Chapter edited by Shadowgohstalex

"When I woke up, the first thing I remember feeling was despair and unrest. Something was...wrong. The balance of nature had been upset. I didn't pay it much attention, though, because the next thing I felt was the cold..."

Bob Bates sat in his car, on his way back to the college after making a quick store run. The Ausie and his wife had forgotten their camera at home, and since neither of them had one of those fancy smartphones with the cameras in them, he had went out and bought a disposable one, along with a bottle of peach tea to surprise his wife with. He glanced up through his windshield and saw that the planets were starting to align. Realizing, with a little bit of sadness that he couldn't share the moment with his wife, that he wouldn't be able to make it back to the school in time, he pulled over, away from any streetlamps, and snapped a few pictures as the alignment merged the planets into a single, bright star. Satisfied that he had at least gotten a few pictures of the event itself, he smiled as he got back into his car. As he approached the intersection to the school, though, a great and sudden earthquake threw Bob's body against his door before a terrible BOOM! echoed through the valley, seeming to come from...

"Oh no." With no more regard for traffic or his own safety, he threw the car into gear and screamed toward the college as slithering tendrils of fog rose out of the ground all around him. Careening into the parking lot, he saw a large pillar of light surrounding the entire building and slowly constricting around it. Throwing caution to the wind, he yelled at the top of his lungs and charged toward the light, only to slam into it, struggle for a few seconds, and then be thrown back into the side of his car. He sat there for a few moments, dazed, before shaking his head and rising unsteadily to his feet with a small cut across his face. He may have been old, but at least he wasn't frail, or that impact probably would have killed him. As it was, he could feel a few cracked ribs.

None of that mattered, though. All that mattered was getting to his wife. So as the light poured itself over the building, he stumbled towards it once more. When he was three feet away, a bright flash and the terrible sound of the earth being rent apart knocked him on his back. As the spots cleared from his vision, the sound of sirens reached his ears, and he got to his knees and scrambled forward. The light was gone, but the entire area was filled with smoke and a few fires burned in the grass. He reached the spot where the light had been, and the May breeze blew the smoke away, revealing a large crater where the school should have been.

Bob felt his heart skip a few beats as tears welled up in his eyes. He didn't know what had just happened. One moment the school was there, the next there was some sort of light, and then it was all...gone? As the sirens grew louder and the flashing lights pulled into the parking lot behind him, Bob began to heave and sob, rivers pouring out of his eyes and onto the pavement as his heart shattered. He turned his face toward the heavens and let out a great cry of agony.

"LINDA!!!"

*******

Noah awoke to something cold hitting him in the face. Only a few minutes had passed since he had lost consciousness, though he was unaware of this fact. He stirred slightly, cracking his eyes open slightly and letting out a groan as the pain in his head made itself known. Pushing himself onto his elbows, he turned his head towards the source of the cold. Apparently, the violent quaking of the school had thrown him into one of the glass doors, which was now cracked and propped open by his bulky frame. Outside, however, was what really surprised him. Last he checked, it was the middle of May. If that was the case, he wondered, then why was there a blizzard raging outside? There was at least four feet of snow on the ground, and about a foot inside the doorway he was laying in.

Even in his hazy state, his survival instincts kicked in, letting him know that he would not survive another bout of unconsciousness in that doorway, so he began to move. Fighting to stay awake, he dragged himself out of the doorway and used his foot to clear as much snow away as he could, just enough for the door to close almost all the way. Trying to get further away from the door, his hand brushed against denim, and he was able to drag himself over to the person's torso, before collapsing again as darkness enveloped him once more.

*******

The sound of Kasey's alarm going off interrupted the lull of Bryce's slumber, signaling that it was 7:30. His roommate was a metalhead, and his morning alarm reflected that fact. The sound used to cause him to scare awake and instantly reach for the dagger under his pillow thinking he was under attack (seriously, it sounded like things breaking), but now it usually just suddenly brought him to the edge of awareness. This morning, something entirely different caused Bryce to suddenly jerk his eyes open.

"C-c-c-cold!!"

Indeed, as his eyes adjusted, protesting to the sudden light exposure, he realized that there was a pile of snow running from the open front door, across his right arm, neck, and shoulders, and tapering off toward the stairs on his other side. And, of course, his body heat had caused some of the snow to melt down his back, soaking his shirt, which was now frozen stiff.

Wait, this isn't my room. Where am I? Bryce's mind started to process that things weren't as they should be, then the events of last night came rushing back to him.

"Crap!" he moaned. "The others!"

He tried to get up, realizing that some of the others may be hurt and need help, but two things hindered him. First: he was extremely susceptible to the cold, especially snow, and his body and joints were frozen stiff from prolonged exposure, which made moving difficult. Second: there was a person--likely Noah, judging by the size of them--collapsed on top of him, which also made it difficult to move, though their combined body heat was probably responsible for keeping the both of them alive through the cold night. And yes, he could tell that Noah was alive; he was snoring.

Perfect. "Noah." His voice no longer sounded hoarse, but was still pretty weak. "Noah!" he managed a decent volume this time, and the sleeping giant's snoring paused, but promptly resumed a second or two later. Bryce let out a huff, or at least he tried to. It was a little difficult with something so large on top of you. He lay there for a few moments, considering his options. He could try to push Noah off of him, but the stiffness and soreness of his body would stunt whatever strength he could muster. He could try and kick him, but given the position they were in, that would take more flexibility than he had. Yelling also yielded no significant results, even as his voice returned to him, though he did manage to keep interrupting the snoring pattern.

Out of ideas, he laid his head back on the cold tile, having decided to just wait until the beast woke up on its own. He stretched out his arms to try and work the stiffness out of them a bit, when his hand brushed up against something that Noah's arm had blocked from his eyesight. Probing it with his fingers, Bryce recognized the feel of the trigger instantly, and a wicked smile crossed his face as he realized how he was going to get out of this little predicament. He had found his taser, which must have fallen out of his pocket, and from where he was, he had a pretty good shot at Noah's forearm.

Bryce carefully removed the distance cartridge, as he may still need that later, and there really wasn't any need to fire a twenty-foot cable across a distance of six inches. He suppressed the trigger and listened to the crackling current, partially to test the stun gun to see if it still worked, but mostly in anticipation of how much he was going to enjoy this.

"Sorry man. We'll laugh about this later, right?" He unleashed a three-second burst into Noah's forearm. His friend suddenly shouted and starting flopping around, crushing Bryce even more, causing him to "accidentally" release another burst into Noah's leg. That turned out to be all the encouragement he needed, as he quickly rolled off of Bryce's legs, shooting him a confused look when he stopped flopping around.

"Sorry," Bryce laughed. "But it was the only way I could think of to get you off of me." Standing up, he took off his shirt and tossed it down the stairwell. Once he started moving around, the thing would go from cold and frozen to cold and wet, which would cling to him and sap his body heat. In the end, he'd be warmer without it. He rolled his neck and shoulders, releasing chunks of ice from his skin and letting them shatter on the ground before turning back to Noah, who was recovered from the shock enough to be able to stand. "Come on. we have to help the others."

Understand dawned in Noah's eyes as he, too, remembered the events of last night. "You go downstairs and around the hall, see if anyone sought shelter there. I'll start working on the crowd upstairs. Send anyone you find downstairs to the student lounge; it's go the most room to accommodate people." Bryce nodded and headed down the short flight of stairs to the student lounge, hearing Noah pull the door shut above him. He was actually surprised to find a few people downstairs. He thought most everybody had all been upstairs when they lost consciousness, but apparently a few of them had sought shelter elsewhere in the school. He woke up the five students in the lounge and checked them for injuries, thankfully finding nothing more severe than bruising or sprained joints; a few gashes here and there, but nothing that would need stitches, and thankfully, nothing broken. No one had hypothermia, either. Apparently the backup generators had kicked on during the night.

Once he finished downstairs, he did a really fast run-through of the library, which was an absolute mess, but housed no students, then headed down the school's only hallway, starting at the offices. The school was set up in a giant circle. From a bird's-eye view, you would see the main offices upstairs on the left with the student lounge situated directly below them. The rest of the school was on a floor that was a half-level in between the other two, with the main entrance (where Bryce and Noah had woken up ), storage, and chapel on the bottom, two classrooms, the dining room, kitchen, and bathrooms in the right hallway, and the secondary offices and back entry on the top, with the large library sprouting off the top left corner. Going through the hallway, he found Olivia, Professor Garland's four-year-old daughter, asleep on her small cot in her mother's office (Mrs. Garland was the school cook) completely unharmed, Betsy Olson and Cate Garland together in the dining room, and Trevor had apparently been playing the piano in the chapel, because Bryce found him bleeding onto the keys from a gash in his forehead.

Crap. That one might actually need stitches. Hopefully they had medical supplies somewhere. With Cate and Betsy's help, and with a sleepy Olivia resting on one hip, he was able to half help, half drag Trevor down to the student lounge, where Noah and the others were all crowded rather tightly.

Bryce set Trevor down against a wall and returned Olivia to her mother's arms, then headed over to Noah, who was gathering the rest of the security team. It seems that he had sent each of them on their own assignment.

"Alright guys. What've we got?" he asked.

"Some broken windows in the dining room and classroom 1, and sections of collapsed roof in the chapel and library," AJ reported in his subtle Floridian drawl.

"A bunch of canned food and dry goods in Shannon's office, and some fresh fruits and vegetables and frozen meat in the kitchen that's still good," Kasey added.

"Braden?"

"We've actually got some pretty good supplies," Braden started. "I looked in the storage room and in the dungeon (a small storage/maintenance area a level below the lounge made from stone and wood, hence, "dungeon"). I came up with a large stash of blankets, several coats, boots, and other random winter gear, some shovels, a large first-aid kit, and surprisingly, several large gas cans. Oh, also found some skis and snowboards, if anyone's interested."

Bryce perked up. "Braden, you said you found a large first aid kit. Do you think it has sutures in it?"

"Pretty sure it does."

Noah turned to him in concern. "What'd you find Bryce?"

"Not much. Found Olivia, Cate, and Betsy all pretty much unharmed, but Trevor was bleeding all over the piano when I found him."

Noah pursed his lips. "Do you know how to do stitches?"

Shaking his head, Bryce replied with a no, then a thought occurred to him. "I think Damien does, though. He's got military training, fireman training, and he's in nursing school."

Noah's eyes widened slightly before he regained his composure and nodded. "Alright, that'll work. Here's the plan."

Author's Note

Hey everypony!

I am so so so sorry this ended up being so boring. I really thought I was going to be able to fit more in this chapter, but it was getting too long to go where I wanted it to go. I swear that things will pick up in the next chapter! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!

Other than that, please let me know what you think. Feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Thanks guys!
~Moon Guard