Aurora Wasteland Quarantine

by Vaughn Ashby

  The two of them made their way over to the snug coverall wearing man and woman who introduced themselves as Thomas and Samantha. Like everyone else in the room, they had cloth masks on, but were elbow to elbow with each other. They were obviously comfortable with each other. Diggs glanced at Joanne, who, in turn, glanced back at him. Like Thomas and Samantha, they were elbow to elbow. Neither of them had been this close to anyone outside their families in months. Diggs was married with a kid. Joanne lived common-law with her girlfriend and many cats. The closeness felt strange, both of them wanted to inch away from the other, while at the same time they wanted to inch closer. Though not in the expected sexual way, they both weren’t each other's types, but more in a human connection way.

  Thomas and Samantha called three more names, Kate, Rosario, and Scott. A tattooed dark haired woman, a redhead woman, and a long haired, stubble faced man joined the group. Thomas confirmed everyone’s identity by asking for their IDs, then Samantha invited them all to follow her. She turned and led the group through a set of double doors and into a wide hallway. Diggs and Joanne hung back and brought up the tail of the group.

  The walls of the hallway were lined with what Diggs at first assumed were statues, but Joanne quickly corrected him that they were bodies. She told him that she’d seen things like this before at a bodies exhibit. The skin was removed from dead bodies that were then posed into interesting positions to best show the muscles, bones, and everything else underneath. She’d found it creepy before at the exhibit, now it was whatever came after creepy. Diggs agreed and pointed out the numbers on plagues next to each exhibit.

  The numbers weren’t sequential, in fact, they appeared to almost be random. They passed 1, 2, 3 then 5 and 8 , then the numbers got bigger very fast, and Thomas interrupted them. He told them that they would find out what this was all about soon, they just had to get some HR stuff out of the way first.

  Joanne hated starting new jobs for that single fact, all the HR garbage that went along with it. Diggs had been with his old company long enough to have completely forgotten about the process until this moment. He didn’t mind it, it meant getting a job, which for right now, he was willing to look past all the stupid small things.

  The hallway ended with several door options, each had a digital display above the door. Thomas and Samantha led them through the door that said group ‘317811’. Both Diggs and Joanne looked at each other as they exchanged the same thought. They were here for a job interview, not some amusement park ride. That seemed odd.

  A couple turns down smaller hallways and the group ended up at a door with no markings on it. Thomas and Samantha apologized that it would be a tight space with everyone in at the same time, but not to worry it wouldn’t last long. Thomas and Samantha opened the door and were the first to step into the small room that was an embarrassment to small rooms everywhere. In fact, the room should have been classified as a micro or tiny room. As all seven of them packed into the room, Thomas asked Scott to close the door, which he did, much to the disappointment of everyone inside.

  Life at the time of The Virus had forced people to become accustomed to having their own six feet of space when possible. The room they were currently all occupying was less than six feet total in square footage. Everyone was close and touching everyone. Diggs constantly apologized as he was the largest person in the room. Joanne giggled at his embarrassment.

  The temperature in the room rose quickly with all of them in it. Samantha comforted everyone. That it was almost over. Then the lights flickered off and back on again only for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough for one of their group members to go missing. Rosario the red haired woman was gone. Confused, everyone looked around the tiny room. There was nowhere she could have gone, the door hadn’t opened, they all would have noticed. Plus, the lights were only off for a second, that wasn’t even long enough to breathe let alone leave the room.

  The group murmured to themselves as Thomas and Samantha ushered them out of the tiny room and back into the hallway. They told everyone not to worry about it, and that a lot of people in the office have transitioned to working from home, that’s probably just where she was.

  The whispers from the group increased at this. Diggs and Joanne knew it was a bullshit answer, and just as they were about to leave, Samantha started handing out everyone's ID badges with their ID numbers on them. Diggs was 121393, Joanne was 196418. There were pictures on the badges they didn’t remember taking, in fact, they seemed to have been taken when they were in the tiny room.

  Thomas and Samantha laughed at the looks on everyone's face. They told them that the room was for scanning them to make sure they were human, and to get their ID pictures, what did they think it was for?

  Samatha rolled up her sleeve and flashed the group a tattoo on her forearm that looked like it was done on some poor tattoo artist’s first day. She told them it was her ID number 1597. She’d been there a long time, and that she was excited to have them on the team. Diggs and Joanne exchanged a look. Neither of them sure this level of strangeness was worth it for the story at the end, but they shrugged and followed Thomas and Samantha down the hallway.

  Down one person from their initial group, their journey to their next destination was short. Thomas and Samantha ushered them into a room that looked more like a museum. There were cement floors, two leather backless benches, and lighting that highlighted the walls. Thomas started into a speech he’d obviously done dozens, if not hundreds, of times. He walked around the room showcasing the art on the walls, or rather the walls that were art. Hand drawn art encompassed the room along the walls. It reminded Joanne of cave paintings, and Digg’s of his own house and the wall art his son reluctantly does repeatedly in his bedroom.

  Thomas told them that the group used to worship a giant spider. Then after the spider god turned on them in a traditional summoning, the group went corporate where they purchased the building they were in today. Unfortunately, soon after, they ran into financial trouble because… well… they bought a building, after which, they managed to capture their spider god, and milk it for financial means. Since then, they’ve been expanding and looking for more people. Which was why they were all there today. The corporation has plans for the future, exciting non-spider plans.

  By the time they exited the room, both Diggs and Joanne were certain they were on some kind of game show. The type that did ridiculous things to random people. They both believed this couldn’t be real, but it was.

  As the group gathered in the hallway after the history lesson, Thomas and Samantha did a headcount. Kate, the tattooed dark haired woman was missing. One missing person was possible, two missing people, shit both Diggs and Joanne had officially given up on wanting a good story. Now, they just wanted out. The two of them glanced at each other, then turned and ran back down the hallway the way they came. Something was happening to the people in their group and they wanted none of it.

  They passed the museum-like room, then passed what they thought was the tiny room, and just as they thought they were going to break out into the large hallway with all the bodies posed in it, they didn’t. Instead, they exited out into a large sound stage. The size of the room was enormous. TV cameras and lights were directed at a set that looked like the inside of a cabin. Board games lined one of the walls. Looking at the room, they expected it to be bustling with people, but it was silent. The closer they looked, the more it appeared like everyone had just vanished. Cameras were still on, coffee sat in mugs next to chairs, cue cards lay scattered around the floor just off stage. Had something happened here? Had the cast and crew been evacuated? And most importantly what the hell did this company do?

  Halfway across the large room, the doors they’d come in through burst open. It was Thomas and Samantha, they were yelling for them to return to the group. That they needed to stick together and… halfway to Diggs and Joanne, Thomas vanished like someone had just edited him out of existence. Samantha paid no attention to it. She didn’t sk
ip a beat and continued to scold them.

  Diggs asked what they were filming here. Samantha ignored the question and ushered the two of them out of the room. She insisted they had places to be, they insisted they weren’t going anywhere but home, to which Samantha laughed and said it was all the same thing. That they’d gotten the jobs and would be set up to work from home. They just had to fill out some final paperwork.

  Samantha led them out of the large room through a separate set of doors they hadn't come in through, and into a room with a massively long dining table in the middle of it. She placed Diggs at one end and Joanne at the other. Papers with their names on them sat waiting for them, a pen carefully placed next to the papers. Samantha laughed with excitement, she told them to sign, and then they could get started and get them home.

  Joanne laughed, mimicking Samantha, then whipped her papers on the table. She asked where everyone was. Samatha looked at Joanne confused, then said she didn’t know what she meant.

  Diggs started listing the names of the people from their group, Kate, Rosario, Scott, Thomas, then demanded to know where they were.

  Samantha awkwardly smiled at them, then like Thomas, she vanished. Diggs and Joanne were alone again. They looked at each other, in a way that was becoming more and more familiar, they wanted... no needed, to get out of there. Just as they were both about to get to their feet, a team of waiters and waitresses flooded into the room. Each carried a single piece of plating. One at a time, they placed them down in front of Joanne and Diggs. First, a plate, then a knife, then a spoon, soon they each had a complete dining set in front of them. The last to be placed in front of them was a glass of some sort of sparkling drink and a steak with gravy drizzled over it.

  The waitress and waiters exited the room just as quickly as they’d arrived. Diggs poked the steak. It seemed normal, but that didn’t mean he was going to eat it. Joanne pushed her chair back and rushed towards Diggs. This was all enough, it was time to go, time to… a loud voice echoed around the room. It sounded muffled and like it was coming through a set of old speakers. ‘You just have to eat a bit of it then this will all be over.’

  Diggs shook his head and, like Joanne had done with the papers, then whipped the plate, glass and steak clear off the table in a cacophony of noise. Joanne laughed, grabbed the table cloth on the long table, and yanked it hard enough to send her plate, steak, and table setting flying.

  Before her steak could hit the floor, the lights to the room went out, leaving Diggs and Joanne in the dark. A single light remained on, it illuminated a door neither of them had noticed before. “Good job with the whole not eating the steak test. You can go now,” The voice echoed around the room.

  Diggs and Joanne looked at each other confused, test? Test for what?

  Slowly the two of them crossed the room towards the single light and the door it lit up. Joanne was the first to the door and rested her hand on the knob. She sighed, this was all stupid. She just came here for a job, she didn’t want all this extra garbage she… Diggs watched Joanne vanish like she’d been edited out of life. He placed his hand on the doorknob, it was still warm from her touch. He turned the knob and stepped into a standard office meeting room. The room was empty, except for Thomas, who laid in the center of the table dead. Broccoli had been placed over his eyes. Other vegetables scattered around his body.

  Cautiously, Diggs approached the body. He half whispered Thomas’s name to see if he would wake up, but he didn’t. His chest didn’t rise. The man was dead. Except he wasn’t, not fully, but only technically. “Like I said, we’re moving on to other bigger things,” Thomas said, moving only his mouth. “We used to worship the spider, now we worship something bigger, something…” Thomas froze with his mouth still open. The next word frozen on his lips.

  And that was it, Diggs snapped. He’d had enough, he had a kid at home and none of this was cool, whatever this was, it had to end here and now. He wasn’t playing and… the walls around him flopped open. A man with a clipboard wearing an old sweater rushed over to him. He told Diggs he’d gotten the job, he just needed him to sign the papers and it would all make sense. Diggs grunted, and with all the non-politeness he had told the man to “Fuck off.” The man replied simply by saying, “oh I guess you don’t get the job, well we weren’t sure you were right anyway, you know with your precondition and all.”

  Diggs stared at him confused, what precondition?

  The man laughed as if he could hear Digg’s thoughts. “The Virus. As much as we don’t believe it’s really here, you have it, thus disqualifying you for the…” in mid-sentence, just like Kate, Rosario, Scott, Thomas, Samantha, and Joanne, the man vanished leaving Diggs alone. Leaving him alone.

  It took hours for Diggs to find his way back out of the office to the lobby. He didn’t see another living soul on his way out. As he got on the elevator to leave he thought of Joanne. He hoped that wherever she was she was ok. He was going to tell everyone about this place. He pressed the button on the elevator and the doors closed. Everyone needed to know, he needed to find Joanne he… the doors to the elevator opened. The large room with the table sat in front of him. Joanne was still on one end. Diggs smiled at her and noticed everyone else who had vanished sitting at the table with her. He stepped free from the elevator, and vanished leaving the world he knew behind.

  Newspaper Headlines

  “Gaslighting and misinformation leads to increased death from The Virus” - Edmonton Epoch

  “Cult transitions from Spider worship to Corporate mass extinction” - Brightness Falls Gateway

  “Data points to conservative governments mishandling of virus consistent across the globe” - E-Calgary Science Digest

  “If the virus is so serious why aren’t the spiders dead?” - Your uncles Facebook page and Newsletter

  “Virus related job loss leading to people taking jobs they’d normally avoid” - Lethbridge Dark Times

  Conclusion from the Narrator

  That’s it, who knew that people, as the world returned to normal, the new normal would be dealing with all the crazy, weird, and strange things that escaped while we weren’t paying attention.

  Like Diggs, a lot of us were let go. That’s life, you roll with it when you can. It sucks, trust me I know.

  Ok, I’m going off script here, sometimes I feel like Digg’s story. No not Diggs, but the story itself. I feel like pieces of what I knew as myself vanish from… well… me. I hope all this ends soon. I need to get out. I need to see other people. I… I don’t know.

  URBAN EXPLORING WITH ONE EYE OPEN

  INTRO FROM THE NARRATOR

  As much as we’d all love to have hit the pause button on life when The Virus hit, that simply wasn’t the case for a lot of us. There’s an old saying ‘don’t let a good crisis go to waste’, and that’s exactly what a select few dick bags around the world tried to do. Liberties and freedoms for some people came under fire, or rather, the magnitude of it was made bluntly clear to the rest of the world just how unequal it was for some of us, and no I’m not talking about your shit bag relatives who didn’t want to wear a mask. Not all skin colors are treated equally, not all genders are treated equally, not all humans are treated equally. I can’t believe that is a sentence that needs to be written down, not all humans are treated equally. It blows my mind, but like a lot of people, I should have known and I should have been doing something about it a long time ago. It shouldn’t take a crisis for me to realize how the world truly was. Though to be fair that’s not uncommon.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself, the Aurora Wasteland is all around us. It doesn’t give two tinkles about The Virus, the inequality, the lack of human decency. Unless it does actually care about those things. The more I look into everything, the more I start to think there is even more here than I thought. The Aurora Wasteland isn’t a passive observer. ‘You don’t let a good crisis go to waste’.

  Here’s the thing, much like The Virus, the Aurora Wasteland is out there, whether you kn
ow it or not. It’s part of the world. You can choose to believe it or not, but one of those choices is dumber than the other. At times in the world, there are bigger things than ourselves, events, and causes. At times there are things even bigger than that. Things that are hard to understand, things that are hard to comprehend.

  Welcome to the Aurora Wasteland Quarantine.

  Police report

  Fire Damage to buildings and rooftops following protest rally, despite no fire alarm warnings

  Alberta, Property Damage, RCMP

  Red Deer, Alberta – Red Deer RCMP are seeking anyone who may have witnessed anyone tampering with fire detection devices on rooftops in the downtown region. All buildings in the affected area have melted or damaged rooftops, despite there being no indication of actual flames in the region. Police report that the hot item in the area, other than tempers, is your mom’s buns hun.

  Ok, I may have added that last part. But who doesn’t love a good your mom’s butt joke?

  The Story

  I took the police report, connected it to other sources, cross referenced it with the Aurora Wasteland website, and well…ran with it. Below is the story I was able to piece together…

  Cities are built on the carcasses of the cities before them. Flood ways, sewers, abandoned buildings below the surface of the earth, heck abandoned buildings above the surface of the earth. It’s all a mystery built on a playground. At least that’s what gets urban explorers out of the house. Exploring the forgotten, it can be magical and deadly all at the same time. There is a reason most of the places urban explorers yearn to go are closed off from the public. It’s dangerous and unforgiving, but worth every second.