Cameron Roma
THE ROMA RESIDENCE - THE MORNING AFTER THE STORM
Cameron groans as she hears her phone alarm go off on her bedside table, without opening her eyes she blindly reaches over and stumbles with her phone until she hits the snooze button, the storm had kept her up for most of the night, so she was tired as fuck this morning. As she rolled over hoping to get an extra five minutes of sleep, she hears Killian yelling for their mom from his room. "Moooooooom, have you seen my pre-calculus textbook, I need to study for the final!" but no reply comes from their mother, which Cameron finds strange since her mom always replied to Killian. She stretches and rubs the sleep out of her eyes, realizing she wasn't going to be able to sleep in; She gets up and heads to the bathroom that's attached to her room to brush her teeth, and hair and get dressed in some blue jeans and a plain green tee shirt for the day, she adds a little bit of brown shadow to her lids, all while listening to some Avril Lavigne Skater Boi.
She finishes up in the bathroom by applying a little bit of Chapstick that has a pink tint and grabs her cellphone to shoot a quick text to Samantha, she wanted to make sure she made it home all right after they had parted ways at the game last night. Turns out the power outage had knocked out the cell towers so she couldn't check last night, but she was hoping it was fixed by this morning. She looks at the top of her screen. No service. She rolls her eyes as she realizes her cell is only at 30%, 'fucking damn it!' she thinks to herself, 'Stupid damn weather, always ruining shit, first the game, then that damn earthquake? Tremor? I don't know what it was, but it knocked my clock off the wall, and it broke, then the lights, and now this.' She slips her phone into her back pocket anyway just in case service comes back during the day.
Cameron is quickly pulled from her thoughts as she hears the loud crash of porcelain coming from the direction of the hallway, followed by a piercing scream that can only come from a child's lungs. She quickly walks to her door to find Killian in front of the little table that used to have a vase with flowers on it; their mother had put it at the end of the hallway to "make the place homier and give it a pop of color" Now the vase, which, was their mother's favorite, was laying shattered on the hardwood floor. This one was going to be difficult to explain away, as she focuses on Killian, she sees he has tears in his eyes, he knows their mom will be mad no matter how it broke, and it's not the first time he's broken something she really 'cares' about.
"Oh man, Cam, I didn't mean to break it, I was just running to moms' room, and I bumped into it, I tried to catch it from falling but I was too slow." He cries with a frown on his face, as he crouches down to start picking up the shards of porcelain. Cam rubs his head while crouching down to meet his eyes before stopping him from picking up the pieces, looking into his eyes, and reassuring him. "Hey, buddy, it's okay, I have told you that running around like the Flash will eventually lead to disaster, but don't hurt yourself, get up and go tell Mom, I'll finish cleaning this mess." He shakes his head in agreement and slowly gets up and moves around Cameron and the mess on the ground, heading towards the room that their parents stay in while she goes to grab a garbage bag from under the kitchen sink and a broom and dustpan to clean the mess on the floor.
As Cameron starts to clean up the mess Jasmine comes out of her room, assessing the scene in front of her before helping with the mess. "Mom's gonna be pissed, what are we telling her this time?" She asks, looking in the direction that Killian had gone. "Not sure yet, kinda strange she didn't immediately come running out of her room to see what happened as soon as it hit the ground," Cameron replies looking in the same direction she was, just to see Killian coming back with a perplexed look on his face. "Mom is not in her room, it doesn't even look like her bed has been slept in. I thought she said she would be home this morning, we were supposed to make pancakes for breakfast." Weird.
Jasmine and Cameron look at each other in confusion and stand up after cleaning the porcelain off the floor, Cameron hands the bag to Jasmine, and she takes it to the kitchen to dispose of it while Cameron goes to her mom's room to investigate. Just as Killian said, their moms' bed was not disturbed and there were no signs that she had even come home the previous night. She turns to Killian who had a worried look on his face; their mom is a woman of her word, if she said she was going to be there to do something, she would be. "Hey, don't worry squirt. I'm sure she just got asked to stay at the hospital, slept there, and will be back later. The power is out so we can't use the stove to make pancakes, but the milk is still good, and we have some sugary cereal!" She says, walking into the kitchen with him where Jasmine had already grabbed the milk, cereal, and three bowls. Bless her soul.
Killian looks at her with worry and replies hesitantly "Sure, but can we go to the hospital afterward, I wanna see Mom and bring her some breakfast since she probably hasn't had any." He pulls out a chair from under the island and jumps up on it, watching as Jasmine pours the cereal and milk into a bowl, handing it to Cameron and she hands it off to Killian with a smile. "Sure, thing squirt, we can pack up some food and bring it to her."
Jasmine and Cameron finish eating, then go to Cameron's room briefly so they can speak in private. "So, you think she was asked to stay?" Jasmine starts off as soon as they get to Cam's room. Cameron thinks for a second before responding to her sister. "I don't see any other reason for her to not come home last night. It's that or she just stayed because of the storm, but it finished early this morning, so if that was the case she'd be back by now. So, yes, I think she was asked to stay and since there's no power, she's unable to call or text. We'll find her at the hospital, tired and hungry. So, as soon as Killian is done eating, we'll head out." Jasmine nods her head, and the two girls file out of Cam's bedroom, Jasmine throwing her arm around her sister while agreeing with her older sister. "Okay, if you say so and believe it, then I will too. Let's go!"
Once Killian has finished eating Cameron instructs him to get dressed and they all head outside into the beautifully warm June day, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the world looked rested and at peace which was a stark contrast to the wild events of the previous night. Cameron smiles and lifts her head to the sky to soak in the sunlight, Killian takes her hand and the three of them start to walk to the hospital, which is a ten-minute walk away from our house. As the three siblings walk to the hospital, they notice that the streets are silent, save for the birds singing, which they found to be odd, considering that school was almost over, and summer was right around the corner. Generally, there would be adults out shopping for BBQs and other summer novelties, but everything was dark and quiet. Jasmine narrows her eyes at the sun while looking around. "Where is everybody?" Cameron also looks around before looking at her sister and replying. "I was honestly thinking the same thing. Sure, there's no power, but we've had outages town-wide outages before, and life just kept on going. Has no one thought to turn on the backup generators... I wonder what it's like at the hospital." The kids continue their walk to the hospital in silent contemplation.
The kids turn down the last street that leads to the hospital and it starts to come into view, it seemed to be just as dark as the other stores and houses in town, no backup generator had been switched on, and with it being a hospital, it has one of its own and it not being on was giving the kids anxiety, Cameron looks towards Jasmine who also had a worried look on her face. The kids saunter up to the doors and walk into the front reception of the hospital. It's dark and desolate, with not a soul in sight, the kids slowly walk one by one in a single file line; Cameron in the front, Killian in the middle, and Jasmine following behind, they make our way to their mother's office and open the door, hoping to see her sitting at her desk or taking a quick nap on her couch, but when they walk in, it's as empty as the rest of the hospital.
Cameron walks over to her mother's desk to find her phone, laptop, and day planner all laying in their designated places. Jasmine also walks and presses the power button to start it up. "Looks like she never left the hospital," Jasmine turns on the laptop and turns it towards Cameron. "Huh, she left her laptop on, it's nearly dead," Cameron glances at the laptop and shrugs her shoulders before picking up the cell phone to find that it was completely dead. "So, maybe she's around somewhere?" Jasmine gives her sister a quizzical look. "I don't know Cam, no one is here, the power is still out, something weird is going on, I can feel it" Cameron grabs all her mother's belongings before taking Killian's hand and heading for the exit. "Let's just go back home, and wait for the power to come back on, then we can find a way to get a hold of Mom, we can even call Dad if we need to, but let's not panic just yet." As they get to the reception area, the lights finally come back on, and Cameron looks at Jasmine while stating the obvious. "Looks like someone finally fixed the power," Jasmine nods her head and they walk out of the doors and back into the June sun. "Yea, now we can call Dad, 'cause let's be honest, we're not getting a hold of Mom when we have her cell," she finished, pointing to the laptop bag that carried everything in it.
Cameron looks at the bag and considers Jasmine's words before speaking almost to herself. "True, what would cause Mom to just up and leave? Especially without coming home first to tell one of us... It's strange. I have my cell with me, it's almost dead, but you can use it to call Dad, provided the towers are working that is." Jasmine then carefully removes the phone from Cameron's pocket and checks to see if it has bars. She sighs in defeat before sliding the phone into her own pocket. "Nothing, maybe they're working on it now, and it will be up in a few hours, we can always try iMessage once we're home and in Wi-Fi," Cameron thinks for a second before agreeing with Jasmine, "Yea, maybe, let's try that since the power is on, I'm sure the Wi-Fi should be working," The tree kids continue to walk down the street, this time with all the lights in the shops and houses now on, but still not a single soul in sight.
The kids get home and Cameron drops off her mom's stuff in her room, knowing she would want them once she gets back home. Cameron then heads to the kitchen to chat with Jasmine to see if she was able to get a hold of their dad. "Hey, so is the Wi-Fi working," Cameron asks while turning on the coffee machine and grabbing two mugs. Jasmine takes a moment to herself before replying quietly. "Uhh, no, there's no Wi-Fi. There's nothing Cam, we have no way of contacting anyone" Cameron turned to look at Jasmine while putting her hands on the counter. "Okay, well, let's eat something, then we can go to Samantha's, I'm sure she'll have some method of communication," Jasmine nods her head as Cameron pours the two of them some coffee and they both stand there consumed in their thoughts. Neither of them knew how things were about to change.