5 March 2013

Part 1

I plunged into the icy tsunami as the rest called my name. But their voices were muffled by water filling my ears. I sank with the wound bleeding uncontrollably making the water red. I breathed. I didn't care for icy water filling my lungs. They say salt water heals, but I would have to stay in the tsunami for a while for that to happen. My friends, my family. The people I would never see again. Well, at least on this earth. I sank and I sank. How deep was it? I didn't know. But I knew it would cease the pain slightly, so I simply toppled over the barrier of the Empire State Building and into the raging tsunami. It knocked over the Statue of Liberty, sank half the land and raged on to the Empire. It was the end of the world, people would see it. The tsunami, the earthquake in Russia, the nuclear explosion that wiped out half of Europe? It was only a mater of time before people realised that it would sooner or later come for America. So, there I was, Noah Harrison, plunging to my icy death.

Then, I saw the face of the a girl with white blonde hair grab my hand and pull me threw the icy waters. **** I opened my eyes. I was in a warehouse. There are mattresses on the ground and sick people drenched in sweat and water. Some are missing legs and arms. Some are lying still as a rock and not breathing. Above me, two people, a young girl who looks around my age, which is fourteen, with soft blond hair and green eyes, the other a tall man who looked in his mid twenties. After what felt like hours, they stopped talking and the man left. The girl looked down at me and said, 'You ok?' 'Yup. What happened?' I asked. 'Well, amongst all the chaos, someone, we haven't found who, they stabbed you in the chest. Then you toppled over the railing, into the tsunami, then I saved your ass by pulling you through,' she said as she messed with some medicines. I thought she was my guardian angel bringing me to the gates of heaven. But I didn't recognise her at all. 'I'm Astrid, by the way. And your Noah. I'm not a stalker, I just know you from school. Y'know.' She said with a shallow grin. I sat up and scrambled off the mattress and stood up. I realised I had black trousers on with black converse. The thing that alarmed me was that they weren't my clothes. Then I realised I wore a blue t-shirt. Also not mine. She gestures to my centre chest, 'You have a bandage on. It wraps around your whole torso. It may hurt. It was bleeding real bad.' Astrid said. She hands me a cardigan a few shades darker than my top. 'Is this some kind of hospital?' I ask. 'Sorta. The real hospital is in the sea now.' She replied. There was no walls, just a warehouse full of mattresses, metal trays as tables full of bottles, needles and drugs to cease the pain. Coughs, blood and last breaths. 'Well, how unfortunate.' I replied. 'Yup.' Astrid nodded. 'Was I out?' 'Six days.' That earned a shaky breath. 'The tsunami went on for another odd four days. We kept you barely alive and when it passed, and the hospitals were gone, me and Solo, that dude I was taking to, found this warehouse, brought you in with whatever medicine we found, set you down and next thing we knew, people came in with bruises, cuts and bumps. Some times even worse then you. So we are now the unofficial hospital of New Normal.' She continued. 'New Normal?' I asked. 'Replacing York in New York. First it was New Crazy. Then people realised the New Crazy was the New Normal. The tsunami wiped out three quarters of what was once New York.' 'Some tsunami.' I muttered.

Part 2

For three days I helped out in the 'hospital'. Nine days since the coming of New Normal. Six of them I spent passed out. I never changed out of them clothes, there was nothing to change into. For dinner every last forty nine of the occupants of the hospital had lime dilute and some very stale sandwiches. It wasn't much, but it bet soggy chips. Astrid worked an all night shift and took half the day off. I worked when Astrid didn't. Kids came in with scrapes and bruises but they were very young so it was understandable. But then fully grown adults came in. That was rediculous. Solo came in and out as he pleased. But he brought food and water and dilute. Breakfast and lunch, that's all we got. On a good day. Then one day, he came in. We never got his name. Not time. He stumbled in, and collapsed. He eventually went unconscious. Then, day by day, he was breathing, but his lips turned blue, then purple. Then his eye hair was tipped with ice. Then, his whole hair was white. Then ice grew. Around his hands, up his wrist, to his elbow, on his chest and up to his head. A thin layer of ice. Then, after the eight day, his pulse stopped. Then four hours later, another girl stumbled in as if on Que. and lay on a mattress an had the same symptoms. My chest hurt, and it bled terribly. I took pain killers every three hours and it helped. For a while. Not long enough. A little kid, Crow, his nickname was, banged his head in the tsunami and got amnesia. He didn't remember anything. People named him Crow because of his black eyes, pale skin and sleek black hair. He looked around eight or nine, he couldn't remember. He seemed to halve no memory of anything before New Normal. A wall of debris surrounded Manhattan, trapping us inside. People have tried pouring oil and setting fire. They even tried an abandoned digger. Nothing. It was a perfect rectangle, with warehouses and the dock next to the sea. All the boats are gone, so now one could sail around the wall and no one swam. One attempted but he got frostbite. In his head. So he died. Droned first. Then died. Astrid walked over and tapped my back. 'Want to go for a walk?' She asked. 'Sure,' I replied. We left the warehouse and walked over to the wall of debris, it was almost directly next to the warehouse. The cold was mental, so I zipped up my dark blue cardigan. 'The yeti,' she began, the yeti was the name they gave the man who froze from the inside out, 'he's got a pulse. In his wrist. Me and Solo. We found it. But he's not breathing. I looked it up; you shouldn't have a pulse if your dead. It's weird.' That was shocking. 'Maybe he-' A chasing noise came from the opposite side of the barrier. They were digging us out.

Part 3

The debris came away almost elegantly and after a while I could see a mans face. 'Hey!' The face called, 'My names Zack! Can you hear me?' 'No, Zack, we can't.' I said sarcastically. My voice sounded dry and far away. Astrid gave me a poisonous look and said, 'How bad is it?' 'Bad; the empire, Statue of Liberty and the schools gone. We're called the Scorpions.' 'Pardon?' 'The Scorpions. We are the survivor Scorpions.' I looked at Astrid with a doubtful look. Is he crazy? I mouthed. Aren't we all? She mouthed back. I looked at Zack. He was grinning ear to ear, looking at me, then Astrid, then me, then Astrid. Yup, definitely crazy. 'How did you break the barrier?' 'Men. Shovels. Diggers.' Then Zack fell to the left. Then a girl with blue eyes who looked my age with long black hair framing her face appeared. 'You coming or what?' She asked. 'We need to take care of the hospital.' Astrid said. The girl climbed through the small hole of debris and stood up in front of me. 'The names Claire.' She said and she took my hand and shook. She was as skinny as anything, and she wore a purple jumper with black trousers. No shoes. No socks. 'Wish I was as skinny as her,' Zack's face suddenly appeared in the hole. 'Well, dig more, people want to break out of this prison.' Claire inputted. 'Whats your name?' Claire smiled. 'Noah,' I replied. 'Nice. Got any food?' She looked around at Astrid. 'Sure,' Astrid said and led her towards the 'hospital'. 'Hi.' Zack said suddenly. 'He hit his head. Brain damage. We thought it was amnesia.' A voice came from behind Zack's head. Zack turned around and my best friend, Noel, head filled the hole. 'What up, man?' He asked.

Part 4

Noel wasn't exactly a 'handyman' when it came to hospital work. Claire was good with kids and Astrid soon found out Zack got it hit on the side of the head by a brick. More people called 'Scorpions' arrived. Some people brought in dead people and asked us to do everything we could. We could do nothing. I was counting the sun sets and eventually came to a conclusion that we had been in New Normal fourteen days. Fourteen days of Hell.

I was putting a band aid (in which we are on a very short supply) on a little boy when Astrid came over and said, "I need to check something at The Empire. I was checking with Noel and he said there's a good bit left. Can you come with me? Solo got more people to look after the hospital so do you wanna come with?' I considered this for a moment. I hadn't seen the sun in ten days. 'Ok.' 'Noel and Claire are coming.' 'Sure.' In all honesty, I felt a bit awkward. "Don't play around the barrier of debris again." I said to the kid. The child nodded in agreement and set off. Astrid was gesturing me over to the door of the warehouse.

We reached the forced hole made bigger by Zack and his Scorpions. Astrid walked ahead. She seemed to be in deep thought and trying to get her head around something. Noel was a little behind Astrid so I walked with Claire. "Wonder what's going through her head." Claire inputted. "She's defiantly thinking." I replied. "You have like her don't you?" I hadn't thought much about that stuff after the incident. "Maybe." I said. "Let me know when you get bored of chasing that Ice Princess." She smirked. Then Claire ran ahead. We all walked apart awkwardly. Astrid still taking the lead. Then, after a short while, they reached the Empire State Building. It was sliced diagonally, the opposite half on the ground. The top was sharper than a blade and if a helicopter flew onto it, it would be poked right through. At that exact moment, a plane with a heavy cargo flew above

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