CONTENT WARNING: Contains cursing

Day 2

As I sat in a corner, thinking, I turned to look at my surroundings… I have decided… I have to get out of here. I’m not going to die here. I don’t want to. I want to live. I am not going to wait here for my death to come, whether it’s from starvation or some weird volcano acid, I want to do something, not just wait. Even though the things that the strange man told me were horrible, I’d rather die because of my own stupidity, then just wait in a hole, terrified until something kills me. I pond for a bit. If I want to make it out alive, I need to be smart about this. I can’t go into it alone. I take note of the people surrounding me. There is 19 of us. There must be at least one that agrees with me.

I decided to look at them a bit more closely… So, three are still sleeping, then there is a group of five girls in that corner that seem to be crying and comforting each other, there’s two people who are blankly staring at a wall and two intimidating guys that seem to be guarding the door. There are three guys that are talking in hushed voices in the middle of the room and three seem to be sitting next to the guards, occasionally chatting with them. There have apparently been some people that had enough and wanted to do team suicide and throw themselves into the acid. Thankfully, other people stopped them and now there’s guards that guard the door and prevent anybody from walking out.

I walked around the room, studying everybody, and seeing how they were doing. I made sure to remember how each one of them was coping with everything that was happening. I then sat next to a brown-haired guy that was sitting a bit away from the middle group and seemed the least affected by the apparent outcome.

“Hi, I’m Obsidian.” I introduced myself. “Who are you?”

“Cade. Nice to meet you. Would have probably been nicer if the circumstances were different, but whatever. Things happen I guess.” He smiled and shook my hand.

“So? How are you dealing with death trap and stuff? I heard it was quite horrible what happened…”

“I’m good… It’s not like I was awake for it… I just woke up yesterday.” He spoke.

We continued to talk for a while more, and I found out that we actually have a lot in common, so we ended up talking a lot about video games, technology and our lives up till now.

“So… Actually, I’m going to try to get out of here… I don’t want to rot in a hole and die or wither away, you know what I mean?” I told him after a while.

“Woah, man, are you sure? I mean I don’t want to bum you out or anything, but that’s just crazy. There is no way you can make it across that lake. People have

died here man... It’s not safe. Four people have died already, do you really want to be the next? You think you can somehow make it even though so many people have tried and failed?!”

“Well, if you weren’t listening… we are going to die. No matter what we do, we have no chance of survival, unless the voice is just bluffing and trying to scare us. I really doubt the latter though, since everything it said until now has been the truth, and it has no reason to lie to us.” I reminded him. “We have two choices – either we sit here and die when the geysers erupt, or we try to make it out. I mean don’t you see? There is still hope. Plus not all of us have to go… It would probably be enough if only one or two made people it over the lake and got help. I’m sure that once we get the authorities involved, these guys will get arrested and everything will go back to normal. We just need to get help… And since it doesn’t seem like anybody else is going to try, I might as well just go…  But I can’t do it alone. So will you come with me?” I looked at him, pleading with my eyes. He sighed.

“look, I dunno man. This is stupid. It’s madness. I get what you’re trying to say, but its our lives that we are talking about. There is no redoing it, no trying again. Once you fall in it’s game over. Forever. It isn’t so simple-“

“Well then I guess we will just have to make it in first try…” I interrupted him and gave him a reassuring smile. “Dying is for losers anyway…”

“yeah, I guess so…” he smiled back at me. “well, I guess that there is no convincing you otherwise, is there? Well, I can’t leave an idiot like you by yourself now, can I?” he chuckled.

“Nope, no you can’t, that would be completely irresponsible of you.” I retorted back. We looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“So…? When should we leave? We have about two days and a half left… Do we wait and leave in the morning, or should we just say, ‘fuck it’ and go?” Cade asked in a while.

“I’m not really sure… It would be wiser to start in the morning, since nights can be dangerous… But on the other hand every second we waste, is a second closer to certain death. Maybe we sh-”

One of the girls came over and interrupted me. She started yelling.

 “ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?!?! You don’t get it, do you? WE ARE IN A DIRE SITUATION RIGHT HERE! So what, you are going to save your own asses, what about us?? Are you just going to live us here to die?!? And even if we do make it out of the lake? WHAT THEN? Do you even KNOW WHERE WE ARE? Come on, BE. REAL. If authorities would be nearby, they would have found us by now! We are on a fricking VOLCANO, in the middle of NOWHERE! Where will you even go? Just pick a random direction and LIVE IN THE WILDERNESS until you MAYBE stumble upon someone? Plus, what if it’s a trap and- and- “  

“Chill gurl- you don’t have to come if you feel that strongly about not going… It’s just a suggestion. WE don’t feel like dying and wasting our life in this hole, but YOU? You can do whatever you want. There is nobody stopping you… For all I care you can take a dip in the acid lake, at least you would be prettier that way” Cade had interrupted her.

“ugh, EXCUSE ME?!? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME??!? ARE YOUSERIOUS RIGHT NOW??!” The girl started yelling.

“SILENCE!” Everybody stopped dead in their tracks, as they looked over to one of the guards, who has now approached our little group. “This is no place to fight. We need to work together if we want to survive. I have been listening, and our little friend here has a point.” He looked my way. “We need to start doing something, we can’t just keep on doing nothing forever. We should gather a team, and try to make it out. We at least have a chance now…” He scanned over us, and checked if we agree. I nodded my head, and so did a few others. “Anybody who disagrees, can stay here by themselves if they wish so. Others, come with me and we shall have a meeting, to decide how and when.”

He turned around and sat on the ground next to the empty chest. I followed and sat next to him. Soon hushed voices could be heard among the people… A while later Cade joined as well, and the two guys, that were standing in the middle, followed suit. Another guy, that was previously standing next to the door joined as well.

Not a moment later another fight had occurred, this time among the five girls in the room. ”ARE YOU TWO SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? YOU WANT TO JOIN THEM? DO YOU WANT TO DIE??” The rude girl yelled at two others.

One of them stood up, and calmly said: “There is no need to scream, we can hear you perfectly well from here. Yes, Rebecca. We are serious, and we will join them, and you should consider it as well, if you have at least two brain cells in that head of yours. On second thought, actually no. Just stay here. You won’t be of any help anyway, and all you can do is annoy others and scream so whatever. Come on Stacey, lets go.”

Another girl got up and together they came over to us and sat down.

“Anybody else? No? Perfect. So...? Should we start now?” The guard looked at us. There was eight of us now.

……………………….……………………….……………………….…………………………………………….……………………….……………………….…....

In the meeting we talked about all the ideas we had, that would help us survive or get out of the lake. We also discussed what would await after we get out and shared some essential survival tips among each other. We decided to start in the morning, as it was a lot safer to be in the wilderness and it would also give us some more time to find shelter.

 After we have discussed everything for tomorrow, we found it would be smart to learn more about each other. “Name’s Damien. I am 25 and I’m a police officer.” The guard said. He had ginger hair and blue eyes. His hair was short and wavy and he also had a carefully trimmed beard.

A thin girl with black hair stood up. “Well, I’m Sophie and this is my best friend Rebecca. I am studying to become a high school math teacher and she is in an art school. We are both 19.” After she introduced herself and the light-brown haired girl beside her she sat back down.

There was a brief silence, so I decided to introduce myself. I copied Sophie, stood up and introduced myself. “Nice to meet you, my name is Obsidian. I’m a high school student and am studying to become a computer programmer. I’m 17.”

One of the guys that have yet to introduce themselves scoffed. “So what, now we’re going to babysit a bunch of kids or something? And a computer geek? Yeah right, very useful, no wonder you wanted to jump right in, do you think life is a fricking video game? You think you’re some sort of hero?”

A tall, blonde, muscular guy stood up, interrupting him, and pulled him back down to sit.

“That’s enough Kyle. He has just as much right to be here as you. Now stop acting like a spoiled brat and shut up” To everybody’s surprise, Kyle remained silent.

“Sorry guys, he’s just annoying sometimes. My name is Noah, and I’m a graphics designer. This asshole over here is my lil’ bro. He’s 23 and I’m 25.” He continued.

There was a brief pause in the introductions.

“Wassup, I’m Cade. I play video games for life n I’m like 17, so I guess me ‘n dis dude are the youngest ones here, huh” The brown haired boy said while patting my shoulder.

The last remaining guy stood up. He was of average height and had long dark red hair, that was tied in a ponytail. He had green eyes, like me and he seemed pretty cool. “Name’s Zack. I’m 18 and I guess I like football… I’m gonna try for professional if… you know… I don’t die…”

After the introductions were over, we decided to go to rest, since it has already gotten dark outside and we want to leave with the first glimpse of daylight.

I lay on the ground, thinking. I couldn’t sleep. It was a lot to take in. All of this information at the same time. Today was a long day. And tomorrow is going to be even longer. I kept thinking over all the things that happened today and I didn’t even notice when the darkness embraced me. It was so quiet… so peaceful...

To be continued…