[log] there's a 30% chance they'll both die [closed]

[coleader]

Characters: Clarke the girl (coleader) and Lea the boy (promises_to_keep)!
Location: building 30/school.
Date: days 10 & 11.
Summary: two-person Scooby gang investigate creepy school and hoard food.
Warnings: tw: spooky piano playing :c

[ Clarke is not a believer. At least, she wasn't — it's getting harder and harder to stay rational these days. All-night screaming, moving shadows, people being brought back from the dead. What's real, and what's a product of her own imagination? She used to know, but not anymore.

She feels confident about heading to the school, despite Stiles' warnings; this isn't a horror movie, and nothing bad is going to happen to them. Something bad will happen, however, if they don't get food. Her stomach aches on their trek, so much that she becomes almost accustomed to the feeling. By the time she and Lea make their way around the side of the school in search of an entrance, the hollow pangs turn into a churning feeling, panic swirling in her stomach. Clarke isn't a believer, but the primal, childlike part of her — the lizard brain — is. And it's scared.

Clarke bites back words of anxiety, squaring her shoulders. By all appearances, she couldn't feel more comfortable. She's grown quite talented at masking fear. Her eyes flicker over to Lea standing beside her as she grasps the strap of her backpack tightly. ]

Are you ready to go in?

Comments

[promises_to_keep]

[Lea isn't really sure what he believes anymore. Finding out that more than ten years of your life was spent living a lie makes you wary about believing much of anything, and this place has a way of making that wariness all the more acute. He's confident that they'll be able to get to the school and find food and get out again, at least; he has to hold onto that. Starving to death really isn't the way he wants to go.

[Clarke makes for pleasant enough company. She's easy to talk to and seems genuinely kind, and Lea's honestly a little surprised by how many people he can say that about here. He would have expected people in this sort of situation to be cutthroat and self-serving, but so far he's run into little but generosity and helpfulness. It's a little jarring. He'd gotten so used to depending on only himself that the option of depending on anyone else is just alien to him.

[They approach the school, and Lea tries the doors, but they seem to be locked tight. There must be another way in. Making their way around the side to where the middle of the building has collapsed in on itself, Lea shades his eyes from the bright overcast sky and peers into the rubble. Then he glances at Clarke and gives a wry grin.]

I was born ready.

[He, too, is good at concealing fear; it was a survival skill in the Organization. Whether it was real fear or just the memory of it, he knew he'd felt it a few times, and showing any sort of weakness to his colleagues just wasn't an option. This time, however, it's not that he's worried about showing weakness, it's that he's pretty sure Clarke is just as nervous about this as he is, and he doesn't want to break this nice facade of confidence they've got going. Fear is all in your head, right?

[He starts forward, mincing his way through the ruined area and casts his eyes all around, frowning a bit at their surroundings.]

Talk about a fixer-upper. I wonder if it was the weight of the snow on the roof that made it collapse, or if there was something else that did it...

[coleader]

[ Clarke smiles softly at Lea's I was born ready comment; both of them are out of their comfort zones, far from home. Even without the video, Norfinbury is a place that inspires fear. There's always an uncertainty lingering, the overwhelming isolation often sending her into tailspins she has to conceal. The loneliness, the frigid cold, it all makes her feel like she's a little girl again who wants to crawl into her parents' bed and open arms after a nightmare. Only now, her father is dead, her mother is miles away at best, and she hasn't woken from the nightmare yet.

She steps lightly, boots making a slight crunching sound against the packed snow. The soles of her feet sink a little bit as she walks, leaving soft footprints in the slush. Her eyes rake over the rubble, the half-destroyed school; it looks similar to the few post-war buildings she'd stumbled upon, practically crumbling in front of her. ]

I hope it was the snow.

[ Then again, she wonders if there would have been children inside when it collapsed. If something else caused it, she's almost certain there was. Innocent kids unsuspecting as the roof begins to cave in on them. Perhaps they all evacuated and survived, she thinks, or maybe they're all buried in the cemetery. The main objective is to get food, and she'd planned on going in purposefully and leaving quickly, but now that she's really here, her footsteps are heavy and slow. Clarke's gaze keeps sweeping over the ramshackle, untended building; it's impossible not to visualize what it must have been like when it was shiny and new, the sounds of the children as they learned and played, what their finger paintings and singing must have been like. She wants to paint it, return it to its former glory even if only in art. It seems so wrong for it to be like this, abandoned and battered by wind and snow. ]

—So this is where the children were most of the time. [ Seeing it makes it all feel so much more real — there were real people living here, with children and enemies and lovers, and then they just disappeared into thin air. ]

Maybe it was different when there were people living here, but this doesn't seem like a place for kids. They even abducted a fourteen year old boy and brought him here.

[promises_to_keep]

I hope so too, honestly... [His remark is dry, a little unsettled. He doesn't especially want to think about what other factors could have made a building collapse like this. He's vaguely reminded of a time when he himself attended school, and it feels like lifetimes ago. In a way, it sort of was.

[He turns to Clarke when she speaks again, frowning.]

This whole place seems like it used to be so ordinary, like just your average small town. I mean, surely it wasn't like this when there were still people here, right? Nobody could really live here with it being the way it is. [They're all barely surviving, after all, and he knows for a fact that some of the people here are veteran survivors like himself.

[Lea heads toward where it looks like a section of the area is still standing, gingerly making his way across the snow and rubble. He's not sure if this building has a basement, and the last thing he wants to do is have it collapse further and dump him and Clarke down another level. He moves around to the side of the wall and looks up toward the ceiling. This area still seems to be covered, and fairly well sheltered from the elements. Moving a little further, he finds an ingress, then turns and calls over his shoulder.]

Hey, Clarke! I think I found the cafeteria!

[It's fairly well preserved, if a bit messy, the tables skewed and looking a bit like everyone left in a hurry. He'll wait a moment for Clarke to join him before he starts toward what looks like the food line, planning to get behind the counters to see what they can find in the kitchen.]

[coleader]

[ At Lea's call, she whips around, snow falling from her hair. ] Oh my god, you did, [ Clarke breathes, like she's stumbled upon an oasis. She feels even more relieved than she thought she would; it's as if a heavy weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She no longer has to wonder if she'll survive the next few days or if she'll starve.

She follows Lea, imitating his careful steps almost exactly. She, too, fears the building collapsing more — she knows others have been to the school before, but she's cautious all the same. If not for her sake, then for Lea's. The last thing she wants is to have to dig through rubble to find him.

The cafeteria is like nothing Clarke has seen before. On the Ark, they had their rations and no more — occasionally, parents would share with children or friends with friends, but no one was ever free to pick and choose. It had to store well in space, so there were often packets of dehydrated or freeze-dried food. There weren't any factories for making things like Cheese Puffs, either. The food here is a brand new world.

As she makes her way through the line, she plucks a small bag off the shelves. Funyuns. She wrinkles her brow quizzically. ]

What kind of food is this?

[promises_to_keep]

[He's feeling pretty relieved, too, honestly. He's hungry, and nothing gnaws at you quite the way hunger does. It's an empty, almost desolate feeling, like everything is just hollow and echoing.

[He heads down the line and bypasses the snack food for the time being; he wants to see if there's real food in the kitchen area. He glances behind him, though, when Clarke inquires, and he makes a bit of a face. He's never heard of Funyuns, specifically, but...]

It's junk food, ah... potato chips? [He reaches for the bag and arches one eyebrow at it.] "Onion flavored rings", huh? [He turns the bag over, then hands it back to her.] Not sure if they're potato chips, but... it's just snack food. I guess they taste like onions. [He reaches for a bag of Cheetos, this one unfamiliar, too.] These are cheese flavored, and... [He points to the Doritos.] And those are corn, but they're ranch flavored, like the salad dressing. Pretty good stuff, but not exactly nutritionally sound. [Still, he grabs the Doritos and tears the bag open, popping one into his mouth. Crunch, crunch, crunch.] Mm, great when you want something quick and easy, though. [He holds the bag out toward her, offering her a chip if she wants to try.]

[coleader]

[ Potato chips.

Clarke is both endlessly fascinated and sort of disgusted by it all, the strange assortment of cheese-flavored or chocolate-flavored things that happens to lack cheese or chocolate of any kind. She takes the bag from Lea and motions to the back with a jerk of her head. ]

You go look back there. I'll see if there's anything else useful up here.

[ Splitting up seems like the wisest course of action — less time consuming, so they won't end up locked out and freeze to death. Still, it also worries her to think of Lea disappearing behind a counter and never reappearing. She doesn't believe in those shadow creatures, she doesn't, but there's no telling what people could be lurking in the darkness.

Clarke puts on her most commanding voice, one which sounds eerily similar to that of a stern mother. ]

Stay within yelling distance. Don't go wandering around without me.

[promises_to_keep]

[Lea gives a nod. He's a little worried about splitting up, too, but he knows it's the most efficient course of action. If they're going to check this place out and find shelter, they'll need to do it separately if they want to cover as much ground as they can.]

Don't worry, I won't go too far. [He wags a finger at her.] You too, though; this place gives me the heebie jeebies, so don't take any chances, all right?

[And then he turns and heads into the kitchen. There are long counters and large ovens and microwaves, but when he presses the buttons on the front of them, nothing happens. Of course--that would have been too easy. So much for a hot meal. He turns to a tall standing contraption that looks a bit like a refrigerator and pulls the door open. Bingo. Inside there are dozens of wrapped packages of frozen food--pre-cooked chicken breasts, mashed potatoes, cups of fruit chunks. He grabs a package of frozen peas and sort of rolls them around in his hand. They're definitely frozen, but he thinks that putting the package inside his shirt would work to thaw them enough to be eaten. It's not the easiest (or most comfortable) way to get a meal, but he'll take it.

[Grabbing handfuls of the chicken and vegetables and fruit, he stuffs the backpack about half way full, then tries the next contraption. Inside he finds more of the same packages--cooked hamburgers, carrot sticks, some tater tots. He tosses some of them in the backpack, too, then continues to what looks like a large chest freezer. He pulls open the lid and a big smile breaks over his face.]

No way.

[It's full of ice cream. Boy, could he use some ice cream right now. Grabbing a Fudgecicle, he tears the paper off and takes a bite, grinning all the while. It's not sea salt, but ice cream is still ice cream, and he'll take it.

[He checks out the rest of the kitchen, finding nothing else of great assistance. There's a few plastic utensils, a sink that doesn't work, more ovens that have no power, a broken dishwasher. Once he's sure he's checked every possible corner of the kitchen, he returns to the freezer and grabs another ice cream bar, just for good measure, before heading back out to reconvene with Clarke.]

There's a good amount of food in there. It's all mostly frozen, and none of the ovens work, unfortunately, but it all looks like it was frozen fresh and it's edible. [He holds up the ice cream bar.] There's a freezer with ice cream, too. Not exactly the weather for it, but I'll take what I can get.

[coleader]

[ By the time Lea comes back out, her backpack is bulging with packs of food. When she hears about the food, her somber expression turns to something a little more giddy. Good news, for once. Is it really happening? It seems to her that every good thing here has a catch; nobody gets something without a cost here. Clarke worries, knowing that whatever food is there is likely restocked by the same people who are holding them captive, but what choice do they have? It's that or starve, and Clarke would rather take her chances with the food. ]

Frozen?

[ That could be the catch, but it doesn't seem big enough. The food might end up being disgusting, but it will still be edible. At this point, she's so hungry that she couldn't care what it tastes like. She'd eat cardboard if she had to — she would have resorted to tree bark long ago had Norfinbury not been devoid of any flora. Her smile grows as she sees the ice cream bar in Lea's hand, the excitement on his face. ]

We could use the wood from furniture to try and make a fire. It's not ideal, but it's something. It'll thaw enough for all of us to be able to eat it. [ She pauses. ] I won't say that it sounds appetizing, but you're right. Let's take what we can get.