Getting to know you, and you, and you, and you...

The next day, Russell was feeling much more invigorated despite how sore his body still felt. There was no way he could simply sit around twiddling his thumbs all day, especially when his mind was flooded with nothing but curiosity of this new place. After applying his sunburn treatment and getting Melinda’s approval, he got his new buddy Chaz to walk with him outside and show him around. He did have to lean a little on him for support since his legs were wobbly, but Chaz insisted he didn’t mind at all.

“We’re all used to carryin’ each other around here,” Chaz had said. “No one’s gonna judge ya.”

As soon as Russell stepped into the light, he quickly noticed how plain and grey the buildings in the area were. They were all one floor and rectangular with few differences between them, and it would be easy to get confused if it weren’t for the signs and pictures on them. Regardless, they were definitely thick and sturdy, likely to handle most potential threats that might come their way. If it wasn’t for the distinct chapel in the distance standing out alone in wide, empty space, he could have thought this was a storage or military facility.

“What’s with the buildings?” Russell asked. “This doesn’t really look like a town.”

“Mr. Santo got whoever he could to build the best stuff,” Chaz answered while scratching at his head. “I dunno the details. Somethin’ about concrete enforced with steel and fiber cement.”

There was that name again. “Mr. Santo was the one who saved me, right?”

Chaz nodded. “Yep! He sometimes drives around to help people. If it’s an adult, he drives them to the nearest town. If it’s a kid or two all by themselves, they come here.”

Russell tilted his head, having trouble understanding this logic. “Why? Isn’t there an orphanage or something? Or he could turn them to the police.”

Chaz scowled, and his friendly tone turned bitter as he said, “The police don’t give two shits about us. If we don’t got family to contact, they toss us back on the streets to fend for ourselves.” He puffed air out of his nostrils as he composed himself. “As for orphanages… there are none. This is the closest we’ve got.”

Seeing that this was a sour note for Chaz, Russell decided to change the subject. “Okay, so what is this place? I haven’t seen a single adult since I got here.”

As they were walking and talking, all he could see were children and teenagers. They were running around, playing, carrying crates, feeding chickens, out in the fields, laughing, arguing, and everything else except stand around idly. Overall, they all appeared to be… happy. It seemed like a kid’s paradise.

“Yeah, there are adults,” Chaz said, breaking Russell out of his thoughts. “But it’s just Mr. Santo who lives here. The rest come and go as much as they’re needed.”

“I see. How does he manage it then? Watching over all these kids has got to be a nightmare.”

“Oh, you bet it is.” Chaz chuckled. “We got a system though. Took some trial and error, but we figure it out as we go. But for the most part, we all know we’d be dead meat without Mr. Santo, so we do everything he says.”

Russell opened his mouth to inquire on this, yet his stomach interrupted him with a loud grumble. Ah, that’s right. He was living off an IV drip for a while now. He needed real food in him if he wanted to properly recover.

Chaz playfully patted his back and said, “Come on! I’ll show ya to the cafeteria. Nina should be almost ready with lunch.”

Russell nodded and followed him to the building with the big soup sign labeled ‘cafeteria’. He was hit with a nostalgia for school seeing the big tables and chairs neatly lined up to seat numerous people. He wondered what his friends back home were up to. Did they even know he was alive? There was a good chance he was never going to see them again, and that knowledge formed a lump in his throat he forced back down. This wasn’t the time to cry. Not yet.

There was a divide between the kitchen and the rest of the area with a window full of trays to fill food into with ease. They entered the kitchen to see a girl their age cooking on the stove, along with Angelica wagging her finger at two younger boys covered in egg shells and goo.

“I told you to quit messing around!” Angelica scolded them like a stern parent. “You can’t waste good eggs! They’re not water balloons! We could’ve eaten that!”

“S-Sorry…” the two boys mumbled with their heads down.

“It’s fine. We have enough for the egg salad,” the cook said, never taking her eyes off the stove. “Wash up and get the buns ready.”

“Yes, chef!” the three children replied in union with a salute, then went straight to following orders.

Russell was impressed to say the least. He could tell she took her work very seriously. Her white tank top, brown cargo pants, and tied up blonde ponytail gave him tomboy vibes. What stood out the most however was her arms. Both had been replaced with cold, black machinery that moved and flowed with precision and accuracy. She used them with as much expertise as any other tool in the kitchen.

“Yo, Nina,” Chaz greeted with a small wave. “How’s the burgers coming along?”

“They’re coming,” Nina replied plainly.

Russell could smell the rich, meaty burgers from here, and he had to swallow his saliva to stop himself from drooling. Nina turned off the stove and slid the meat patties on to a large tray. The children returned with small buns wrapped in bags, and he realized they were making sliders to pair with the bowl of egg salad on the side.

“Wow, it really is like school,” Russell said out loud.

“My parents owned a chain restaurant,” Nina explained while she worked with the kids to put the burgers together. “I’ve known how to make a lotta food for a lotta people since I could read a recipe. Ever heard of Mr. Pepper’s Pepper Chicken?”

Russell shook his head. It sounded like one of those niche chains you might have a friend or two recommend, but he wasn’t sure.

Nina glanced over at Russell and gave him an inviting smile that lit up her sky-blue eyes. “Go on and sit down. I’ll make you a plate.”

As he went to go sit down at a table, another teenage girl entered the cafeteria, causing one of the boys from earlier to happily run over to her and jump into her arms. Angelica was right behind him with a proud grin on her face.

“Hi, Ms. Winona~!” Angelica greeted in a sing-song voice. “Jermaine was a very good helper today!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Winona replied while ignoring Jermaine tugging on her afro bun. When he saw that wasn’t going to get him any attention, he started playing with his own little black curls that stuck out like hedgehog quills.

“Yo, Winnie! Over here!” Chaz shouted over to her with a hand raised up.

This certainly caught her attention, her eyebrows furrowing as she stomped over to where they were with Jermaine still securely in her arms. “I told you I don’t like being called Winnie! It’s Winona!”

Chaz awkwardly tried to laugh it off. “Right… yeah. My bad.”

She rolled her eyes and shifted her attention to Russell, her voice much more friendly towards him. “Hey, you’re new, right? I’m Winona. Winona Williams. And this is my brother, Jermaine. Say hello, Jermaine.”

Jermaine gave Russell a meek hand wave, and Russell returned the favor. There were going to be a lot of new names he was going to have to get familiar with. Maybe he should keep notes.

“’Fore you ask, we’re not related,” Chaz said with his hands behind his head. “Not that I’d want to. I’m pretty happy being a Kemp.”

That sass got him a nice foot stomp from Winona, and Chaz grit his teeth to hold back screaming.

“Pretty confident too for someone who’s only been here for a year,” Winona said, then proceeded to sit herself and her brother down across from them. “But enough about him. Tell us about yourself, uh…”

“Russell,” Russell said. “Russell Balder.” He lowered his gaze as he thought about where to even start. “Um… my parents and I were supposed to go to Glamor for a conference. My mom is…” WAS. “…was a biologist. And my dad an engineer. It was an important meeting and I wanted to come with them to see for myself how they were going to help make the world a better place. But then…”

Then that happened. His breathing hitched and his throat tightened as images of the incident flashed before his eyes. The sound of the explosion. The sight of their scorched, desecrated corpses. The smell of burnt rubber and leaking oil. The feeling of coarse sand digging into his skin. Was this real? Was he sure he wasn’t there and this was all some crazy dream? He was dying. He was dying under the unrelenting heat and it was cooking his brain alive and-

“Hey.”

The hand on his back snapped him out of his nightmare. It came from his right side, which confused him because Chaz was sitting to his left. He lifted his head up to see it was Nina, who at some point had come over with his plate of food.

“Ah… shit,” Russell cursed to himself. “Sorry.”

“No worries, man,” Chaz said while putting his hand on his shoulder. “We’ve all been there. So we get it.”

“My parents were also attacked by bandits,” Winona said, clenching her fists as she recalled the pain memory. “All I could do was pick up my baby brother and run. The last thing I heard was my mother’s screams as they butchered her with machetes. I felt so powerless…”

“At least you protected your brother,” Russell said. “All I managed to do was jump away in time, and I was lucky to even be able to.”

“Same actually,” Chaz said. “I happened to be sitting next to the emergency exit when my bus was ‘bout to fall off a cliff.” He let out a deep sigh. “Sometimes it’s all about luck. Maybe if I prayed we traveled safe instead of prayin’ to win the game, they would’ve…”

“Okay, enough!” Nina interrupted, sensing the growing gloomy atmosphere. “We can talk about that stuff after we eat. The food’s going to get cold.”

Russell knew she was right, and his stomach agreed with her, so he focused on the plate she brought him instead. As expected, it was a very simple lunch with one slider and a heaping helping of egg salad. He took it slow and bit into a corner of the slider, and his taste buds nearly cried with joy knowing it was as good as it smelled.

“Sorry I can’t get you a real burger,” Nina said. “We don’t have cows yet, so we’re limited on how much beef we can use.”

“It’s okay,” Russell replied before taking another bite. “It’s delicious.”

Nina beamed, clearly content with the results. Not long after, everyone else was getting their plates and started to eat. By the time Russell got to his egg salad, the cafeteria was full of kids chatting and munching their food. He noted that under the creamy, smooth eggs were some tiny, diced vegetables. Got to get that nutrition in there somehow, he supposed.

Suddenly, the cafeteria fell completely silent when one final person entered the building. Russell looked away from his meal to see who it was, and his dark brown eyes widened in shock. He recognized that silhouette anywhere. He could never forget those pale blue eyes so full of compassion under that black, majestic mane.

It was him. The man who saved his life. The man who saved all of their lives.

A loud burst of voices followed, all of them cheerfully calling for ‘Mr. Santo’ to come sit with them. The man remained calm and ignored the voices in favor of sitting at Russell’s table instead, much to the children’s disappointment. They seemed to get over it quickly though and activity resumed as if nothing happened. He rolled back the sleeves of his white, ankle-length robe, placed his arms on the table, and greeted Russell with a serene smile.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake and about,” the man said. “How are you feeling?”

“G-Good, sir,” Russell answered, stumbling over his words. “I should be better in a week.”

The man nodded his head. “Yes, that’s what Ms. Booker told me. It’s Russell, correct? My name is Santo Cyneweard. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed the children like to call me Mr. Santo.”

“It’s just easier, ya know?” Chaz interjected with a shrug.

Santo chuckled in response. “I never said it was a problem. You can call me whatever you like. Anyway, Ayako is going to need your picture and measurements, so I would like to ask you to head there after you eat.”

“What for?” Russell asked.

“Well she has to make you proper clothes. You can’t walk around in a hospital gown forever after all. As for your picture, it will be placed on a billboard along with everyone else so we can keep track of who is who.”

“Ah, got it. That would be convenient.”

Russell made a mental note to find the billboard later. Actually… maybe he should do what Santo told him to right away. He did finish eating and he didn’t want to be in the way. Some other kid who needed Santo’s time could take his spot.

He looked to Chaz who was about done with his plate and asked, “Can you take me over to Ayako now?”

“NOW?” Chaz spat out in surprise before swallowing his food. “Uh… okay, man. Sure.”

“Alright, I’ll see you two later then,” Santo said as he watched them get up to leave.

Right when they were about to walk to the exit, their path was blocked by a new child Russell hadn’t seen yet, and the sight of this one nearly caused him to gasp. For a moment, he thought he had almost bumped into a walking corpse. The right side of the child’s head was concaved, so what remained of his short, black hair was parted to the left. His large, brown eyes bore into Russell as his wide nose let out a deep puff like an angered bear about to pounce.

“Oh, don’t mind, Rishi,” Santo said with a light laugh, then waved the child over. “Come here, my son. I’m sure you’re starving.”

The pudgy boy forcibly pushed around the two to sit where Russell had been, which made him relieved that he made the right choice. He could always talk with Santo another time. His current priority should be to settle in.

Moving forward to meeting Ayako, he initially thought he was looking at an older version of Angelica. They both shared the same almond-shaped black eyes, except Ayako had her black hair cut in a bob with round glasses framing her face.

Her eyes narrowed when she noticed Russell gawking at her and said, “No, we’re not related. I’m Japanese and Angelica’s Chinese.”

Really doing a good job making first impressions. Then again, the fact that he had heard this twice now meant the other kids had made the same mistake. Probably multiple times. Kids are dumb like that. It was the parents’ responsibility to teach them the difference.

He let the silence talk for him so Ayako could get her job done as soon as possible, trying not to flinch too hard from the flash when she took his picture. Getting to read that billboard couldn’t come sooner enough.