Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Yeah." He agreed, moving away from the photos and back to the screen. Somehow he had something in his hand that he hoped had some answers and was reluctant to give up because it felt too special and advanced to discard yet out of his scope of juvenile understanding. Frustration started to settle in along with the worry that something had or would happen to him and Jordan. That something was planned and he had somehow been tampered with in a way that he tried not to think about because it threatened to touch on something that would make him panic.

He tried not to think of his family. He tried not to think that somehow he hadn't followed a rule or lesson and wandered off, and that he somehow got himself into this mess.

"I think we should leave. I don't want whoever brought us here to find us. We need to find a payphone or somehow to call for help. I don't know what they want to do with us." He didn't want to come off as a pansy, but he was worried and wanted to find a way back home.

Town

"Jesus wept," America breathed out and began scanning the other girl up and down. "Are you okay? Let's find us a ******** gun so we can shoot some dicks off. Or at least a phone so we can call your daddy and my uncle, who is a deputy so he can shoot some dicks off."

America glanced back at the house she'd woken up in. "I found a drawer full of fancy a** skinny phones over there, most had broken screens, some folks just don't know how to take care of their property," she tsked as she proceeded to railroad the other girl along, gazing about sharp eyed in case of perverts lurking in the bushes. "They all had dead batteries, though. Don't suppose there's a charger in that bag? Oh s**t we should grab some kitchen knives, why didn't I think of that?"

The redhead stopped abruptly on the sidewalk and turned to the other girl, "My name's America Jones and we're gonna get out of here safe and pretty and awesome, okay?"

"Yeah, we gotta find out where we are and why we're here," Jordan agreed. Had they been kidnapped somehow? "I don't think this phone can call out, do you think we're going to be able to find pay phones?" He moved to the window and peered out. "I don't recognize where we are at all."

The phone vibrated, and he looked at it again, seeing that an icon had lit up. He touched it and watched texts move down the screen, then cautiously answered one.

Basement Dorms

Terry's dream was just listless boredom. A tedious routine with spurts of entertainment in the form of television shows and cartoons. Chiding from his parents of finding his drive had become so repetitive he'd learned to tune it out. So when he woke to darkness and unfamiliar surroundings, disorientation hit him full in the face and had him rolling off the bed.

The floor was cold and clammy and he pushed himself up, his heart beating a mile a minute as he tried to regain his bearings. Then he heard it. A giggle. And thoughts of ghosts and haunting filled his head and had him nopeing right on out of the room.

"California," Jordan said. "San Luis Obispo." He looked at Mel, his brows furrowed in concern. "If they're kidnapping people that's like, really far away to be taking people from."

"I don't know." He touched a button and found a keyboard popping up on his screen. Experimentally, he typed a response to one of the texts on the screen. "Maybe?"

"Yeah, my family will worry about me if I'm not there." He swallowed against a lump in his throat. "I gotta get home. Mom doesn't need more to worry about."

He nodded to the comment about voices in his head. "I don't need anyone to think I'm crazy." He'd narrowly avoided medication last time he'd been sent to the shrinks. He didn't need voices in his head as well as shadows.

I'm not just a voice, the voice said, sounding hurt.

I'm sorry. But if they think I'm hearing things they might make me take pills ...

Dorms First Floor - Hallway

When it became apparent screaming wasn't going to do anything to help her (apart from releasing tension), Joy forced herself to beat back the panic. Okay, she wasn't tied up and there was this strange rectangle thing on the bed.

She tapped at it until something happened and when it lit up, she dropped int in surprise. But realizing she now had a light source, she used this really weird flashlight to maneuver the room until she found the door.

what... came a whisper in the back of her mind.

"SHET MULTO!" Joy shrieked and madly twisted the doorknob to get out. She didn't seem to care that she was only wearing an over-sized nightshirt that ended just above her knees as she ran out into the hallway.

She heard screaming but rather than head towards it, something told Joy to run away from it.

Get to higher ground? the hesitation in the voice should have been enough to get Joy to question it. But this place looked like it was straight out of those shake-rattle-and-roll movies (back when they weren't s**t) and Joy had zero intention of encountering whatever creepy ******** lurking here. She took the stairs two at a time, somehow managing to avoid slipping with her bare feet.

Shet, shet, shet, shet, All the while the rectangle thing vibrated as the screen lit up with notifications. Eventually, she figured out it was some sort of high-tech personal digital assistant. This did not make her feel any better.

If Jordan was from California, and he was from Maine, that meant they could be from anywhere on the map."We could be anywhere." He muttered as he tried to see if he could see anywhere that said where they were.

Looking around, he didn't see any mail that could tell him an address. Actually, overall, this was just a nice apartment. It had a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom for one (which had him even more worried as to why both of them were here among adults) and a living room.

Melvin then moved into the kitchen and went to open drawers to see if he could find something for a weapon in case whoever came to take them again.

"I wonder how long we've been gone." Traveling anywhere could be hours or days. He regretted thinking that out loud, but saying things just felt like the only way to think and process anything at the moment and kept his head clear for whoever was talking in it.