S4, E1 | Call To Vancouver

​Season 4 Premiere

With his rebar weapon grasped in the possession of his prosthetic hand, Lou’s head hangs toward the ground as he trails just slightly behind the rest of his group. “That’s it?” Jenn wonders aloud, walking alongside him with the visage of a woman struggling to put aside the events so recently staining her mind.

“That’s it” Lou reassures, eyes glancing at every pebble and patch of sand that his feet walk over, carrying him the lengthy stroll back to the camp he’d once been uncertain of his stay at. “I figured- as long as you guys were on the island- you would’ve thought to head to higher ground” the man continues, the months he’d spent away from those he’d been so close with over the early days of the apocalypse having occupied themselves with empty hope.

“It was either that or you’d reached land back across the border” Lou continues, shrugging as he passes a glance toward the young blonde woman beside him, “if that were the case, I was never gonna find you to begin with. So in that case, I’d have been better off staying at higher elevation anyway.” As their eyes collide, Jenn’s mind tries to force itself to other thoughts, the strife that she internally pleads with herself to leave behind drawing her focus elsewhere.

“You’ve gotten scruffy, handicap-man” the woman jokes, reaching out to give the man’s growing beard a gentle tug, bringing a slight amusement over her face, “couldn’t find a razor at the summit?” Letting out a breathy chuckle, Lou’s eyes retake to the path ahead as the sky begins to appear lighter, embraced by the kiss of a rising sun. “They made us shave it back at school, so I never really got to see how bushy I could get it” the man replies with humour, “not bad, eh?”

“Hey, that’s our thing!” Sebastian jokingly murmurs back, closer to the front of the pack than the youthful pair that follow closely behind, himself only following the young man’s understudy. “He’s as close to Canadian as it comes now, technically” Marta replies from the very front of the wandering group, “no way off the island, so- welcome aboard, hosier.”

With a smirk forming in the corner of his mouth, Lou glances back to the woman beside him and quickly loses the humoured expression, reminded of the loss that they leave behind in search of a better future. “Who were the people that shot at you?” Rudy soon wonders aloud, his words intended for the newest member of their small group, an obvious hint of concern carried within the weight of his voice, though his question fails to fully resonate with the grieving survivor.

“You said you were split off from your group ‘cause some guys shot at you for taking their boat” Rudy reiterates, keeping his face straight as he looks to the young woman out of the corner of his eye, “who were they?” Still a decent way from the camp, Jenn is left without cover to take from the question, the air that sits patiently awaiting her reply not concluding anytime soon. “I’m not sure” the woman responds, watching the disappointed look in Rudy’s face before it turns away from her.

“Listen, I didn’t stop and ask for their names” Jenn remarks, aware of the doubts that linger over all involved, but not wishing to hold back whatever can help dissuade them. “I haven’t seen them since Halston and I got split from the rest, so- take that for what you will” the woman continues, only to be immediately met with a response from the man’s only-present daughter.

“We can’t really take that for much, can we?” Sonya voices back, writing off the woman’s apologetic reply, though with less of a bitter tone than that of her father. After an hour’s walk, the sky proceeds to lighten faster, though the clouds remain dark as rain is brought down from the heavens above. Their welcoming party held under bleak conditions, the group breaches the border of their Vancouver Island camp, reunited with slightly-familiar faces and a relieved leader.

“Where have you been all night!?” Lee calls out, feet splashing in mud puddles as he steps out of his tent, sights placed upon the returning group as much of his residents watch on. “If any of you are to leave this camp, at least let the guards know so you don’t-” the man continues, extending his arms before glancing through the first few returning citizens to see a set of blonde locks relatively unfamiliar to him at first.

As bodies and faces part, the camp’s ruler finds himself confronted with one of many faces he’d never truly expected to be reunited with. “Holy shit, you actually found them!?” Lee proclaims with disbelief, the half-enthused visage on Lou’s face suggesting a less-pleasant answer. “Not quite” the man replies, leaning the rebar pipe against his side as he releases the prosthetic from himself.

Continuing forward, the few weeks of familiarity with the camp’s guardian prompts Jenn to step into Lee’s arms and embrace him, her chin pressing against his shoulder as her eyes press shut, unable to display the jubilation she holds to no longer be left to her own. “It’s good to see you” the woman whispers through clenched teeth, simply grateful to be spared of the vagrant life she’d assumed her future be saddled with.

“And you, too” Lee replies, letting the hug ensue before gently pulling away, both hands keeping to the woman’s shoulders, “where are the rest of you?” Letting out a sigh, Jenn lets her head fall for a moment before pulling her hair behind each ear. “Halston and I got split with the rest near the coast” the woman replies, watched on by Lou as the rest of their group make for their original pocket of the camp, “we’d agreed to set off for the coast of Vancouver before we got separated. I don’t know if they made it to shore, but I know they made it off the island.”

With a nod, Lee puts the unfinished search for the rest of the group behind as he turns for whatever more he can ask. “Well, where’s Halston?” the man inquires, initially finding himself met with the bowed head of his reunited survivor, her silence palpable- though not fully understood by the camp’s commander.

“She didn’t make it” Lou remarks with a sullen voice, watching Lee’s eyes briefly take toward him before redirecting toward the woman at his hand’s reach. “Oh” he initially remarks, caught by surprise at the unanticipated outcome, Jenn’s subtle nod lending credence to their bearded friend’s proclamation, “Oh, I’m- I’m so sorry.”

Shaking her head, Jenn waves off any such guilt from the man, putting on a smile as best she can as their conversation resumes, tending to other lines of thought whilst Lou turns away, rejoining with the rest of his group. Through the flaps of their tent’s vestibule, the one-armed runaway enters a rather lifeless discussion, one held from absent ears and led by the cluster’s initial leader.

“Is the welcoming party over already?” Sebastian wonders aloud, both hands placed on his hips as Lou proceeds onward, returning to his empty bag before dropping his belongings atop the flat air mattress. “I’m sure there are bigger fish to fry” the younger man retorts, leaning his rebar staff against the tent’s inner mesh before stepping up to the travelled man’s side, “so, which fish are we talking about?”

Undoing the laces of her boots, Marta sits atop her cot as she lifts her eyes to her mentor. “Where we’re supposed to go now that you’ve found one of your friends” the young woman replies, prying her foot from one shoe before setting it to the side, Lou’s eyes taking to those that share the space with them.

“And how far into that conversation have we gotten?” the young man responds, looking around the tent for an answer that only the man beside him has a response to. “We haven’t really started to be honest” Sebastian replies, crossing his arms as he shares Lou’s glance around the group, “we didn’t really know much before you left, but even the little we did know kinda flies out the window with Jenn in the picture.”

Letting his lone hand place itself upon his hip, Lou nods his head and looks to the man beside him, their sights falling upon each other in hopes for a deciding factor to get involved. “I think we should go to Vancouver” Marta speaks up, the only voice within the tent willing to speak to an answer, though met with obvious hesitation from those that had nothing to say just moments prior.

“That’s ridiculous!” Rudy remarks, watching the young woman confidently look at him whilst leaning back, propped up with her elbow pressing into the cushion of her bed. “Why? Where else do we have to be?” Marta challenges back, eager to hear the man’s rationale. “It doesn’t matter where we have to be, it matters what we’d have to do to get there!” the older gentleman responds, speaking aloud the same thought Sonya and Adrian share.

“We’d have to cross that entire strait- in the middle of December- in a boat we don’t even have!” Rudy proclaims, yet to even present his most crucial argument, “and even if we got there, just imagine what the city would be like! The dead would be everywhere!” With an eyebrow raised and a crooked smirk, Marta’s eyes look past the man’s youngest daughter to find his face.

“It’s a good thing we know where they’re at and how to get around the horde” Jenn interjects, stepping through the tent’s opening to enter the group’s discourse. “There’s a parking garage in the centre of town- right past the high-rises. It’s where we all agreed to hunker down in” the woman proceeds, stepping up to Sebastian’s unoccupied side as she argues in her own case’s favour, “cover ourselves in that rotten shit and we’ll be able to walk straight through, right Lou?”

“Even if that were the case, we’re still missing one important detail” Adrian remarks, sliding his arms out of the sleeves of his puffy jacket, “we’ve still got no boat.” With a grimace, Jenn’s face falls before Marta’s voice speaks through the silence, keeping the spirit of hope alive. “The island’s detached from the entirety of the mainland. There’s bound to be a ferry somewhere” the young woman replies, pressing her back into the cot as her hands fold atop her chest, “it’s doable.”

“Do any of us know how to drive a ferry?” Sonya questions aloud, watching Marta’s eyelids part before coming to a squint, met with the one flaw in her plan that happens to stump the rest of her group. “In all fairness, it could be a lot easier than we think it is” Sebastian remarks, trying to spare hope for the side of the argument he most closely aligns with, “even if we’re not captains of the high seas, I’m pretty sure we could get the thing from one coast to the other.”

“Yeah, good luck with that” Adrian amusedly mutters beneath his breath, stepping away from the group to re-enter society, “I don’t really mind what the call turns out to be- just let me know when you decide.” With a lifted eyebrow, Rudy watches the man depart as his daughter resumes her opposition. “What do we have to gain from going?” Sonya inquires, still not satisfied with the suggestions put forth, “we go get your friends and then what? We just end up coming back here.”

“Are you suggesting we divide the groups onto two sides?” Lou questions aloud, the proposal not one the woman had been presenting, but one that her mind immediately finds itself open to. “I mean, I guess that would make sense- sure” Sonya replies, leaving the floor open for the obvious call to be made, its deciding factor coming back to the initial cause for the group’s new direction.

“Alright then. The people that are down with joining Jenn and I in Vancouver can come with, and those opposed can stay behind” Lou concludes, nodding his head toward a visibly-satisfied Sonya as the rest of the group agrees to the terms, their sights set on the next move. “So, meeting adjourned?” Sebastian inquires, met with the lone-limbed man’s smile as the scruffy-survivor pats him on the shoulder, stepping past him to re-enter the larger camp.

= RISE and REVOLT is created by Zachary Serra, all rights to the series from Season 1 onwards belong to Zachary Serra and the entity of Pacer1 =

With a rifle by his side, Theo listens to the footsteps that approach with little reaction, his fingers picking apart pieces of cardboard that he disposes into an open fire. “If you’re not here to help me find Lou- go on and fuck off, cool?” the man proclaims, paying little mind to the footsteps he’s already privy to. “I’m here to do something better” Courtney replies, lugging the paramotor upon her back with each step through dense forestry, “-I’m here to get your dumbass back to camp.”

Biting the head off an anchovy he picks from the metal container his plastic box had packaged within, Theo refuses the woman’s offer. “I can find my own way back- thank you tons” the man replies, finally spotting the woman’s figure from around a set of trees. “Aren’t you cold out here?” Courtney queries, dressed in hefty layers for the atmosphere her pocket copter brings her to the levels of, “you’re from Los Angeles after all. Shouldn’t this weather be like an extinction event to you people?”

“That would depend, are you referring to the cold or the rain?” Theo questions back, shrugging his shoulders as he glances off to the distance, answering his own question, “either way- yes.” Pressing her lips together, Courtney steps around the final few stumps that separate her from the fireside survivor, finding a cosy rock to take a seat upon as her skin instantly takes kindly to the warmth of the exposed flame.

“Maybe it’s just me being an idiot, but I don’t really understand you” Courtney remarks, gesturing toward the small container within the man’s hand, “for example, I just lugged a metric shit-ton of every kind of meat you can think of to camp, and yet you’re out here- eating packaged anchovies.” As if in defiance, Theo’s hand crams itself into the container and latches onto a fistful of the small fish, making a meal out of the snack-sized package.

“Do you have an issue with us or something?” Courtney inquires, prompting the man’s anchovy-shovelled face to turn away, “I don’t know if you’re just naturally a cunt, but you seem to be pretty hawkish toward my friends and I.”

“I’ve got an issue with Lou” Theo replies, running the knuckle of his thumb across his grease-covered bottom lip as he takes a swig from his water bottle to put down the mashed up fish. “That motherfucker has got Vancouver- and you and your friends- so hard on his goddamn mind that he can’t see the bigger picture” the man continues, left to continue speaking by the selectively-silent woman that accompanies him.

“He can’t see that he’s gonna get himself killed. At some point, that idiot’s gonna start trying to be a hero, and he’s gonna do something that puts him in the ground” Theo continues, shaking his head in disgust before turning his sights upon the woman, “and you helpless pricks are gonna be the cause of it.” Trying to hide her smirk, Courtney bobs her head with amusement in silence, leaving the floor open for the man’s continued venting.

“Your dad and your sister can’t make it out there, you hide out from the dead in the sky, the rest of you know you’re way around the dead like a blind guy knows his way through a maze-” Theo persists, his face shrivelling into anger as he concludes his point, “-and he’s got such a hard-on for that Marta girl that he’d practically jump off a bridge to please her. The bastard may be one of the smartest people I know, but the lot of you turn him into a mindless zombie. Irony intended.”

Finished with his meal, Theo angrily tosses his metal container into the same fire its wrapping had been introduced to, just in time for the light drizzle overhead to turn into a fully-blown storm. “You seem like you have it all figured out, don’t you?” Courtney questions, nodding her head as she looks off into the distance, letting the rain fall as the well-fed survivor steps up from his seat to prepare for further venture.

“Lou never made plans- he’s always been the reactionary type” Theo responds, doubling down on his claims as his fire begins to die out beneath the falling drops. “That’s why he adjusted so quickly to the world fuckin’ collapsing. Having a plan was always just a burden to that guy” the man continues, tossing a bag over his shoulder and preparing to march onward, “until he realises the only place he’s gonna have a chance at actually living is here- he’s just gonna keep putting himself in danger.”

“And you think we’re the reason for it?” Courtney questions aloud, watching the young man begin to walk away without any interest in continuing their dialogue. “Nope, I just think you’re the biggest cause of it” Theo replies, stepping over broken branches and long-fallen leaves as he descends further into the vast, Vancouver Island wilderness, “maybe if you were out of the picture, it’d be easier to make him see that.”

Aware of how little ground she stands to gain from continuing to speak, Courtney nods to herself one final time before walking off, deviating from the man’s course to return to camp. “Yeah, alright kid” the woman replies, climbing the way she came in search of the open field she’d landed in, her parachute carried in hand as Theo proceeds onward, forced to pause momentarily as he thinks back to the suggestion he’d just made, its implication intriguing him.

|

Alone at a table of his own in the centre of camp, Adrian sits with his hands wrapped around a cold cup of coffee as the wind begins to pick up, the rain falling harder than it has all day. With just a brief glance toward camp, the man finds its grounds to be largely unoccupied aside from a few armed men, most of the bivouac’s residents having taken to the safe and warm tents for the day, not wishing to expose themselves to the harsh winter chill and frosty droplets brought upon them from above.

Without a word and with his hands in his pockets, Rudy steps through the mud with his winter boots still on, enduring the chilly climate and remaining silent as he takes the table’s seat opposite its inhabitant. For a moment, the air remains calm as the two men sit, residing within each other’s company as the older gentleman’s eyes drift toward the camp’s distant walls, his neither-friend-nor-foe looking toward him with a puzzled look on his face.

“Are you here to kill me or use me to kill the time?” Adrian raises the question, looking to the older man- whose conscience appears heavy- without yet knowing what answer lies ahead. Letting a sigh leave through his nose, Rudy’s head hangs for a moment as he rests one arm atop the damp picnic table, looking to the puddles that collect water the ground has yet to seep up as he thinks quietly amongst himself.

“Lee just told me that Courtney brought in a couple hundred kilos of food while we were out” the man mutters beneath his breath, eyes still held toward the ground as Adrian silently watches on, not wishing to interrupt the man’s train of thought. “I guess she made a deal with him to keep bringing food to the camp. That’s what I’m assuming, at least” Rudy murmurs, just loud enough for the man across from him to make out the word’s being said, “she came back while we were gone.”

Nodding his head, Adrian looks back to the table, his hands folding atop them as the older gentleman continues to speak, his voice taking on a calm tone more similar to that of which he’d sported during their days in the cabin as opposed to what he’d grown accustomed to in recent times. “She’s giving them a couple hundred kilos of food in exchange for jobs” Rudy continues, filling in the holes his prior statement left, “-jobs for Sonya and I.”

With an eyebrow raised, Adrian looks up at Rudy as the man continues to speak, their eyes still yet to connect as the older man stares at the ground before his feet. “He said that- the way Courtney described it- she was hoping the jobs would help Sonya and I feel more comfortable here” he speaks further, his chin slowly moving in his company’s direction, their faces yet to truly meet.

“My daughter is doing everything she can to help Sonya and I figure out how to get by in this world, and I’ve just-” Rudy proceeds onward, stopping himself short as he finally looks Adrian in the eyes, trying to process the format of his thoughts before settling on the easiest string of words, “-I’ve just been such an ass.”

Though the revelation slightly amuses Adrian, the man pulls his head back and lets his chin fall for a moment, the water that soaks his hair dripping down the side of his face and the tip of his nose. “Why are you telling me this, Rudy?” the man inquires, looking up to the older man that now lets his eyes drift to the entrance of the camp, where his daughter casually strolls through with the paramotor on her back.

“For the last few days, you’ve done nothing but look at me like a murderer” Adrian explains, watching the man across from him lock eyes with his returning daughter as she aims for the communal tent, “don’t get me wrong, I am a murderer. I’m not proud of it, but I am. Even with that said, what’s with the sudden flip of the script here?”

With a regretful look on his face, Rudy listens to the man across from him present the question as his eyes follow his eldest offspring through the nylon flaps of their small sanctuary, remorse the only thing higher on his conscience than regret. “You’re the only person I think can understand what I’m saying” the man responds, finally turning his sights back to the mostly-expressionless father sat before him, “how did you come around to all of this?”

With an unchanged expression, Adrian lets his head drift to the side for a moment as he considers the question, nothing more than empty grounds and an isolated fire pit without a single flame to present for the time being to look at. “Lou covered for me” the man finally responds, speaking as his eyes wander aimlessly throughout the camp, his words spoken just as they come to mind.

“He flat-out told me he was giving me another chance to make something of myself” Adrian continues, now taking the floor to speak openly as Rudy watches on in silence. “At some point, I think it just becomes unavoidable- there’s just no going back to the way things were” the younger man continues, a sip taken from the now half-coffee, half-water beverage in his possession, “if my daughter could see that, then I needed to take that second chance to see it too.”

Staring at Adrian with a humbled expression, Rudy lets his chin fall as he sits in silence for a moment, just occupying the empty campground with a man for a few additional seconds before standing up, departing the table in the same silence he’d initially sat upon it with.

Left to himself once more, Adrian continues to sit with his own thoughts for a few more minutes before glancing toward the camp’s entrance once more, watching Theo return to the surprise of the few guards that stand at attention on the bivouac’s command. 

Without a word paid to his friends or colleagues, the young survivor marches through the rainy camp and past one of the few occupied tables, locking eyes with Adrian as he passes in search of more weighted conversations. Dipping through the entrance, Theo returns to the same post he’d seen upon his last few moments in the camp, confronting the same man he’d spent every day since the initial moments of the apocalypse with.

“Lou’s back- in case that’s what you wanted to talk about” Lee remarks, his back turned to the man that re-enters his presence just as thunder begins to crash in the near distance. “Good. I figured he would be” Theo responds, watching Lee’s face turn to look at him as he sets the firearm he’d pieced back together down, “-that’s not why I’m here though.”

“Of course it’s not” Lee responds, reaching for the rifle he’d placed to the side of his table before handing it back to his long-time friend, not much of an expression carried across his face. “Do you think I’m fit to serve this camp?” Theo wonders aloud, watching his superior’s head bow for a moment as his lips pucker, considering his options.

“I don’t need to know one way or another- I don’t have that luxury” Lee responds, returning the weapon to its rightful owner, “but since I don’t have that many people to consider for your place, I’m gonna go ahead and give you the benefit of the doubt.” With a deep inhale, Theo wraps his hands around the weapon as his eyes fall toward it, looking at every detail that its external shell wears like scars of war.

“I just care that you do one thing” Lee remarks, patting Theo on the shoulder as he leans toward returning to his prior activities, “protect my people.”

|

Skipping a flat stone across the ice that forms along the coastline he resides near the edge of, Lou takes these moments of silence to clear his head of all undoings, preferring to spend his time with more hopeful thoughts than the ones he’d grown accustomed to. “You’re not trying to run off again, are you?” Marta jokingly remarks from within the treelines, her voice familiar enough to not startle the experienced survivor in spite of its unexpected presence.

“It doesn’t look like I’m making much progress with that now does it, stalker?” Lou chirps back, gently moving to one side of the rock as Marta draws closer, her gorecoat cleansed of its filth in favour of simply existing as protection from the elements they’re subjected to. “You didn’t make much progress before either” the young woman responds, calmly climbing the small hill that leads her to the opened plot atop the rock just beside her mentor.

“Sebastian’s really sorry about that, by the way” Marta tacks on, looking to the scruffy-bearded man that lets the frozen waters reclaim his attention. “I know he is- I never questioned that” Lou replies, a subtle smirk preceding the shake of his head. “Is that why you ran off?” the young woman speaks up to ask, a question that lingers through the air without much ease to answer it with.

“Not exactly” Lou replies, squinting his right eye as he continues to stare ahead, his friendly company sat beside him with her eyes glued to his face whilst he speaks. “It’s not really what he was saying as much as it was what he reminded me of” the man confesses, staring off at whatever storm-coated sights occupy the night sky before him, the sun beginning to face behind the grey clouds that have covered it throughout the entire day.

“He said it, you said it- most people said it. I’d been refusing to give up on looking for my friends, but- I hadn’t actually been looking for them” Lou continues, his every word taken to in full by his protege. “I couldn’t keep saying one thing and then doing the other. I’d found Theo and Lee, and now I needed to prove that it wasn’t just them I could find” he speaks further, letting his eyes fall momentarily as his spirit lowers, “I just wish I had gotten there in time to save Halston.”

Lowering her own chin, Marta waits for a few moments as the pair sit in silence, their thoughts sharing a similar source but greatly differing in direction. “You told Rudy back at camp that you knew someone that couldn’t adjust to this world- that it was your greatest failure” the woman remarks, collecting the man’s undivided attention as she speaks, “you sounded like there was more you wanted to say, but didn’t.”

With a half-smile on his face at the task of recollecting, the one-armed warrior nods his head as he slightly leans further back. “Pete. That was his name- but we all called him Vinny” Lou replies, his eyes returning to the frozen strait ahead, the mainland his sights are set upon making it to just ahead in the great distance.

“He was a smart kid. Fucking genius. He and his girlfriend- Margo- full rides to Juliard” the man continues, a smile continuing to widen across his face as the sound of thunder crashes in the distance, brief flashes of lightning appear many kilometres ahead of the rock they converse atop, “they were the theatre kid types, but unlike the pricks that seemed like they always walked with a stick up their ass- those guys were cool.”

Subduing a chuckle, Marta continues to sit with her hands pressed against each side of the rock, watching the man’s humoured expression slowly undo into one of disheartened contrition. “She didn’t make it long- maybe a few hours- after shit hit the fan. As a matter of fact, when everyone else was out trying to clear the halls of the dead- Vinny had to put her down when she turned” Lou continues, his chin only lowering further the longer he speaks.

“Neither of them were happy about what this world was turning into- not in the slightest. But, over time, Vinny started to learn his way around it. He was probably the second person I’d look to when things were going wrong” Lou continues, “and then I did something stupid, blacked out from there, one thing led to another, and-”

Pausing before he can finish his statement, Lou lets out a deep sigh as his face turns toward the sickly-grey sky, a disappointed shake of his head provided, “he sacrificed himself to make sure we all made it out alive.”

With his tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth, Lou sucks on the tip before clearing his throat, letting the droplets that had collected upon his face slowly slide down his chin. “Had I not lost the plot there, he might still be alive” the man continues, using his hand to wipe the streams of water that trickle down his head.

Meeting the sombre tone in Lou’s reflection, Marta takes a free hand and wraps it within the fingers of her mentor’s own, the one-armed survivor locking eyes with the woman as they sit in silence for a few more moments. “You kept the rest of them safe, though. Until you couldn’t, you did everything you could to keep them safe, and you only stopped when you were ripped away from them” the woman continues, trying to smile through the pain she feels for the man’s position.

“And now- you’ve found them. You know they’re out there, and even if the reunion hasn’t happened yet, you know that it’s going to” the girl continues, taking her second hand to swipe the loose hairs away from her trusted accomplice’s face with a smile, “you’re going to find your friends.”

His lips forming a smile, Lou nods to the woman as the fingers on his hand wrap around those of the one that hold it, his eyes looking into hers before drifting off to the side unexpectedly. Puzzled, the man’s eyelids press closer together as Marta’s attention is taken toward the source of the man’s confusion, her head turning back to look across the water at a litany of lanterns appearing through the dreary night- their course set to collide with that of the young pairings.

“We need to get back to camp” Lou says in an unhurried tone, trying to present his voice as if he were unphased by the display, helping Marta to her feet and following her back toward the way they’d both come. With a momentary look back, the young man glances at the waterfront with his puzzled expression remaining, its slow change to one of nervousness making it clear that he thinks poorly of what seems to lie ahead.

== RISE and REVOLT ==