fandomhigh | The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World, Wednesday, Period 4

When the students stepped into the Danger Shop for Reno's class today, they'd find themselves stepping into the lobby of the dormitory all over again, with a few pointed differences. There seemed to be a barricade built against the boarded-up windows, consisting of a good deal of the furniture that had clearly been dragged down from the floors above them. The power to the simulated building had been cut off completely, which meant that they were sitting in near-absolute darkness, because naturally Reno was going to be an ass and set this scenario for the dead of night.

There were cans of food lined up against one wall. There were weapons, what looked to be the entire contents of both the weapons locker and sharpened, weaponized versions of the practise fare from the Salle, laid out against the other. A sign hastily scribbled down on a piece of paper pointed deeper into the building, directing any possible injured to a first-aid station in the rec room.

Reno was sitting in the middle of the floor, grinning up at the students as they came in, legs splayed out in front of him and his elbows on his knees, Danger Shop supplied stun baton in one hand.

"Trust me," he said coolly, nodding back to the doors that closed themselves and instantly fell behind another barricade the moment the last of the students stepped in, "you don't wanna go back out there. This ain't your everyday Fandom invasion, where somethin' shows up, tapdances nasty around us all for a week, an' then gets sent packin'. This is the real friggin' deal, yo. This is your doomsday scenario, where there ain't no cure for bein' dead. Where if you get bit and infected and turn into one of them, you ain't snappin' out of it. Where the weapon that blew up the school took half of you with it, and you don't got time for so much as a head count to figure out who's left."

He leaned back, the cool metal of his baton scraping against the floor of the lobby, playing an eerie harmony to the sounds from outside, which alternated from complete silence to screams to gunfire, to the sound of something not remotely human calling out into the dark, answered by what had to be a hundred more just like it, all converging in on one point: The Dorms.

"I ain't gonna pretend there ain't heroes among you, I ain't gonna sit here and point at you one by one to tell you the likelihood of comin' back alive, either. If you're one of them who's gonna run out there, then there ain't nobody who'll be able to keep you inside. And that'll cost the island one of its first big advantages early on. Because once you guys are dead, what are the people who ain't fighters gonna do?"

And then, all at once in a flash of speed that was jarringly unnatural, Reno was on his feet, baton on his shoulder, and he was prowling back and forth in front of the students.

"What the enemy out there is don't matter in this scenario. What's out there is the predator, that thing that goes bump in the night, that sees you as prey or pest, but whatever the case is, it don't want us here, and it's lettin' us know with extreme prejudice. This is the Danger Shop, so if you go out them doors here, you'll just be steppin' out into the school again. This lesson ain't about fightin'. This is about stayin' alive. Look around. Take in what's been set up, here. Let it sink in that there isn't a single resource in this lobby that'll last even a severely reduced dorm population more'n a few weeks at best. And then, try an' figure out what the hell you're gonna do about it."

[Open! Go nuts!]

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"I like the way the two of you think, and I could take the rear," Anders offered. "I can fight, but a staff's not much use up close -- not unless I'm trying to poke whatever we're fighting with a stick until they drop dead. Besides, being in back would put me in a good place for any healing we need."

"Actually--!" Kathy said, bouncing up onto her feet in excitement. "What if we went down? The sewers! Unless these things came from the sewers, we probably won't find many down there! I mean, if they're hunters, why should they abandon aboveground? That's where the prey is. But the sewer system has to run all under the school and the town, right?"

"Brilliant," Anders enthused. "It'll smell like shit, but that's the price of valor."

"I'd rather smell shit than the inside of the mouth of one of those things out there," Kathy said, nervously playing with her hair. "We'll still need to scout, but, if nothing else, it will limit the direction those things come from. It's easier to run if you're not surrounded."

"So, important question:" Joker asked. "Is this place actually a castle, or does it just look like one? Because if these dorms were built anytime recently, the quote-unquote 'sewer system' is only gonna be a foot or two wide, at most."

"I...have no idea," Kathy admitted. She hadn't considered that at all. "Something to check out. We can discard the idea if they're too small, after we figure out which it is."

"I've also seen way too many movies where a monster lurks under the surface and grabs people's legs to really be comfortable with the idea," Joker added.

"Well, if we go anywhere, it's either on the ground, in the air, or below ground," Kathy said with a shrug. "Most of us can't fly, we have no idea how fast these creatures are on land, and so I'm willing to take chances exploring the underground."

"I misunderstood you," Eleanor said, a touch sheepishly, once there was a lull in the conversation. "I'm good at healing myself. I can't heal anyone else. But to answer your other question, I'm brilliant in a fight."

"I thought we might have gotten a bit confused, but I figured it didn't matter," Anders said. "Anyhow, even if you can only heal yourself that's one less for me to worry about."

"It's far more useful," Eleanor said. "To heal others, I mean. But I can fling things about telekinetically, which might help if the monsters crowd in close. We seem to be making a good team."

"We are, other than how Kathy and Barry might just kill each other with that bottle of soy sauce," Anders agreed with a smile. "But at least the arguing means we all care."

"I've never killed a man with soy sauce," Eleanor said lightly. "I'd consider that an achievement, if either of them manage it. I'd be more heartened if I thought we cared about something worthwhile, like peace and brotherhood, and not the universal 'let's not all die from whatever's outdoors.'"

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World, Wednesday, Period 4

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