It's The End Of The World As We Know It

She was exhausted.

She was exhausted and heartsick. She and Owen had come here in an attempt to shut down the rift that had been torn open, but nothing that they had tried to do had worked. After weeks of working on this, they had managed to contain the energy expanding out from the rift, but hadn't been able to close it.

Which meant that the portals all over the world kept opening and people kept disappearing into them to be taken only God knows where.

The M.I.T campus was empty except for her and Owen and -- though she wouldn't admit it -- it was more than a little creepy.

What was almost worse than all of the people seeming to disappear off the planet was the fact that all of the electrical devices and telephones no longer worked -- and they had no way of getting in touch with the hub in Cardiff to find out about their friends. They had no way of knowing the fates of Jack, Tosh or Ianto.

When Owen dropped down on the couch next to her, she gave him a sad smile and shook her head, burying her face in her hands.

"All of those people... gone."

"It sucks," he said tiredly, mirthlessly giving her a smile of his own, resting a hand on her back. It was as reassuring as he could be, really. "I can't think of a single thing to explain it. Well, nothing beyond 'the universe hates us' but that's kind of my default attitude so it doesn't count."

Oh, help, Owen rambling. Not good.

She appreciated his attempt at comfort.

"Jack would say that it's not the universe's fault that the people messed with things they didn't know enough about." She sighed. "We can't leave the rift now," she said, sighing again. "We have to keep an eye on it -- at least until we can figure out if there's a way we can get back home or the rest of them can get out here so we can close the bloody thing."

Stuck in America. Lovely.

"Great," Owen said, clearly echoing her sentiment. "Just where I always wanted to live. Except, you know, not. And we're stuck here on the college campus, too, aren't we?" Because really, he didn't think trying to find somewhere off-campus to stay was a good idea, considering the rift's instability and potential for badness.

Gwen nodded tiredly. "Yeah. We probably should pretend to try to take care of this thing since it's kind of what we do."

"Yeah, we should." He sighed. "Except I don't know what to do about it. We've kinda reached our limits. If Tosh were here, it'd be different, but..."

"I know," Gwen sighed. "But right now... we're the only ones." And oh, did that hurt to actually say out loud.

"It's like some demented horror movie or something, minus the shite jumping out at us and attacking." So far, anyway.

"You realize that's going to happen now, right? Weevils and all kinds of things." Because, let's face it. That really was their luck sometimes.

"I actually wouldn't mind Weevils right now," Owen admitted. "Because Weevils we know how to deal with."

"Never thought we'd be wishing for Weevils to attack," Gwen agreed. "But, yeah, you're right. They're something we know how to handle. This whole destroying the world thing... not so much."

Millions upon millions of people lost, because of some kid's science experiment. The irony there was astounding.

"I could really use a drink right now." What? He was only saying what she was thinking! Not that it was something they could actually do at the moment. They had too much else to worry about.

Gwen nodded, bumping his shoulder with her own. "I'm sure we can find plenty of alcohol here. It is a college of sorts, after all." She ran her hand through her hair. "We can raid some of the rooms nearby for supplies and take over the rooms closest to here as our living quarters. This space will be our main office since it's where we have to keep this damned thing contained."

Look, planning things out tactically was what was keeping her from falling apart at the thought of everyone and everything they had lost.

"Do I get to loot people's personal items?" He might or might not have been kidding on that one.

She smiled faintly. "We'll need them more than those that are gone will. And besides, it'll be nice to have supplies on hand if any survivors turn up here."

"Plus some of the nicer things can be used for trade, if we find others or if they come to us," Owen reasoned.

Gwen had to admit that was a pretty sound idea. "Bartering will be more important than old money now. Money is going to be practically useless."

"So... scrounging up food sound like a plan right now?" He slid his fingers up Gwen's back to toy with the ends of her hair. "Then we'll get back to work. We'll be useless if we don't feed ourselves."

She nodded, leaning against him for a moment. "That sounds like a good plan." She squeezed his hand before they got to their feet.

The world was a mess right now, but she had to hope that they could create some normalcy for themselves.

And find other survivors.


[[OOC: And... the Apocalypse is a go. Feel free to start posting reactions to the chaos, or travel posts or arrival posts. Gwen and Owen have set up housing in M.I.T., but you don't have to have that as your characters' only choice for living arrangements.]]

With the power out, it meant the night sky was brilliant with stars. Isabel was still hesitant to get too far from the building they'd made their base, uncertain of who or what might be wandering in the darkness. But she'd spread a blanket on the grass in front of the building and was sprawled looking up in the sky, trying to pick out constellations.

She couldn't help but wonder if somewhere, Max and Michael were looking at the same sky.

Sarah Jane and "Mr. Smith" have taken over one of the rooms off the student lounge that's become one of the official/unofficial meeting places for the... compound? HQ? Group? Whatever you'd like to call it.

She's currently fiddling with a circuit board and a soldering iron. Periodically the soft sizzle can be heard of the hot metal burning off the flux accompanied by a faint acrid smell and a thin curl of smoke rising up past Sarah's intent face.

[ooc: Open

It was strange, but even in this screwed up world, Eden was starting to get a sense of order.

She thought she should probably be trying to get her life back, but since she didn't have the first clue of how to start that... Living as normally as possible right here seemed like the best plan.

So, come sunset, after who knew how many days in this city, she was huddled up in a fair number of layers on the roof of the YMCA with a small fire warming up a few cans of food salvaged from the mess in the kitchen.

Or, more ignoring the food and sitting on the fire escape looking out across the desolate landscape. There was really only so long you could stare at a tin of ravioli taking this length of time to warm through.

[[Open for any in the MFA/back bay group.]]

Mikaela needed something to do to keep her from going insane right now. She needed to keep busy or she was liable to start screaming.

She didn't know where Sam was -- or even if he was okay. She and Bumblebee didn't know what had happened between the Autobots and Decepticons. She didn't know how Lennox and his men were. She didn't even know if Mission City was still there.

She just was not having a good week or month or whatever.

That would be why she had gone to one of the abandoned apart complexes near the one their group had set up base in. Starting on the first floor, she was starting to methodically go through the rooms and packing up stuff they might need -- most importantly medical supplies, medicines, and anything else that looked like they could use. She was all about the preparation.

She kept finding odds and ends of tools, which she would pack and put in Bumblebee to keep track of. You never knew, and a good mechanic needed her tools.

"God, Trent and the others wouldn't believe this if they could see me know," she muttered as she continued her quest.



[[Open to anyone in the UMass area who would have come with her or followed her or just might come across Mikaela looting an apartment building.]]

Alistair was smiling a bit to himself as he began to till some ground with hand tools. They'd need to erect some barriers to protect anything they grew, but for now it was good just to get his hands dirty, to be useful.

The fact he was digging up a field for that rubbish sport 'baseball' just made it all that better to him.

[ooc: Open. The name, it called out to me.]

It had been about... It was some time after they'd arrived. For some reason Cadfael was uncertain how long they'd been there. There had been sleep between then and now at the very least.

How ever long it had been, it was high time to get an idea about what sort of condition this "Boston" place was in and if there was any chance of finding out... anything really.

There was a fair amount of ingeniously preserved food in the building, but he wasn't confident it would be sufficient. Cadfael didn't like not knowing when winter would come to this place or what it would be like. They either had to find a way out of here or find a source of food and drinkable water. Equipment for brewing wouldn't go amiss either. And that meant getting out and exploring.

Before he left on his trek he supposed he should observe the Office of the Hour... or at least anOffice of some Hour. Looking at the position of his shadow on the ground he made his best guess and opened his book of hours to Terce.

"Levavi oculos meos in montes unde veniet auxilium mihi
Auxilium meum a Domino qui fecit caelum et terram
Non det in commotionem pedem tuum neque dormitet qui custodit te
Ecce non dormitabit neque dormiet qui custodit Israel
Dominus custodit te Dominus protectio tua super manum dexteram tuam
Per diem sol non uret te neque luna per noctem
Dominus custodit te ab omni malo custodiat animam tuam Dominus
Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et exitum tuum ex hoc nunc et usque in saeculum."

[ooc: Open to any who want to boggle at the old guy chanting in Latin or go exploring.

Tony's raincoat kept his upper half mostly dry but his jeans were a soggy, muddy mess. He found the apartment building and figured it was his best shot at finding dry clothes and maybe a warm place to sleep.

A funny-smelling mold grew in places on the first and second floors, which seemed to have been hit hard by the flood. The third floor was still iffy, so Tony was on the fourth floor, trying doors. Wonder if there's an 'open locks' spell on the laptop?

[Open to any UMass people who may have come with him or happened to show up in the same place.]

There was only so much of the museum that Mitsuru could and wanted to wade through. Most of everything was destroyed anyway, and even if it wasn't, she doubted it would give her any more information about what was going on, or any that would help it.

Outside proved to be even more of a horrible mess. It was to be expected-- she was warned of it, and the museum should have indicated even more-- but it was hard to take in her surroundings without feeling shocked. What in the world was capable of causing such massive damage?

If the two people she had met before were as clueless as she was, Mitsuru didn't think anyone else she could meet would know the answers, either.

Before wanting to explore the area more, Mitsuru decided to check out that place Tara had mentioned that was close by... what was it, the YMCA? If it was just down the street like she said, it shouldn't be difficult to pinpoint.

After looking, not at all.

The sign, albeit as equally demolished as everything else, was easy to spot fallen over the front steps of the building. Thankfully, it wasn't too difficult to get around it-- right now she didn't exactly want to spend her time working to move large objects out of the way. The door, however, was jammed and didn't want to budge as she tried to push it open... A swift kick with her boots easily solved that one last problem.

And she was in. From what Mitsuru could tell so far, it didn't look too bad. Hopefully the two other girls, and those they met, would be able to find this place.

[open for those in the back bay area!]

One of the student lounges had been cleaned up and a table was set up with snacks. A couple of buckets filled with ice, sodas and beer were strategically placed around the room. After people had gathered, Captain Jack Harkness stood up. He held up his beer bottle. "Congratulations, everyone. I know it doesn't feel like we've accomplished much," he glanced out the window at the empty streets, "but we're still standing and this city's still standing and that's a hell of a lot in my book.

"Tonight, I want you to relax. We've been so busy we haven't had time to get to know each other. But we're going to be here for a while and we're going to be working closely together. Tomorrow, we start the long-term projects. We'll set up a medical center and turn this place into a livable habitat along with figuring out how to close the rift. Tonight, we have some fun and remember why we want to keep this world going." He tilted his beer bottle in a toast. "To us," he said. "And to the future."

[Open to the M.I.T. folks!]

Buffy knew that it was likely a futile gesture to patrol in the aftermath of the apocalypse, but it was something normal, so she was clinging to it like a lifeline. Half of Sunnydale was dead or missing and it wasn't completely unfathomable that some of them might turn up as creatures of the night.

What she wasn't expecting to find in the cemetery was a swirling vortex. Despite her best efforts, she found herself and the bag she was carrying sucked into said vortex.

"Oh, great. Just what I needed. A portal to hell. Like my life wasn't already hell on Earth," she grumbled as she landed on her ass.

She stood up, brushed herself off, picked up her bag and looked around. Wherever she was resembled a college campus. "Okay, so maybe not hell on Earth," she revised. "Guess it depends on if there are killer finals though."


[open to anyone in the UMass group who might be there already or who might get deposited there by the portal!]

Tara had been in her dorm room with Willow, desperately trying to find a spell that could stop all the weird weather in California and the rest of the world. Then the air had literally torn open and a powerful force had ripped her from Willow's arms. She lost consciousness at some point, and when she woke up, she found herself lying on concrete. Dazed, she stood, looking around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The road in front of her torn up and covered with rubble from collapsing buildings, but when she turned around, she found a building that looked relatively intact and museum-like. Hoping to find something that would tell her where she was, she headed towards it.

She tentatively walked up the steps and passed through the front doors and moved through the quiet, dark entrance hall. There was no one at the desk marked "Information Center," and the phone she found there didn't work. She moved further into the museum and turned left down a corridor, casting a spell to light her way.

The first exhibit she stumbled across was a history of shoes. She smiled a little, thinking Buffy would enjoy it. If, you know, the world wasn't ending outside.

[Game on! Open to any in the MFA/Back Bay group! Feel free to stumble into the MFA or holler from the outside.]