Joint story-writing

[Reporter]

Let's start a story together. Someone starts it and we all write it up one after another and see where we go with it.

Someone can go ahead and start it, even with a title first.

[Believe_N_Me]

"MILKSHAKE"

[lexicon]

Their eyes stared longingly at the empty lot. Barren and dry. Caked in dust and debris. The wind-strewn leaves a brief reminder of its greener and lusher past.

"Why are we still here?"
"It ain't ever gonna happen."
"They're not going to come."

Few spoke. Their voices sullen. Regret filled the air, overpowering the smell of decay.

"It's this place!" One voice rang with unanticipated zeal.
"I don't know why we even listened. No one knew for sure. We just heard it on the radio and everyone believed that nonsense." He continued.
"We're going to die here! Because we listened." He finished, frothing at the mouth.

No other voice spoke up in contention. What one knew, they all knew.

The Yard. Come to the Yard. It's better than Yours.

All just a lie.

[Believe_N_Me]

     Jonas felt a glimmer of hope swell inside his chest despite the defeated expressions that surrounded him. After all, it was he who had heard the faint voice on the radio. It was he who made them believe that trekking miles away from the safety of their bunker was a risk worth taking. He could feel it in his gut that Sam was trying to reach him. 

[Believe_N_Me]

     Sam. That name hadn't slipped from Jonas's lips in five years, and for a time the memory of the person behind the name had become a blur. There simply wasn't time or space to stroll down memory lane since the Great Reset happened. 

[Reporter]

But a vision flashed through Jonas's mind that Sam was his rescuer whenever the former was in any serious kind of trouble at all. Sam has been like an accompanying spirit who not only knew Jonas too well but who also seemed to read Jonas's subconscious even more than Jonas himself.

Ten years ago, Sam ordered Jonas out of an imminent, burning skyscraper. Seven years ago, Sam snitched on a robber to allow Jonas to pull out his pistol in time to put the robber in flight.

Images of Sam would not be invoked unless Jonas's life was threatened.

Five years have passed that Jonas had not been in the jam. But this Yard call? Jonas felt quarantined. In fact, more stuck than just quarantined. He had no physical means out of this Yard. Conjuring Sam now frightened Jonas that this was no ordinary Yard visit but a failed reliance.