"My Scientific Best" | The Trio

.2

• "I'm not cruel, But that's still what you see.
Club to club, Come see this city with me."

* * *

Darryl gently opened the door, keeping his eyes locked up on the ceiling. He winced as he noticed that the door had hit something, but continued to move forward. Their neighbor's weren't answering any knocks, so it was assumed that they were off staying somewhere.
"Just keep looking up, we're almost there." Encouraged Darryl. There, was referencing to the stairs at the end of the hall. Sure, it wasn't a long hallway, but knowing that there was a dead woman's body present in the room you were in was unsettling, to say at the least.
"I'm coming- I'm coming." Zak mumbled. Vincent followed closely behind the other two, holding his breath. Finally, Darryl, looked straight ahead, knowing that the body was now behind him. Within the next few seconds, the three had made it across the hallway, and headed towards the stairs. The elevator was a very small risk, but hey, better safe than sorry.
"Vincent?" Darryl questioned, nudging him. Vince had completely blanked out, oh geez.
"We've made it past... Her. You can look at me now." He nodded, and the three began their journey down the stairs. It was a quick and silent walk, until they opened the last door to get outside.
"Hey, Zak?"
"Yeah?"
"You okay?"
To be completely honest, Darryl felt kinda bad for not asking this earlier. Zak was awfully quiet during this entire dilemma. He had woken up screaming for Darryl or Vincent, while covering his ears. He didn't want to ask about that now however, Zak seemed on edge from the second he woke up, and Darryl wanted to wait until everything had settled down to ask Zak about what he suspected was phobia or fear.
"Well, I'm tired and hungry. And kinda freaked out about that rotting corpse in front of our door, and the fact that our neighbors are out this early, but other than that."
Okay, that is true. Who wouldn't be completely fine in these sorts of situations?
Darryl was gonna take control of this situation for now, it felt right. He always thought of himself as a pretty natural leader. The three stepped out onto the sidewalk.
"Oh my god, what's that smell..." Vincent mumbled.
Darryl took in a deep breath. "Oh god. Let's just—hey Zak, is your GPS working?"
"Uh- no."
"Right. Okay, if I remember correctly, if we keep walking this way we should eventually hit one of the local police stations, it'll be a long walk though, so if you guys see an open shop on the way we could probably grab something to eat." Man, everything feels so weird, it's so early too. They had planned to go shopping or something like that last night, to make everything about more personalized and comfortable. Hopefully everything would be back to normal once all this clears up, they could all take a day off. It's been chaos since the move, unpacking, keeping your schedules in check, it was really exhausting.
Eventually, the three noticed an empty Starbucks. Sure, it was expensive and not really any of their favorite places to eat, but hey, it was food. And man, did Darryl need some form of caffeine. And food, of course.
Darryl approached the front door and glanced over at a paper pasted to the window, it labeled the times of service, and thank goodness, the shop had just opened ten minutes ago. It was when he attempted to push open the door that he noticed that not only would it not budge, but that the lights were also off.
"What...?"
"What's wrong?" Vincent walked up to him, and peered in one of the windows. "It's closed? But-..."
Zak interrupted Darryl and Vincent's confusion. "Guys- hold on. Why haven't we considered what the uh, the sirens actually were trying to tell us...?"
Oh. Oh shoot.
"Do you- Do you think it was an evacuation alarm?" Darryl muttered.
Shit.
"Your signal on yet?" Zak suddenly asked the two.
"Still no bars."
"We should move faster, incase something is actually wrong."
"Right. Keep your eyes open for any buildings with their lights on."

* * *

"Thank god we're almost home, I'm starving."
"I can't believe that despite looking everywhere, no shops were open." Muttered Darryl. "And yes, best eat now." He checked his watch. 7:31 AM. Sigh.
Zak opened a kitchen cupboard, and another, setting a bowl and some cereal on the counter. Meanwhile, Vincent was looking outside the window, checking his phone again to check if there was any signal yet.
Darryl pinched the bridge of his nose, talking in a few deep breaths. This was all starting to really creep him out. He eventually grabbed himself a bowl of cereal, pouring an extra bowl for Vincent as well.
It was pretty quiet, compared to the chaos before. He let his mind wander in time he had to rest.
Who was the woman, and what caused her to just... Decay so quickly? What were those sirens he had awoke to earlier signaling? Where was everyone, and why was everyone's signal dead? At least the electricity was still up and running. Darryl.
He still needs to talk to Vincent and Zak about their pet problem. Cats and Dog were of course allowed, but together? Darryl? That could go many ways.
"Darryl!"
"What?!" He glanced around, Zak looked at him as if he was insane. "What?"
"I said, Vincent just got an alert on his phone. He said his signal went up two bars and fell down again, and during that he got a phone alert.
"What's it say?"
Vincent shakily handed his phone to Darryl.