“Hurry up, time’s wasting.” Peter growled. Brian rolled his eyes as the old man stalked towards the truck, practically throwing himself into the passenger seat. He was just glad he wasn’t the one driving, let someone else sit next to the asshole. Jeremy gave him an exasperated but knowing look as he climbed into the truck bed, shoving a small duffel bag full of things they had gathered in front of him.

Yasmina got into the driver’s seat as Brian joined Jeremy, and soon the truck was rolling once more. Brian naturally found his place on the left side of the truck bed, double checking the shotgun to make sure the safety was still on. It wouldn’t do to hit a bump in the road and have his finger slip down onto the trigger, it would be a good way to get someone killed. He hadn’t spent all that energy and time saving lives just to take one by accident. Even if he begrudgingly wished that Peter hadn’t been one of the people still left. For a team leader, he certainly didn’t seem to live up to the qualifications, and from what he’d overheard during the leader’s council meeting, he was quite sure that Jeremy and the other team leaders felt the same.

Whatever his hangup, a time of crisis was no time to go around being a dick to everyone. Communication and collaboration would be the key to getting out of this mess, and Peter’s words and actions certainly didn’t help in that regard.

Brian looked over the cabin of the truck as they turned onto the road once more, the wall of clouds soon appearing around the bend as they drove. Within just a minute or two, the truck slowed to a halt a few dozen feet from the barrier, and Brian hopped out of the truck, quickly scanning the woods all around them. For the moment, the bear problem seemed to have been dealt with, but even so, there was no telling whether or not they would come back. If they did, they couldn’t be caught by surprise, else the same strategy would crumble and fall with the loss of the shotguns in their hands.

“Looks like just a thick wall of fog to me.” Peter groused as he stepped out of the truck.

“Like I said, not being able to see where we’re going in it is the main problem. But even then, with everything else around it, I don’t think even going into it is safe. Hold on a moment.” Jeremy said. Opening the duffel bag, Jeremy fished out a bandana. He walked over to the side of the road, and Brian watched as he found a long branch, dragging it back over to the truck and tying the bandana to one end.

“What good is that?” Peter growled.

“We tried throwing rocks into the clouds but didn’t hear anything back. I’m testing how far into the clouds it takes before the sounds cut out. Should show how far into the barrier we can go before it isn’t safe, for whatever reason.” Jeremy replied. Peter crossed his arms, a thick sneer on his face underneath his whiskers.

“What’s wrong with just sticking your hand into it, eh?” Brian rolled his eyes.

“Go on ahead then, you do it if you think it’s so safe.” Brian replied, and Peter glowered up at him. When he didn’t answer, Brian huffed in amusement. “Didn’t think so.”

“You listen here, you little-”

“Enough. Arguing with each other isn’t going to help anything.” Jeremy interrupted, dragging the tree limb over towards the cloud barrier. “Yas, gimme a hand with this?”

Jeremy and Yasmina hoisted the long tree limb over their shoulders, like the lance of a knight on horseback. The red bandana on the end fluttered slightly as they pushed the tip into the cloudbank.

“All right, and down.” Jeremy dropped the front end, and Brian watched as he stumbled slightly for a moment before the limb made audible contact with the pavement inside the mist. “That’s weird. Went down a lot further than I expected.”

“What’s up?” Brian asked.

“One second.” He backed up, and Brian’s eyebrows raised slightly as they looked at the end of the tree limb.

The bandana was gone, and the end of the branch looked as though someone had just sawed through it.

“Uh….Okay then. That’s not good.” Jeremy said, and Brian snorted. No shit. Was something cutting whatever went through it? First the power lines, now the branch?

“You just didn’t tie it on tight enough. Give that here.” Peter stalked forwards, practically snatching the slightly shortened limb from Jeremy and Yasmina. He looked at it for a moment, gauging it’s length by standing it up next to him. Brian estimated it was a good two feet taller than him, and Peter levered it straight into the cloud bank, pushing more than half of it into the mist. After a moment, he brought it back out and they all looked at it in confusion.

The limb had been cut again, now a good two feet shorter than Peter.

“Okay, that’s freaky. You didn’t even touch it to the ground that time.” Brian stated, and Peter looked over to him, his brows furrowed.

“So what’s going on? We didn’t hear anything happening, and you didn’t feel any vibrations either, right? I only felt it hit the pavement.” Yasmina said, and Peter nodded.

“No vibrations. It just suddenly became lighter as I swung it through.” He observed, touching a finger to the end of the branch. “No heat either, or any sawdust.”

“How far did it go in before it started feeling lighter?” Jeremy asked.

“Maybe about a foot or so? Not far in at all.” Peter replied. He dropped the shortened branch to the pavement, looking back into the clouds. Brian hoped that the old man had seen the error of his own thinking and was now on board with their own observations. It would make things a lot easier if he was willing to cooperate instead of acting belligerent.

“Whatever’s going on here, can we agree it’s not safe to go in there, then?” Yasmina asked.

“We’ve thrown rocks and tried branches, plus with the power lines down, it looks like anything that goes in there just...disappears.” Jeremy mused.

“Disappears? There’s got to be a better explanation than that. Clouds don’t just magically make shit disappear.” Peter argued, and Brian’s hopes were dashed once more.

“Yes, Peter, a wall of clouds doesn't make shit disappear, and bears the size of elephants that smoke like a campfire don’t exist. Face it, Peter, nothing about this situation is normal. Is it really too much of a stretch to believe that there’s a lot of unexplained shit going on that we have to work with anyways?” Brian retorted. Peter’s face went red.

“You expect me to just roll over and believe it’s magic or some shit? You’ve got a lot of nerve, boy! There is no magic, no ‘unexplained shit’ that we can’t figure out!” Peter shouted, and Brian rolled his eyes.

“Yet you’ve just seen something you can’t explain. If you can, please enlighten the rest of us, we’d really like to know what’s going on, and if you’re holding out on us, that just means we’re not getting help sooner.” Brian replied glibly. Peter’s face went even more red, if that was even possible, and Brian wondered if the blood vessels bulging on his forehead were going to rupture.

“Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere, we should head back and-” Peter whirled around, interrupting Jeremy as he tried to placate him.

“And you! Your ‘theories’ and ‘facts’ are all bogus! Just because you can’t hear what’s past it doesn’t mean it’s disappearing or some shit. You’re all just wasting time here, instead of doing your duty and going to go. Get. Help.” Peter roared., pushing his finger into Jeremy’s face.

Brian’s heartbeat spiked, seeing Jeremy’s face fall slightly. They had all done their best in a bad situation, and this belligerent old fucker just comes up and blames them for everything wrong going on? Someone should just get rid of him already.

“If you’re so sure it’s safe, then go ahead. You’re so ready to prove us wrong, there’s a really good way to do that.” Brian motioned towards the cloud wall, and Peter whirled towards him.

“Fuck you, boy, just watch me!” Peter screamed, and Brian watched in disbelief as he stalked towards the barrier. A numb sense of confusion dropped over him as he glanced back at Jeremy and Yasmina, who both looked just as dumbstruck as he did.

“Peter, wait!” Jeremy shouted, the first to realize what was about to happen and make a move. He ran after Peter, but Brian realized after just a few seconds that he wouldn’t catch up in time. Time seemed to move in slow motion as he watched Peter approach the cloud barrier.

“Stay out of my way, boy! I’m going to do what you’re all too chicken-shit to do yourself! I won’t let no fucking fog bank-” Peter’s voice dissapeared just a second after he plunged intot he cloud bank, Jeremy just a foot behind him as he screeched to a halt.

None of them spoke for a moment, all of them staring at the swirling clouds in front of them.

“Peter? Peter, if you can hear me, say something!” Yasmina shouted, coming up alongside Jeremy, his hand still outstretched as though to yank Peter back out through the mist. They all waited for a few moments in silence, Brian desperately hoping that the old man would burst back through the mist any moment.

“The fuck was that, Brian?” Jeremy asked, turning towards him, his eyes furious. Brian looked back at him.

“Seriously? How was I supposed to know he’d actually do it?” Brian asked.

“You just had to egg him on, didn’t you though?”Jeremy fumed, until Yasmina put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not his fault, Jay. He wasn’t going to listen to reason, and honestly, I’m surprised it took him that long to try something stupid.” Yasmina sighed.

“Fine, fine. Just...don’t go making that a habit, alright? Tensions are high enough already, we don’t need more arguments, especially now.” Jeremy sighed, looking back at the cloud wall.

“So that’s it, then? We’re trapped here.” Brian said.

“Looks like it. We need to figure out how to keep anyone else from trying that, I’m sure once we tell the camp what’s going on, more people are going to try just walking out of here.” Jeremy replied.

“Tell the camp? Are you sure that’s a good idea? There’s going to be a lot of panic.” Brian replied.

“We can’t hide it from them. They’re going to start asking questions as soon as we get back without help, and it won’t be long before someone else notices the cloud barrier. Soon as someone goes to the main field and looks at the lake it’ll be obvious.” Yasmina said.

“You really think more people are going to be stupid enough to try to walk through it?”

“They’re going to be desperate. Like it or not, they’re going to try to get back to normal, and even if we tell them what we’ve seen, there’s going to be some of them that don’t understand, or just plain don’t believe us.” Jeremy continued.

“So what, do we barricade the roads? They’ll just go into the woods instead. Not to mention someone might try using a boat, heck they might just start swimming and hope for the best. We can’t patrol the whole perimeter, not with the number of people left.” Brian argued.

“We’ll have to figure that out later. First things first, we need to let the other leaders know what’s going on and figure out what to do from there. Like it or not, we’re stuck here, and there’s a lot to figure out in the meantime to keep everyone calm and working together while we try to figure out how to fix this.” Yasmina replied.

“Not sure how you fix a magical cloud barrier that disappears anything that goes into it.” Brian grumbled.

“We’ll figure something out. Let’s head back and get the team leaders back together. Probably over in one of the other meeting halls, this could take a while and I’d rather not have someone wander upstairs and listen in.” Jeremy said, grabbing the half-gone branch from the ground and climbing into the truck..

The ride back to the meeting halls was a quiet one as Brian turned over what just happened in his head. Much as he disliked the man, watching Peter walk into the mist and disappear had shocked him. A nagging sense of guilt burrowed it’s way into his head for even suggesting such a thing, even in jest. Still, there was no way he could have foreseen the man actually following through with it, especially after seeing all the evidence of how bad an idea it was laid out in front of him. Much as he hated to admit it, there was a small sense of relief at not having to deal with him anymore.

The truck slowed to a halt outside Andromeda, and Doug opened the door as they approached. His gaze wandered over them, dropping slightly.

“Where’s Peter?” He asked. Jeremy sighed.

“He...Well, he tried to walk through it. He disappeared.” Jeremy stated, and Doug’s face went pale.

“Stubborn old man. Should have known he’d do something so stupid.” Doug muttered.

“When the other team leaders get back, can you ask them to come over to Medusa? We need to have a meeting, and I’d rather not get interrupted.” Jeremy asked. Doug nodded.

“Sure thing. Allison’s group left not long after you, and you just missed Katsuki and his group heading to the dining hall. It might be awhile before they get back.” Doug replied.

“That’s fine. Everyone doing all right in there?” Yasmina asked.

“For the most part. We’ve had a few small groups go to the shower facilities up north to use the bathrooms there, but we’ve been keeping close track of whose coming and going. Will and Fred have been switching off who goes with them.” Doug reported.

“Good job. We’ll be over in Medusa if you need us.” Jeremy said, and Doug waved them off as they turned towards the other meeting hall.

“We’re going to need to figure out some long-term plans.” Yasmina started, but Jeremy shook his head.

“I’d rather wait till everyone’s here. If we start going off making plans by ourselves, the others might not think of something we need if we just tell them the plans. Better to collaborate from the start.”

“That could be a while, we should get a head start at least.” Jeremy thought for a moment.

“We could start making lists of things to consider. At least figure out what we need to cover before they get here.” He replied.

“That works. We’ve got the blackboards, we can make a meeting agenda.” Yasmina continued.

“Sounds like a plan.” Jeremy cracked a small grin as they entered the dark meeting hall. Brian flicked on the lights as they headed over to the front of the room, Yasmina already picking up a piece of chalk.

“Power is going to be an issue soon, we need to find out how much longer the generators will keep running, and if there’s any way to keep them running longer.”

“Camp safety is going to be a big one, we’ll need to figure out how to keep calm and order, as well as make sure no one wanders off into the barrier.”

“Food supplies are limited in a closed environment. We’re lucky yesterday was a delivery day, but even with fewer mouths to feed, we’ll need to figure out how to ration what we have and what we can do to get more.”

Jeremy and Yasmina bounced topics off of each other as they both started writing on the chalkboard. Brian sat himself down in a chair by the door, setting the shotgun down and unloading it before leaning it against the wall and peering out the window. Much as he’d like to contribute, they seemed to have a good handle on it, and knew more about the camp and the back end of things than he did. At least he felt comfortable leaving it to them, knowing that they were taking the situation seriously. He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if someone at least halfway competent hadn’t stepped up to lead.

Brian laughed to himself. A lack of leadership, in a camp that specifically was formed to teach leadership skills. It was almost too ironic. With more than half of the staff either dead, missing, or off campus at the time the barrier went up, there really was a lack of leadership among the survivors. And now with Peter having been an idiot, there were only four team leaders left amongst the whole staff. Brian just hoped his uncle would wake up soon. In his role as Operations Director, he oversaw maintenance, food service and the health center, and that experience was going to be more crucial than ever in this kind of situation. He’d probably have to delegate a lot of the work due to his injuries, but at least they’d have his knowledge of the back-end of camp operations to rely on.

Sitting at the window had his eyes growing heavy from inactivity, especially after only having a few hours sleep the previous night. He hoped that the rest of his cabin mates were doing all right. Even Zeke, pain in the ass that he was, he’d done well and followed his lead without question, which he appreciated a lot after what happened yesterday afternoon. Nothing quite like mortal peril to overcome interpersonal arguments.

His thoughts drifted for quite a while before movement caught his attention, and he opened the door for the duo coming in. Arnold looked like he was practically carrying Allison, and Brian quickly moved to help. It took them only a minute to get to one of the desk chairs near the blackboard, and Allison collapsed into it, curling into herself, looking absolutely shattered. Brian looked at Arnold, a sad, pitying look on his face as the craft shop team leader looked down at her.

“Is she all right?” Brian asked. Arnold shook his head slightly.

“Can you watch her for a bit? I’m going to go grab...well, something to clean us up a bit.” Brian looked down, suddenly noticing the blood covering Allison’s hands, streaked across various parts of her body. Some of it was obviously a lot older, but the blood on her hands and arms looked much fresher.

“Sure thing.” Arnold turned and walked back out, and Brian sat down near Allison. The head lifeguard was completely silent, and Brian wasn’t even sure she was breathing, the only sign of life being her dull, lifeless eyes slowly roving over the ever-growing list on the blackboard. Yasmina stopped when she noticed Allison’s presence, but Brian shook his head and shrugged at her questioning glance. She had a small, whispered conversation with Jeremy before they continued working.

Arnold returned before too long, looking a bit fresher and clean of the spatters of blood that had previously adorned him. He brought with him a damp towel in his hands, one corner of it already stained red. He worked silently to clean the fresher blood off of Allison’s hands, and she slowly came to life as she took it from him and started to scrub off the much older, dried blood streaked across her face and arms. Brian looked at the dried bear’s blood on himself before shrugging and heading over to his chair by the window. It had been sticky before, but it seemed to be flaking off by itself just fine, and if he needed to take a shower later, so be it.

It took quite a bit longer for Katsuki and his group of volunteers to reappear, surrounding a golf cart loaded up with boxes and carrying metal serving trays. Brian watched as Doug pulled Katsuki aside before he got inside, and they both headed towards Medusa as the rest of the group began unloading their haul. Katsuki nodded at him as he opened the door and stepped inside, and Brian took a moment to consider before he locked the door behind him. No point in sitting by the door by himself, and it was the easiest way to make sure no one would interrupt without notice.

Brian followed Katsuki to the front of the room, sitting next to him in the front row of desk chairs. Katsuki eyed him curiously for a moment, but he sat down anyway without comment. Brian was just glad he didn’t object to his being part of the conversation, although he supposed that the punishment for his argument with Zeke was pretty far from being on his list of priorities at the moment.

“All right, we’re all here.” Arnold immediately looked around the room, a quizzical look on his face.

“Where’s Peter?” He asked, echoing Doug earlier. Jeremy frowned.

“Well, we’ll get to that in a minute. I guess we’ll update you on our findings first. We did a quick test to confirm what the cloud wall does, and we got our answer when we tried pushing this branch into it.” Jeremy picked up the half-missing tree limb and showed them the end.

“Uh, I don’t get it. What’s interesting about that?” Arnold asked.

“Well, until we stuck this branch into the barrier, it was about twice as long. It was cut instantaneously, with no noise, vibrations or warning. So we talked about what that meant for a minute, until…” Yasmina trailed off.

“Peter decided he wasn’t going to wait for us to figure out what was going on, and went into the barrier himself.” Jeremy finished. There was a lengthy silence before Katsuki spoke.

“So, he’s missing as well?” He asked, and Jeremy nodded.

“As soon as he walked through, his voice cut out. Given that nothing’s come through the other way, we just don’t know what’s going on. Either way, it’s not safe to try to go through the barrier since we can’t tell what’s happening when you try to go through.” Jeremy continued.

“So we really are trapped here.” Allison’s voice rasped as she finally looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot, and Brian could still see the remainder of tear streaks cutting through the dirt on her cheeks.

“Much as I hate to say it, at the moment, yes. We need to come up with some long-term plans for what to do now, until we can figure out what’s going on. Allison, how did finding Owen and Madison go?” Yasmina asked, and Allison crumpled back into herself.

“We found both of them, but Owen’s dead, and Madison is...unresponsive.” Arnold explained.

“What do you mean by that?” Jeremy asked.

“We think she’s traumatized. Owen was….Owen was in a really bad way. We think he defended her from one of the bears and died of his injuries, and it looks like Madison was trying to save him right up to the end. There was...Well, we’ve blocked off the room we found them at in Operations until we can figure out what to do to clean it up.” Arnold continued, his face pale.

“That bad, huh.” Brian commented, and Arnold nodded.

“Okay, so we’re down our professional emergency team. Allison, are your lifeguards up to continuing to help the injured? We don’t really have anyone else unless you guys train them up.” Jeremy asked.

“We’ll need more people, but I...I don’t know how much more we’re going to be able to do for some of them. Cuts and broken bones are one thing, but...There’s going to be more dead by the end of the day, and we don’t have anything we can do to help them.” Allison whispered.

“You’re sure about that?” Yasmina asked, and Allison shuddered as she nodded.

“We have no way of knowing about internal bleeding, or who to prioritize for care. We’re just not...We’re not professionals, we’ll do what we can, but…” Allison trailed off.

“Okay. We’ll get you some help, but we’re going to be stretched thin as it is. We’ve got a lot of jobs that will need to be done to keep everyone safe and healthy.” Jeremy said.

“What do you mean by that?” Arnold asked. Jeremy motioned towards the blackboard, which was covered in his and Yasmina’s writing.

“Given that we’re stuck here until someone notices that we’re missing and comes to find us, there’s a lot of things we need to figure out, and pretty much everyone is going to have to pull their own weight, campers especially. Just to start with, at some point we’re going to run out of power when the generators run out of fuel, so we need to figure out how much longer they will last.” Jeremy replied.

“More importantly, we have a limited amount of food on property. We’ll need to figure out how to ration our supplies for as long as possible, and come up with how to make or find more in the meantime.” Yasmina continued.

“Safety’s going to be a priority as well. Hopefully more of those things aren’t going to appear anytime soon, else we’re going to have a much bigger issue on our hands.” Brian added.

“Sorry to be that person, but on that topic, are we going to talk about the fact that we have a bunch of kids walking around with weapons? I get the need during the attack, but shouldn’t they be turned over to the adults now?” Arnold asked. Brian bristled as he turned in his seat to glare at him.

“My ‘kids,’ as you so eloquently put it, saved all your asses last night. Without us going to get the guns, those bears would have killed a ton more people, possibly the whole camp.” Brian growled, and Katuski held up his hand.

“No one’s saying you didn’t, and we’re all grateful for your quick thinking. But at the moment, with the danger passed, having teenagers with guns might turn out to be more of a safety issue than the bears. It’s only going to be a matter of time before tensions between the campers fray, and you of all people should know what might come of that.” Katsuki gave him a pointed stare, and Brian felt his anger rise. He didn’t know what he was talking about, he hadn’t been out there fighting off those creatures.

“Look, while I agree with the spirit of your argument, at the moment, there’s not much use in trying to take them away. They've proven themselves to be good with them, and honestly. We should probably have some people keeping watch around the camp for anything that might happen. We still don’t know if there’s more threats out there just waiting to attack, and having some people armed and ready is a good thing, in my opinion. Brian and his cabin group have been nothing but attentive and organized since we met up with them, and I don’t see why that can’t continue.” Jeremy argued, and Brian felt a bit of relief at his words.

“My apologies, Jeremy, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree on that point. Brian’s actions within his own cabin group yesterday led to an altercation that Xavier and Mike had to step in on, and until that problem and the issues behind it are resolved, Brian’s anger issues are going to be a liability. We can’t have someone with a history of violence towards his fellow campers have access to deadly weapons unsupervised.” Katsuki replied. Jeremy turned to him, and Brian felt the weight of his gaze fall on him.

“Is this true? I didn’t hear anything about this.” Jeremy asked.

“I’m sure it would have come up at some point, but with the campfire last night, Mike didn’t have the time for his usual team leader update before bed. He was probably going to bring it up in the team leader meeting during breakfast this morning, but…” Katsuki shrugged, and Jeremy sighed.

“What kind of altercation was this?” Jeremy asked.

“Zeke and I got into an argument after he made racist comments towards another camper. I only laid hands on him to get him to stop, I wasn’t going to hit him or anything. Uncle Xavier just came at the wrong time and got the wrong impression.” Brian replied. Jeremy eyes him for a long moment before he let out an explosive sigh, rubbing at his forehead.

“Look, all I know is that Brian and his group saved a ton of lives last night, and without his quick thinking and willingness to put himself in harm's way, we wouldn’t be standing here. Brian, is the argument you had with Zeke likely to cause tensions between the two of you?” Jeremy asked.

“No, not on my end. He did what I asked him to last night without question, and without his help, I couldn’t have gotten the shotguns and killed the first one, let alone the one that almost got Allison and Finn before we met up with you. If he does start mouthing off again, I’ll just come find one of you, alright?” Brian replied. He hoped that would be enough to appease Katsuki. Not being able or allowed to continue taking part in defending the camp, after everything he had done? How else could he have proven himself better than that?

“Katsuki, is that good enough for you?” Jeremy asked. Katsuki sighed.

“The argument isn’t the issue. What I;m worried about is what happens the next time there’s an argument either of them feel like can only be solved by violence. With easy access to deadly weapons, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets the idea to use them as a sign of authority to solve an argument instead of words, even if it’s only a show of power. But as soon as that line is crossed, using them for their intended purpose isn’t that far of a leap.”

“You think I’d shoot someone for arguing with me? What kind of messed up thinking is that? I just spent hours defending the people of this camp from those beasts, why would I try to hurt any of them?” Brian argued, his heartbeat racing as his blood boiled in his veins, the accusation physically painful in his chest. “You’re way out of line there. There’s a huge difference between fighting off creatures trying to kill you and stupid arguments between kids!”

“In the heat of the moment, there’s no telling what might happen. Maybe you accidentally pull the trigger, or maybe someone else grabs one. I just don’t see anything good coming from underqualified, emotional teenagers having unrestricted access to firearms, especially in this powder-keg of a situation.” Katsuki replied. Brian seethed in his chair, wishing he could just make the man see reason. He was the only one who had seen the need and come up with a plan for securing the safety of the camp, and this was how he was repaid? With accusations of not being fit for what he had just proven he was good at?

“All right, we’re not getting anywhere with this. Let’s put it to a vote, team leaders only. All in favor of Katsuki’s side, hands.” Katsuki raised his hand, followed a moment later by Arnold. After a moment, Jeremy nodded.

“In favor of Brian?” Jeremy raised his hand, and all eyes turned to Allison as she frowned, her eyes glancing between the two of them.

“Allison?” Jeremy prodded. Allison rubbed at her face.

“I don’t know. You’re right, Brian, if it weren’t for you, Finn and I would probably be dead, plus a lot of others without the supplies we got. On the other hand, other than that, I don’t know much about you, and Katsuki makes some valid points.” Allison sighed, sinking into her chair. The group was silent for a minute as Allison closed her eyes. “I guess if there was someone supervising, I’d be fine with that. Like Jeremy said, we’re going to be stretched thin as it is. Either way, we’ll need some campers to be part of whatever we come up with to secure the camp. Might as well start with the ones who made the camp safe in the first place.”

“Okay, so who would be the supervisors?” Yasmina asked

“The gun range staff would be a start, did you manage to find them Allison?” Jeremy looked at Allison again as she shook her head.

“Sorry, but Curtis, Stuart and Blake are all dead. We found them at Madison’s cabin.” Allison replied. There was a moment of silence as everyone digested that, and Brian heard several sniffles from Allison as she rubbed at her face.

“We’ll table that decision for later then. In any case, does Allison’s suggestion of having them supervised by a staff member change either of your minds?” Jeremy asked, but Katsuki shook his head.

“GIven the size of the camp, we’re not going to have the numbers to be able to have them supervised all the time. We need people we can trust, not people who need to be babysat.” Katsuki argued.

“Arnold?”

“Sorry, I agree with Katuski.” He replied. Jeremy sighed.

“So we’re stuck on that for the moment. In that case, we should move onto another topic for now, since we’re not likely to get anywhere on that point anytime soon-”

A knocking sound at the door startled all of them, and Brian stood from his chair to go over to it. As he reached it and peered through the window, his heart stopped for a moment at seeing who was on the other side. Fumbling with the lock, he threw the door open.

“Uncle Xavier!” The older man grunted at him, his eyes still pained as he looked up from the chair he had been carried over in. Some of the lifeguard and boathouse stood around him, obviously having carried him over. Both of his broken legs were wrapped in a large number of sheets and sticks, the best that the lifeguard staff could do without casts. “You sure you’re feeling alright to be up and around?”

“Given the situation, just gonna have to make do. We gonna talk on the porch, or you gonna let me in, son?” His voice was obviously pained from his injuries, and he winced as Brian stepped aside to let them carry him inside. Brian closed the door behind them, following the group as Xavier was carried to the front of the room. Jeremy motioned for him to be put front and center.

“No, not there, off to the side, where I can see the board. You’ve got a lot of ideas on here, good. Good.” Xavier grumbled, sighing in relief as his chair was set on the floor. “Go on, get back to the kids who need you, I’ll be good here.” He shooed his retinue away, and they left quickly back outside.

“Xavier, good to see you awake. Are you feeling all right?” Yasmina asked.

“Nope, both my legs are broken, and been told I got a sprained wrist as well. They gave me as much painkillers as they felt safe with, but they haven’t kicked in yet. But here’s where I need to be right now, so here’s where I am. Jack and Doug filled me in on some of the details I missed so far, sounds like we’re stuck here for the moment. What’s been on the table so far?” Xavier asked.

“We were just talking about your nephew’s anger issues, and whether or not to let him and his cabin mates have the weapons they took from the gun ranges.” Katsuki said, and Xavier groaned.

“Starting right in on it, eh? From what I’ve heard, my nephew saved the camp from a ton of those beasties. But you’re right, I wouldn’t trust him to be in charge of the weapons either. He’s a good kid, but when his temper gets a hold of him...” Brian felt the situation slipping out of his fingers, and he scrambled for something, anything to say to keep control of it, but couldn’t think of anything. If it came out of his mouth, it was much less likely that Xavier would agree to it, whatever it was.

“Allison suggested adult supervision. Would you agree to that?” Jeremy suggested. Xavier hummed for a second, and Brian felt his harsh gaze on him. Brian met it head on.

“Depends on Brian and the rest of his group. You willing to put up with someone else calling the shots, son?” Xavier asked. Brian’s heart leaped, and he nodded.

“Like I said yesterday about the military, you know what I want to do in the future. If anything, this will be a good exercise in seeing what that’s like.” Brian said. And it’d hopefully show Xavier how serious he was about his decision, even if the older man didn’t agree with it. After a few more moments, Xavier nodded, turning back towards Jeremy.

“Agreed. I’ll supervise directly when I can, and appoint someone I trust to supervise when they’re out around camp. Brian’s a good kid, and follows directions well. Long as someone’s there to remind him to keep a lid on his temper, I don’t see any issue.” Xavier replied. Gratitude swelled through him at his uncle's words. Sure, Brian might not be entirely in control of the safety of the camp, but at least he’d be a part of enforcing it. And hopefully after enough time, he’d change their minds by showing them how good he was at it. His mind started to race as ideas for how to make the camp more defensible in the case of future attacks began bubbling up.

“Is that good enough for you?” Jeremy asked, but again Katsuki shook his head.

“It’s not just Brian, it’s all of the kids. Like I said, earlier, it only takes one argument between a couple of the kids for someone to react inappropriately. We need people we can trust.” Katuski replied, and Xavier snorted.

“If you want only people you can trust, you’re going to be searching for a long time, time we don’t have. If you’re that hung up on it, I’ll take charge of the security of the camp, and personally interview anyone who’s going to join me. But there’s gonna have to be some leeway, we can’t predict everything. Gotta give some trust to get some trust, you hear?” Xavier eyes him, and Katsuki sighed before he nodded. Brian let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. Xavier nodded at him, and Brian nodded back, hoping his uncle understood his thanks for vouching for him through the gesture.

“All right, let’s move on from that. Xavier, what kind of time are we looking at before the generators run out? They’ve been running since at least 1 A.M., and its...8 o’clock now.” Jeremy asked as he consulted his watch.

“On a full tank, which they were last I checked a few days ago, they can run for three days. That being said, we don’t need all of them running at the same time. Only really need power at the dining hall to keep the food cold, we don’t need power to most of the rest of the camp. We shut the other two down now, we can siphon the gas from those to the one hooked up to the dining hall, so we’ll have power there for a week. Maybe more, if we can siphon gas from the cars of the staff staying here, and from the rescue boats.” Xavier replied.

“What about the truck?” Brian asked.

“Maintenance trucks run on diesel, we’ve got some extra tanks stored away so we can refill the trucks, but that won’t do anything for the generators.” Xavier said.

“Katsuki, what did our food supply look like at the dining hall?” Katsuki shrugged.

“Sorry, but I’m not a cook, I can’t really estimate how long our stockpile will last for. I might have found someone who could though, she practically ran the kitchen from the moment we arrived. She got us all organized and got breakfast ready with minimal questions” Katsuki replied.

“Oh? Who is she?” Yasmina asked.

“Natalie Dhalmer, from Ursa Minor. She says she helps out at her family’s restaurant. She’s smart, and she’s definitely learned how to run a kitchen from what I saw.” Katsuki said.

“What about long-term? How are the crops in the nature center farm?”

“Passable, for the moment. We’d be able to extend our food supply with them, but that’s not going to last too long. The size of our farmland isn’t big enough to sustain our current population by itself.” Katsuki replied.

“What about fishing? Or hunting?” Arnold asked.

“We’d have to see if anyone knows where any nearby fishing spots are, if the fish aren’t stupid enough to corss the barrier. Hunting...well, that might be a bit tougher, especially if we’re saving the guns for defense. I doubt there’s too many good game animals within short range of the camp, plus I don’t know of anyone with that kind of experience.” Jeremy said. Brian shot upwards for a moment.

“I do. Zoe...well, I don’t know her last name. She’s from Draco though, we ran into her when, well, the argument happened. But before that, she said she's pretty experienced with bow-hunting. You might ask her if she’s got any ideas.” Brian interjected.

“I know who you’re talking about, I’ll talk to her later.” Katsuki said.

“How about fresh water? How long can we expect the plumbing around campus to work?” Yasmina asked.

“Water pumps come straight from the lake to the treatment plant under operations before it’s pumped around camp. Luckily, that’s all hooked up to the same generator as the dining hall, so we won’t need to worry about trying to re-wire anything. Long as that generator keeps going, we’ll still be able to get water around campus. Soon as that goes though, we’ll have to figure out how to filter straight from the lake, and sewage will be a problem too.” Xavier replied.

“Can you see if you can come up with anything for that before that happens? I’d rather we not have to scramble for solutions if we’re still trapped when that happens.” Jeremy said, and Xavier nodded.

“Sure thing, I’ll add that to my list. What else?” Xavier asked, and Jeremy looked back at the board before sighing, his shoulders visibly drooping.

“We need to figure out how to tell the camp what’s going on without sending them into a panic. If we lose control of a hundred plus kids, there’s no way the handful of us left will be able to keep them from causing all sorts of chaos. We need some way to keep order while we figure out how to get ourselves out of this situation.” Jeremy explained.

“Someone’s gotta know something’s up by now, all of the dining hall and maintenance staff should be here by now, plus most of Admin. If they didn’t make it here, they’re probably working on the same problem on the other side. Surely someone’s going to send a helicopter or something over the clouds.” Arnold replied.

“Sure, but we can’t rely on whatever they’re doing to get us out of this. We have no idea how we got into this situation or what caused it, so there’s no telling if the cause of it is in here with us, or out there. Either way, we can’t rely on people we can’t communicate with, so we need to act as though we’re the only ones who can get ourselves out of this until we’ve exhausted every option.” Jeremy said.

“And what are those options? To be frank, big walls of reality-bending clouds are a bit beyond my expertise.” Xavier rumbled.

“Honestly, I don’t know right now. We’re working on it.” Jeremy said, and Xavier huffed.

“Well, best we can ask for right now I guess. So, ideas for how to tell the camp?” He asked. There were a few moments of silence as everyone looked around the group.

“We should start with the staff first. Maybe don’t tell everyone at once. Keep the groups small so we can keep them calm easier.” Allison suggested, her voice still hoarse.

“Good start, what-” Another knocking sound came from the door, and Doug poked his head inside as they all turned to look his way.

“Sorry to interrupt, but unless I’m mistaken, none of you have had any breakfast yet. We brought some over for you while you talked, we good to come in?” Doug asked.

“Sure thing, thanks.” Jeremy waved them in, and Doug and a teenage girl wearing an oversized black chef’s coat walked in, each of them carrying a tray of food. It took Brian a moment to recognize Natalie’s face from the previous night, now that she wasn’t in the dark and crying for his help.

“Ah, perfect. Everyone, this is Natalie, she’s the one who took charge at the kitchen to organize the volunteers I brought to the dining hall.” Katsuki said, and Natalie looked startled as everyone looked at her.

“Uhm...hi?” Her voice came out as a squeak, and Brian laughed to himself.

“Thanks for your help, Natalie. Katsuki told us how much help you were in getting breakfast prepared. We really appreciate it.” Jermey said kindly, a genuine smile crossing his face. Natalie still looked as though she was ready to bolt out of the room at any moment.

“Uh, sure, yes. I, uh….Sorry, I’m....You’re welcome?” Natalie fumbled over her words, and Katsuki chuckled softly.

“This is really good, how long have you been working at your family’s restaurant?” Yasmina asked, and Natalie turned towards her.

“Uh...Four years? Since I started junior high. Dad tried to get me front of the house earlier, but...customers are hard…Better in the kitchen.” Natalie replied. Brian shorted, It was a good thing Zeke wasn’t here, or Brian would have had to slap some duct tape over his mouth before he made some misogynistic comment after that.

“Well, thank you very much Natalie-”

“Hey, Jeremy, a second? Katsuki, you too.” Yasmina asked, and Jeremy excused himself as Katsuki followed, a short whispered conversation taking place at the font of the room as Doug and Natalie came over to him. Brian smiled as he took his share of the food, suddenly ravenous as the smell of the slightly cooled pancakes were waved under his nose. He dug in with gusto as they moved towards Xavier, before heading back towards the exit.

“Natalie, can you stay here for a moment?” Jeremy called, and the pixie-haired girl froze, her eyes wide and panicked. “You’re not in trouble or anything, we just want to talk with you for a minute.” Natalie glanced towards Doug, who shrugged, and Natalie reluctantly made her way back towards the group.

“You starting with her then?” Xavier asked between bites.

“Might as well. We’ve got to start somewhere, and she’s proven to have a useful skill set. Better to start off on the right foot in my mind.” Jeremy replied.

“Uhm….Sorry, but start with what?” Natalie’s voice quivered as she stood in the aisle of the front row of desk chairs, and Jeremy waved her towards the closest one.

“You might want to sit down for this. We’ve got some bad news.” Jeremy replied. Natali went pale as she shuffled sideways into the chair, and Brian suddenly noticed her feet were bare as they twisted underneath her.

“You see, here’s the situation…” Yasmina began. Brian settled into his chair, putting his feet up on another chair as he continued eating.

This could take a while, he mused. Might as well be comfortable.