Malagueña Salerosa

[Laurels]

((Alba Reyes continued from This time I might just disappear))

Alba looked at Bradley's body left outside the gym. It was pretty gnarly to look at. Yesterday was bad enough when she saw him die, but now that a whole day had passed and he had been left to the elements, it had somehow managed to get worse. The smell had gotten extremely foul, and Alba was sure she could start to see bugs crawling around. Alba had to quickly turn away before heading for the entrance of the gym. She had to make sure they were still there.

Alba pushed open the doors to the gym. To her surprise, they weren't locked or barricaded. That's when her heart sank.

"Hello!" she shouted. "Bryony? Are you there?"

Alba looked inside. Empty. The gym was completely empty. She had to do a quick scan of the place, moving in and around all the rusting equipment and checking any back rooms she could find. Not a soul was there. She didn't find any bodies, which at least confirmed to her that they didn't immediately die after the announcements. But still, Bryony and those other kids weren't here anymore, and that frightened her.

"I'm sorry," she muttered to herself. "I meant to come back. I really did."

Alba took a moment to sit down on a bench, resting the rifle on her lap. She tilted her head back and stared at the old ceiling of the gym. She couldn't believe they weren't here. She really hoped that they would stick around and wait for her to come back. Maybe they all left to go look for her after she didn't come back in an hour. Maybe they were still looking for her.

She could wait around for them, hope that they return to the gym like ants to their colony. However, there was a part of her that knew she couldn't just do that. Brendan's team had a plan to get out. They'd need all the help they could get, and even though she wasn't a technical person, she was strong, and she had a good weapon. It hurt her to think this, but right now, stopping the game was more important than finding Bryony.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to just give up on Bryony. She needed some plan to keep ensure she and Bryony could find one another. Alba pulled her bag out and searched through it. There had to be something she could leave behind for Bryony that the girl would recognize. That's when she found it: the Jenny from the Block CD.

Bryony knew she had this as her assigned weapon. Alba wasn't likely to listen to the CD any time soon, so she could at least use it for this purpose. She didn't have any paper or pens on hand, and she wasn't likely to find any. After a quick scan, she figured out what to do.

She found a piece of workout equipment that had a sharp edge to it. She took the CD case and began to scratch into it. She would have scratched the CD itself, but she figured the scratches could be more easily read on the case instead of the CD itself. It was crude, but she soon had a message on the case.

RADIO TOWER

It'd have to do for now. She just hoped Bryony could find it and understand the message.

Alba left the CD on a work bench near the entrance to the gym. It shouldn't be hard to miss- after all, a CD with one song on it would stand out in a gym- and the message was still readable. Even though the radio tower was a danger zone, that had to at least clue Bryony in to the area she was in. Alba made a quick prayer in hopes that her new friend would find it and they could reunite.

With that, Alba walked out of the gym, saying another prayer for Bradley, and back towards where Brendan said to meet up. There had to be something they could do to end the game, and Alba was willing to put everything in for that.

((Alba Reyes continued back in This time I might just disappear))