ran out he'd find a job. Or kill himself.

James was 34. He was tall, brown haired and unshaven. He wore the only thing he had to wear, his dirty white button up shirt and his ripped jeans. His old clothes were in bad condition, being the only clothes he had left. Everyone's clothes were in bad condition. James had been on a plane when The End happened. It happened for a whole day and that was it. Him and the others aboard the plane had been flown around, dodging lava that would occasionaly come too close to the plane, or meteors that were making their way into the atmosphere due to the fact that the earth was essentially running into them. When The End had stopped, the pilot managed to find a place to land safely.

James was traveling with the other survivors, those that had been on the plane with him. Food was running low. There was almost nothing growing on the earth anymore. They had been scavenging for food most of the time. And they almost always came back from destroyed cities empty handed. Most were starving already, and it had only been four days since The End.

They hadn't met anyone so far. As far as anyone knew they could be the last people on earth. James was calm most of the time, he didn't have anything left to lose. Dying would be a gift right about now. The other survivors, however, didn't always think the same way. Days and nights were filled with crying, not only from the children but from the adults too. No one was thinking straight, people were going insane.

"Must've been awesome." A latin looking man said to James. The man was Carlos. He had thick eyebrows, dark hair and crooked teeth. He was in his mid twenties.

"What?" James asked, stepping over some rubble as him and the other survivors trudged forward to wherever their next destination was.

"For God." He was looking to the sky. James had suspected Carlos was going to lose it in a few days, apparently he was correct. "Watchin' the whole thing from up there, lookin' down at everyone runnin' all around... Bet he's having himself a good time up there..." Carlos was bearing a fake, annoyed looking smirk. "ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME YOU SICK FUCKER?!" Carlos cried, tears streaming from his face which now looked sad and furious. No one looked back, outbreaks were nothing new to them.

James moved forward up to the front of the group. A man named Mitch had taken the liberty of leading the survivors this far. "Where are we going?" James asked casually.

Mitch looked up at him for a brief second before turning his head forward once more. "Lots of crumbles of cement back there. I think a city's coming up."

One of the women heard this. Her face turned scared. "No," She said, walking over to Mitch. "We can't go back to another city!" She was holding the hand of a young girl, her daughter. "I don't think she can take it..." She pointed to her daughter. The last city they had been to had been filled with bodies, or parts of bodies. The whole thing had been gruesome to look at. James had had to reach underneath a dead beagle in order to retrieve a bottle of vitamins he had been lucky enough to find. "She'll die from fright if she has to go through that again."

"Would you rather she starved?!" Mitch reacted, looking stressed and angry. The women stopped walking. Her daughter said something in another language to her mother who responded in the same language. "I'm doing the best I can..." He mumbled, sniffling. They trudged on. James took to the back once more. He listened to Carlos talk to himself and then he heard something else. Shouts were coming from the front of the group. James pushed ahead to the front once more. Mitch had been right. A city, a million times better in comparison to the one they had been to before, stood before him.

James ran his fingers through his messy, greasy hair. He almost smiled. "C'mon, let's go." Mitch said, pretty pleased with himself.

 

[Sir Erie]

(OOC: I'm guessing anyone can join? If not, I'll be more than happy to remove my post later.)

The End. Who would have thought that such an event, an event predicted for generations, could actually occur and change the lives of every living creature on the Earth. It all just happened so quickly those four days ago. Sitting on that plane, heading home to visit the family for a birthday weekend of multiple siblings and cousins. Then it began, starting with the swerving of the plane, moving on to flashes of a redish-orange color that had turned out to be lava from erupting volcanoes, aswell as flying rocks from the Earth changing its position and moving closer and closer to the plane. From now on all the rules, the ones that had been lived up to for decades, would mean absolutely nothing and everyone would have to build a new lifestyle to live.

Calvin Thompson was going to make the best of this though, never knowing when to give up, and would keep moving forward until his nineteen year old body gave up on him. He had heard the commotion from the back of the group, but had made no effort to be the first on scene; anything that was there would most likely still be there in five seconds, hopefully. Calvin's appearance was not what he could hope for, but he could only play with the cards dealt to him. Calvin wore a white beeter which was no longer white, more of a light-brownish color from all of the dirt and sand blowing in the wind. His light jeans were not in great shape either, the right leg had a huge slit down the middle and behind the left knee was a medium sized hole. Calvin learned to watch where he was going, the partially destroyed clothing coming from his accidental trip, down a small crater, after the plane had safely landed.

Calvin reached the front, seeing Mitch he knew that he was in the right place to find out information, and waited to see what would happen next. A low grumbling sound could be heard from Calvin's stomach, the hunger he was feeling was beginning to become unbareable. It had been 5 day since Calvin ate a full meal, the last 4 days consisting of two packages of peanuts from the plane. Calvin reached into his pocket and pulled out the two peanut bags, only one of them still contained peanuts and there were only four. Hoping it would help ease his hunger slightly, Calvin popped two peanuts into his mouth and quietly munched away at them.

After finishing the two peanuts, Calvin restored the package with the remaining two to his pocket. Calvin then walked over to Mitch, who had been smiling a lot of the time, and decided to ask him a question.

"Excuse me Mitch," said Calvin quietly, "what's going on at the moment? Have we found something useful?"

Calvin tried to push out the chatter of a man, Carlos was what Calvin believed his name to be, talking to himself, so as to hear Mitch's response clearly.

(OOC: Sorry its so short, wasn't much else I could do since all we did was "find the city." I can modify later.)