Episode 2 - Losing The Plot

Writing Exercise: Collaborative Writing

Prompt : Imagine a character wakes up and is completely alone in the world. Describe their first day.

Key: Alice / Jade

Writing:

Rose leant against her window. It was cold, and damp with condensation. She lived in a simple apartment just off the centre of town and enjoyed people watching as a start to her day. Today, however, was odd. As there was no one outside. She checked her phone again to ensure that it was actually 7am and not 1am with a light fluke going on. But sure, enough it was 7:12 in the morning and she was yet to see anyone. By this point she should have seen her downstairs neighbour leave for work, and at least a half dozen cars, but so far, the only movement was a fox skulking across the road.

Like her the fox seemed unaware of what was happening, it kept its head down as it moved waiting for a noise or sign of humanity to startle it back into the shadows. But the longer Rose watched she realised it wasn’t going to come, there was nothing except the gentle breeze whistling low through the empty streets. She took a moment to gather her thoughts, it wasn’t the first time that an quiet moment had sent her imagination running to something as scary as an apocalypse, before taking out her phone to check if there was news. The news she found was worse than she’d expected, she’d been looking for bomb threats, or an airborne virus, something scary but manageable. Instead she found a news app that hadn’t updated since the night before, and a notification that her phone had no service at all.

She took a deep breath. A part of her knew that panicking right now would likely make things worse. She glanced outside again, somewhat hoping that the fox was still there and would provide some solidarity, however it had disappeared from view. Rose pulled away from her window and shrugged on an overcoat, not caring to change out of her pyjamas. She made her way out of her own flat and to her neighbours’ door. Here she paused before knocking. It takes a few minutes, but she finally knocks and waits clutching her apparently useless phone. And waits. It takes about 10 minutes of knocking and waiting before Rose realises that no one is going to answer her, and that maybe it was time to panic at least a little bit.

She needed a plan, that was her first thought once she’d run through every worst case scenario that her brain served her up. First things first she needed to find out if she was truly alone in this strange new world or if there was someone, anyone, else out there. She decided that the best course of action was to retreat to her apartment and with a mug of coffee in her hands she formulated a plan.

First, she needed food, in the worst case scenarios she’d imagined starvation would be the thing that killed her first. Death by starvation didn’t seem a particularly pleasant way to go. She reasoned there was enough bottled water around that even if the stuff from the taps stopped flowing it wasn’t her main concern. She wasn’t sure how the power grid worked so she had to assume that her heating and lighting were temporary and she’d have to prepare for those to fail as well. That’s where her focus on food came in, the shops at the moment would be fully stocked and fresh but over time, exacerbated by a potential blackout, anything fresh would rot and spoil.

Perhaps it was a silly idea but knowing that fresh food would likely soon be gone, Rose was determined to enjoy what she could find. Feeling a little mundane she found a paper pad and pencil to write a list of priorities. Starting with food, and while the fresh was tempting getting a stockpile of long lasting would also be a good idea. She dreaded the idea of actually leaving her building, though would be necessary to do sooner rather than later. To ensure that she could get provisions for herself, and to try and find answers to at least some of her questions. But the idea of what is actually outside scares her. There is no way for her to know if going out is actually safe, or if she is actually alone. All she can think of are the horror stories in her own head of what could go wrong. But eventually she forced herself to put down her pencil and stand from the table.

The street outside was as quiet as she remembered from looking out the window. The silence deafening in comparison to the usual bustle of activity she would expect. She stayed close to the buildings as she walked, something about the sturdiness of brick walls calming her nerves ever so slightly. The shop she was heading to wasn’t far enough for her to drive and the breaking the quiet with something as noisy as the petrol engine made her stomach curl inside her. As she moved reached the store, bright neon signs in the windows still vibrant she steeled herself for things to get worse once she headed inside. The door swung freely, and she let out a short sigh of relief that she didn’t have to break in. Somewhere deep in the store was the tinny metallic buzz she expected. Before she could take a step in however.

“Morning Rose, you heard about this internet outage yet?” Harry, the store manager she’d grown friendly with, called out.

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