Sanitized

Chapter 19; Opal

I woke up to the muffled slammed door.
"Opal." Tres whispered to me, after opening the door to my and Pearl's room.
"Yeah?" I said, still lying in bed, "What time is it?"
"Come on out here." Tres whispered, motioning to the door.
I hopped out of the bed, and tiptoed across the floor, and then to the door.
Tres slowly closed the door behind us, and then said, "We've got a slight problem."
"What?"  I asked.
"Come here." Tres said, walking over to the couch.
Isaac was sitting down, with a dull expression on his face. I sat down next to him, and Tres next to me.
I fidgeted with my hot pink tentacle for a moment.
"The agents back in Inkopolis need backup." Tres said.
"Okay? I'm sure we can handle that." I said.
"No, no, no. It's not just that. I was on the phone with Serenity, and she started screaming at me to bring help. She was obviously not in the best situation, we're being overturned. And then, not a second later when I agreed to send help, in mid sentence, she started screaming. Then the phone hung up." Tres said.
"What? We all should go back!" I said, emphasising my care with my outreached hands.
"No. We can't risk them sanitizing all of us." Isaac said.
"Oh yeah. But what else can we do? A little less than half of the agents are there, and we would be outnumbered and outgunned if we sent more people!" I said, still scared of the situation.
"We are going to have to wait here then. You make a good point. We will have to wait until the situation dies down until we take action." Tres said.
"We should send someone! We can't wait here and not help! Most of Inkopolis is getting sanitized! We can't wait like sitting ducks!" Isaac said.
"We are just going to have to. We can't run into things blindly." Tres said.
"We should have the others weigh in their opinion." I said.
"We can't wake them up now. It's too early. We just needed another person's opinion, and you tend to wake up early, so we got you." Isaac said.
"We should go back to bed. I know I am. Night." Tres said, before getting up from the couch and walking to her bunk bed.
"I think I'm going to head in too." Isaac said, "haven't got any sleep."
Isaac got up and walked to his room, and closed the door behind him.
I got up and walked back to my bed, closed the door.
I laid down on my bed for a moment, and thought about everyone in Inkopolis.
"We need more agents." I thought to myself, before drifting off into a deep sleep.
...

I woke up to more slammed doors.
I got up and rushed to the door, noticing that my Pearl wasn't in her bed either.
"You swear she's not anywhere else?!" Pearl said.
"No! I swear, I can't find her anywhere!" Tres said.
"Seriously?! Where could she be?!" Elliot screamed.
"I don't know!" Tres screamed back.
"What's going on?!" I asked.
"We can't find Callie!!" Pearl screamed.
"What?!" I screamed.
"We can't find her anywhere!" Isaac said.
"She always leaves a note if she's leaving on her own choices. Always. All. Ways." Pearl said.
"I can try calling her." Steven said.
"Yeah, do that." I said, looking around the room.
Phoenix was still, somehow, sleeping through this. I saw her asleep on her bed, peaceful and calm.
"Guys." I whispered, "Phoenix is still asleep!"
"Oh." Pearl said.
Steven was holding his shellphone up to his ear.
"Nothing. She's not picking up." Steven said.
"What? She always answers!" Elliot said.
"She couldn't have left on purpose." Pearl said.
"She just might have left to go back to Inkopolis." Tres said, trying to look on the bright side.
"No. She couldn't have. Otherwise,
1: she would have left a note
2: she would pick up
3: if she didn't pick up, she'd call immediately after."  Pearl said.
"Yeah, all of that's true." Steven said.
"What should we do?" Elliot asked.
"I'll be right back." I said, walking away.
I left the room and picked up my shellphone. I dialed Marina's number.
"Hey." I said, after Marina picked up.
"Hey. Why didn't you guys send more agents?" Marina asked.
"Half of you guys are there, we can't risk it, otherwise, there's no point in the rest of us being here." I said.
"We need more help." Marina said.
"Is Callie there?"
"No... why?"
"We can't find her, she was just gone."
"That's not good. Serenity has disappeared too. Same with Faith. And Marie. Me and Cap are the only ones left, and we don't do field work."
"Oh no. I have a good idea of where they went." I said talking to the abyss.
"Well, what should I do?" Marina asked.
"Try to find more help...?" I said, questioning my answer.
"Okay, can do."
"What else has been happening there?"
"Inkopolis has slowly been decreasing in the shown population. Almost no one is in the Square, or Plaza."
"Oh no."
"I think our plan hasn't been working."
"They keep continuing."
"And, recently, Faith and Marie went out on a mission to find the Great Zapfish, because, remember; it was stolen, and they haven't returned. No mission takes that long..."
"We have to do something." I said confident.
"Okay. Me and Cap will do what we can. I'll notify you if something is up."
"Okay. Thanks, Marina."
I hung up, and walked back out to the living room.
"Guys, I have some news..." I said, still not sure what to say.
...

All of them looked at me almost expecting me to tell them what Marina had said.
They had all seemed unfazed when I told them. They knew that was probably what had happened.
"Great. What should we do now?" Elliot said.
"All we can do is get more help. We are down too much in numbers." Tres said.
"I think we should take action." I said, standing up for myself.
They all looked at me surprised, like they didn't expect to speak with so much confidence.
"I'm in." Isaac said.
"I don't think so." Steven said, "if Serenity couldn't do it, none of us could."
"You're being particularly pessimistic today, Steven." Tres said.
"What's going on?" Phoenix said, walking into the room.
"We're debating over what we should do next." Elliot said, not explaining anything to her.
"I really think we should do something." I said, expressing my concern.
"No. We can't." Steven said.
"Not we. I'll go. By myself." I said, changing my posture.
"No. It's not safe. If Serenity couldn't do it, you can't." Steven said.
I was taken aback by his insult. I stood up.
"Serenity? She's new. That doesn't mean anything. Have you ever seen her in the field?" I asked condescending.
"No. But I trust her enough that she is good."
"Can you trust me? Can you trust me enough to let me go on a simple mission?" I asked, raising my voice.
"I don't know. And it's not simple."
"So you don't trust me?" I asked.
"I never said that-"
"Yeah you did. You said that you don't know. You trust a girl you've only known for a day, but you don't trust me?"
"I never said that I don't. I just don't know."
"Words can mean the same thing, you know? I can do it."
"I just don't want anything bad to happen, I don't know if you can do it."
"First, you don't trust me, now you don't believe in me?"
"I never said tha-"
"Yes you did." I said, getting angrier.
"Opal, you don't need to be taking this so seriously."
"Seriously? You're the one telling me that this mission is serious." I said upset, "hypocrite" I said under my breath.
"What did you just say?"
"Nothing. At least if I did I couldn't tell you, because I don't trust you." I said, repeating what he said earlier.
"Opal..." he said.
"Just let me do this." I said, angry.
"It's not safe! I don't know if you can do it!" He screamed.
"But I can do it."
He walked over to me and stood over me, his head towering over.
"No." He said.
"I can."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"I'm good enough!"
"No." he said sternly.
"Yes." I screamed at him, my fists balled up at my sides.
"No." he boomed.
I fell back, and I looked at him scared. I started to cry.
"Well. then. Good bye." I screamed sobbing. The entire room had gone silent, all of them intently watching me, with sad faces.
I ran out the door.