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All
The boys were almost finished with their tour, with only a few days remaining until they were set to return home. They all had the best time doing what they loved, interacting with fans and playing games with each other. Though if they were honest, as fun as it was, they were also quite tired at this point. That’s also the reason why despite being in a new, big city that they’ve never been to before, they chose to spend their free afternoon lounging around their hotel room. They spent the last few hours watching series on the tv, napping and scrolling on their phones. Honestly, it was just what they needed and Nick and Matt were in absolutely no rush to do anything else with their day. The same couldn’t be said for Chris though, who was slowly getting bored, which made it hard for him to stay still.
“Ughh, enough lying around, Nick, Matt, there’s still a few hours of light left, let’s go do something”, he whined, eager to move around a bit.
“Yeah, not happening buddy, I will not be moving from this bed anytime soon, find something else to entertain yourself”, Nick shut him down.
“God you’re annoying, acting like we’re 80 fucking years old. Matty? You’ll come with me right?”, he asked hopefully, looking at Matt.
“Sorry dude, we’ve been doing so much lately I really need this rot-day”, Matt apologised tiredly.
“Fine then be lame, I’ll just go to some shopping centre, see if they have anything good”, Chris said while rolling his eyes. He didn’t want to go alone, but it beat lying around for the rest of the day. He went to the door and started putting on his shoes and hoody.
“Be careful sweety, don’t talk to strangers and make sure to look both ways when you cross the street!”, Nick yelled from across the room, not looking up from his phone.
“Bring back some snacks!”, Matt added, laughing a bit.
“Fuck you both!”, Chris yelled back, already leaving the room.
“Love you too!”, both of them replied in unison.
Chris chuckled to himself, closing the hotel room door behind him.
Chris
The mall was too far to reach by foot, so Chris took the subway there. After an hour or two of exploring the different stores and trying on a few things, he decided he had had enough and was ready to go back to their room. He stopped to buy a few snacks and drinks for all of them, storing them in his backpack and then made his way back to the subway station. He texted their group chat, letting his brothers know he was on his way back.
Luckily he didn’t need to wait long before his train arrived, so Chris boarded the almost empty cart by the end and took a seat, casually looking at the other passengers around. There was only a few of them, a small group of friends, three guys and two girls who looked about the same age as him. They seem fun, he could see them laughing with each other, though he couldn’t make out what they were talking about, since he had his earphones in. Watching them made him feel uncomfortably alone though, since he was used to being surrounded by at least two people and being loud and fun like them. Whatever, I’ll be back soon enough, he thought and proceeded to look out the window, listening to whatever song was currently playing on his playlist.
They were only driving for a few minutes when Chris first felt the shaking. It was just a slight sensation at first, barely harder than the normal rocking of the subway cart. Then suddenly, with little to no warning, the shaking went from a zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds, ooh shit, fuck. Chris didn’t even really have time to panic before the cart started rocking wildly, he pulled out his earphones and could hear the loud screeching noise from the tracks and loud thumps of what were likely heavy objects falling from the ceiling around the tunnel. The lights started flickering and he instinctively made eye contact with the others in the cart, all of them looking equally scared and confused as he felt, what the hell is happening?
“Get down now, take cover under the seats!”, one of the other guys screamed at the top of his lungs, though it was nothing compared to the noise from their surroundings.
Chris agreed that taking cover was probably a smart idea, so he followed the guy’s advice and quickly got on the floor under the seats. And thank god that he did, since less than a minute later, the ceiling ahead of them collapsed, large pieces of stone, dirt and concrete falling down to the carts in front of them, during which the lights went out as well, leaving them in complete darkness. The resulting noise was like something straight from an action movie, Chris wouldn’t believe how deafeningly loud it was if he wasn’t experiencing it himself. The noises all mixed together, the screaming, screeching and various hits and booms combining into one giant explosion of sounds.
Chris tucked himself into a ball, head shielded between his arms, trying to make himself as small as possible. Everything was happening too fast. Although only smaller pieces of debris hit their cart, the force of the sudden stop threw the cart up and to the side, off from the rails and into the wall at the side. All of them inside were being thrown around against the wall, floor and the bottom of the seats, shit that hurts like a motherfucker, Chris could already feel the bruises forming.
Eventually, all movement came to a halt, but he still waited for a while before deeming it safe to move. He could hear the others talking, checking on each other to see if they were all okay.
“Hey dude, you okay?”, a voice called out.
“Y-yeah, I’m fine, just shaken”, Chris yelled back, trying to see where they were. The lights in the cart went out at the initial impact, but luckily some emergency lights survived the ceiling collapse, so some part of the tunnel was light up a bit.
“Let’s wait for the dust to settle, it’s too dangerous to walk around without seeing anything”, another guy instructed.
“Got it”, Chris coughed out, only just noticing the heavy dust making it hard to breathe.
They eventually got up and met in the middle. They were in a subway tunnel underground and the weak emergency lights outside the cart were the only thing allowing them to see even a little bit. The train got flipped to its side because of the impact and they didn’t know how the situation was like, so they agreed to slowly and carefully exit the cart and get closer to the wall with the lights, where they would see how bad their situation was and make a plan. They took out their phones and no one was surprised to see they had no signal, but they still had the flashlights, which proved insanely useful when getting out. They had to help each other climb over shit, but they made it out safely, miraculously with no injuries between them.
They started checking their surroundings to finally see what the hell happened, but what they discovered made them all sick to their stomachs with panic. The ceiling was completely collapsed in front of them, effectively closing off the tunnel. The whole front of the train was smashed and trapped under the fallen debris and it didn’t take a genius to figure out the fate of the other passengers.
Oh my god this can’t be real, Chris thought, eyes growing moist. He could hear someone throwing up behind him. The cart they were in was the only to ‘survive’ the impact, though it was derailed and thrown to the side. We got lucky, I can’t believe I’m alive… I can’t believe how close I was to… Nick and Matt don’t even know, wait… this earthquake or whatever that was, was so intense there was bound to be damage outside as well… what if something happened to them, fuck, what if they’re… , now he was going to be sick. I have to get out of here, the need to run out and find his brothers was overwhelming. Chris had to close his eyes and force himself to breathe evenly, he wanted nothing more than to see Nick and Matt, to make sure they are safe and to take comfort in their arms (he knew he’d likely have some sort of ptsd from this whole nightmarish experience), but he also knew he’d have to stay calm and alert if he wanted any chance of making it out of this alive.
After they all had their mini freak-out sessions, calmed down somewhat and quickly introduced themselves, they started planning their next course of action.
“We have to go see if anyone else survived, there were like fifty people in the carts in front of us, they can’t all be dead!”, Sarah cried desperately.
“Sarah honey, I’m sorry but there’s no way they survived being crushed by all these boulders and debris. Even if they did, we have no way of getting to them now, we’d only risk getting hurt or worse ourselves”, her best friend comforted her, trying to ease her guilt despite knowing they’d all always feel like they could’ve done more. Chris had to look down at that, trying not to cry or puke. So many people… gone just like that. Why did I get to survive when they didn’t?
There was no use in losing energy over it now though, they still needed to save themselves before worrying over others.
“So I’d say going forward is out of the question”, the blonde, JJ, said jokingly.
“Gee, thanks for the insight, any more unhelpful facts you’d like to share?”, Kiara said annoyed.
The others rolled their eyes and chose to ignore them. “We should try to make our way back to the previous station, or at least as close as we can get to it as possible. Someone knows there’s people down here, they’re bound to send a rescue team eventually”, Pope explained calmly. Chris immediately deducted he was probably the voice of reason in their group.
“That makes sense, yeah”, Sarah agreed.
“Alright, let’s do it. Chris, any complaints?”, John B turned to ask, polite enough to include him.
Chris shrugged, “Anything beats waiting here honestly, let’s get the fuck outta here”.
They all nodded and started making their way through, over and under the pieces of the collapsing tunnel.
Nick and Matt
After Chris left, the next few hours went by pretty much the same as before, only quieter. They were relaxing, scrolling on their phones or playing videogames, but after so many hours even they started growing bored of it.
“When did Chris say he was coming back?”, Nick asked, turning off his game.
Matt didn’t look up from his phone when he answered, “He texted the group chat saying he’s leaving the mall like ten minutes ago so shouldn’t be long now”.
“Maybe we should go out to meet him and go to the park or something, I’m starting to get bored now honestly”.
“Yeah”, Matt agreed, putting down his phone for the first time in hours and stretching his arms above his head, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to walk around a bit”.
They managed to get to the door and put on their shoes before the shaking started. They looked at each other as if to confirm what they both felt.
“Was that a- … woah!“, Nick started saying but was cut off when the shaking and rumbling suddenly intensified.
“Oh shit, it’s a real earthquake dude, we have to take cover!”, Matt yelled.
Nick scanned the room to see what they could use, “There”, he said, pointing to the table in the corner, “let’s get under there quick”.
They squeezed themselves under the small table, holding onto each other for comfort.
“What about Chris?!”, Matt asked panicked, looking at Nick with wide eyes.
“We’ll call him once it’s over, he’s capable when it counts, he’ll find cover wherever he is”, Nick had to yell for Matt to be able to hear him. He was also obviously worried about their missing brother, but there was nothing they could do at the moment aside from waiting it out and staying safe themselves.
The shaking got even more intense, everything was falling down around them, paintings were falling down from walls, they could hear glass breaking and various bangs from the outside, car alarms, sirens and screaming mixing together into pure chaos.
After what felt like forever, it finally passed. Nick and Matt agreed to wait for a few minutes more before coming out from under the table, just to be sure. Then Nick started slowly inspecting the room, making sure everything was stable and the floor or ceiling wouldn’t suddenly collapse. In the meantime, Matt was already trying to get a hold of Chris, calling him the second the earthquake passed.
“Nick, he’s not answering, it says the number isn’t available at the moment”, his voice was shaking, getting more and more emotional by the second.
“Hold on Matt, we can’t panic yet, the lines are probably down, it’s a miracle you even have signal now. It doesn’t mean anything happened to him”, Nick reasoned, trying to keep Matt from spiralling.
“We can’t just wait and do nothing, we have to go find him”, Matt knew he had to stay calm but it was hard when his mind kept imagining the worst scenarios.
“We will, but we have to be smart about it, we can’t just blindly run around or we could get hurt, we don’t know how bad the situation is outside”, Nick said, taking the lead. They agreed to leave a note and Nick’s phone in the room in case Chris came back before them and couldn’t use his own for some reason. Then they packed a backpack, taking the first-aid kit from the hotel bathroom and all the drinks they had in their minifridge.
They slowly made their way out of the hotel, ignoring the frantic staff members and other guests running around checking on everything.
Once outside, they immediately noticed that the earthquake has left its marks; while the buildings were mostly fine, a lot of windows were cracked, some older houses were partly collapsed, there were a lot of car accidents, either pilling up in the middle of the road or even over crosswalks from where some drivers lost control. People were already gathering in the streets, assessing the damage and figuring out what to do next. There was still a lot of screaming and crying, as well as sirens and alarms going off in the background.
None of that mattered though, not to Nick and Matt, who only had their brother on their minds.
“We know Chris left the mall roughly ten minutes before the earthquake started so he was probably either waiting at the subway station or already riding the train back”, Nick started trying to figure out where to begin their search.
“Sound right yeah, so we should go to the station closest to the mall and start from there”, Matt suggested.
“Agreed. It’ll take a while to get there by foot so let’s hurry”, Nick added and they were on their way.
The closer they got to the station the worse things got. A few stations away from the mall, the entire road has collapsed, meaning that whole part of the subway tunnel was destroyed and buried. If Chris was already on a train riding back…, Nick had to pinch himself to stop that though, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he couldn’t break down now, nothing was certain yet.
That thought didn’t last long though, as his remaining ‘calm’ flew out the window upon finally making it to the station at the mall.
“Collapsed? What do you mean collapsed?? Who made these stations, the fucking three little pigs?”, Nick was going out of his mind, screaming at the subway employees outside of where was supposed to be the entrance to the underground station.
“Sirs, I’m going to need you to calm do-“, the worker was cut off by a screaming Matt, “I will not calm the fuck down lady, my brother is down there and we need to get him out of there now!”
“As I’ve said, the entrance here has unfortunately collapsed, as well as the tunnel leading down from the station. The train that last left this station has never made it to the next one, so it’s safe to assume anyone who was down there at the time of the earthquake is now trapped inside. We’re still waiting on the emergency and rescue teams, but there’s not much we can do before they get here, as we don’t know the extent of the damage. The rescue team will do their best to get down there and rescue any possible survivors-…”
By that point Matt was no longer listening, he couldn’t, his head started spinning, vision blurring at the edges, his skin felt all wrong, his ears were ringing and the pressure in his chest and stomach were too much, he thought he might throw up. Nick dismissed the subway-worker and gave all his attention to Matt, trying to safely guide him through his panic attack.
Nick was doing his best to stay calm, he knew he had to remain in-control and strong for all three of them, but he was still only human, only a young man, worried sick about his missing, possibly dead, brother.
There was nothing more they could do at this moment, there was no way of getting to Chris at this point. Both the entrance and the middle of the tunnel were collapsed, trapping all the passengers inside, with no way of getting them out until the rescue and emergency teams arrived and secured a safe path for them, which would take hours if not days. And that’s assuming the train and/or people weren’t crushed by the collapsed ceiling or other fallen debris. Things weren’t looking too good and it was hard for Nick and Matt to remain optimistic, fear and panic clouding their judgement. They already decided that no matter what, they weren’t leaving this city without Chris, their tour and team be damned. They would stay right here at this destroyed subway station during the day, only leaving for the hotel to sleep. They would be here when the rescue team comes up with Chris, no matter how long it took.
“I just hope he actually bought those snacks we were talking about, at least he’d have some food and drinks”, Matt said to Nick, both of them looking over the sealed-off entrance sadly.
Chris
I’m so glad I remembered to get the snacks holy shit, Chris thought as he greedily drank what was supposed to be Nick’s drink.
It’s been almost a full day since they got trapped inside the tunnel. After their small group reached the end yesterday, walking as close to their original entrance as they could, they were forced to stop and ‘make camp’ due to the fallen rubble closing them off from the world. They could tell they weren’t that far off from the station by the mall, but there was nothing else they could’ve done at the moment aside from waiting to be rescued. Luckily the emergency lights stayed on the whole time, so at least they had that.
They gathered all the food and drinks they happened to have on them, which turned out to be surprisingly a lot, since all of them had their own water bottle and some light snacks or a supply for three people in Chris’s case (he was happy he got to contribute so much, feeling even the slightest bit useful). Then they made a plan to ration them out to last them around three days. The rescue team will just have to come before then.
(Though Chris wasn’t worried about that, Nick and Matt knew he was down there and he could rest easy knowing they wouldn’t let anyone even think about stopping or resting until he was out).
They passed the time telling funny stories, poking fun of each other and playing stupid games, “I spy with my little eye, something… brown”. “Is it a boulder?” “Fuck”.
In all honesty, Chris was glad he got stuck in there with them. They were a fun group who clearly cared for each other and were used to working together, they remained calm and immediately thought of the best course of action for their predicament. Although a small, selfish part of him wished his brother were him, a bigger part of him was glad that they weren’t. After revealing his worries over his brothers’ safety during one of their conversations, Pope and Sarah immediately reassured him that there was no way their hotel got damaged during the earthquake and they were certainly safe and uninjured if they were inside. So while Chris would feel infinitely better with Nick and Matt by his side, he was also able to remain calm and collected just knowing that no matter what happened here, they were safe.
He thought about them a lot in the next hours, drawing on his best memories with them for comfort. He always knew he was lucky to have them, but it felt even more raw and real now. He couldn’t wait to see them again and tell them.
All
After two whole days, the longest of their lives, the rescue squad finally managed to secure a path down to the tunnel. They went down with heavy equipment and various supplies, and it took Nick everything he had not to beg and scream to let him join them.
He and Matt remained outside, as close as they could be without getting in the way, where they’ve been almost constantly for the last two days. They stood there holding onto each other for support, as they watched and waited, hoping they’d get their happy ending.
To say Chris was overjoyed when they heard and then saw people approaching them was an understatement. Their little group let out stupidly loud sighs of relief, hugging and laughing while calling out and waving to the rescue team. They’d made it, they’re safe.
Nick and Matt were first in line to see who the rescue team would return with. They were squeezing each other’s hands so hard they were sure to bruise, but they couldn’t calm down as they watched people starting to come out with more focus than they’ve ever had for anything in their life.
And then finally, finally they saw the person who occupied their every though for the last 50h. The second they saw Chris they both started crying, pushing through the other people waiting, workers and security to run straight to him.
Chris heard his name being yelled but he didn’t even have time to fully turn to that direction when someone twosomeones barrelled into him. “Oooff”, all the air was knocked out of him and he was pulled into a hug so tight he though his ribs would snap.
“Hey guys, did you miss me?”, Chris joked, eyes quickly growing moist from relief and happiness.
“Shut up you dork, ohmygod, are you alright?”, Nick asked through his sobs, holding onto Chris. He was so glad they got him back, the overwhelming relief he felt made him dizzy.
“I’m fine, better now though”, Chris replied quietly, tears spilling over.
Matt didn’t say anything yet, he couldn’t. He was sobbing, holding onto Chris for dear life. Despite not allowing himself to think about anything happening to Chris during the past two days, actually seeing him safe and unharmed, being able to touch him and talk to him… it was overwhelming, he couldn’t believe the wait was over.
“We- we were so scared Chris you can’t imagine. They told us the tunnel collapsed and there was no way to get to you, they couldn’t even confirm you were alive and we couldn’t do anything but wait here. I’m so glad you’re okay, thank you for coming back to us”, Matt forced out, barely having time to breathe between speaking and sobbing.
This pushed Chris over the edge, as he finally felt like it was well and truly over, he was back and they were all safe and together again. He started crying hysterically, letting go of all the stress, fear, uncertainty and even guilt that was festering inside him.
“Shhh, we got you, you’re safe, just let it out”, Nick comforted, rubbing his hand over Chris’s shoulder.
They stood there hugging and crying for who knows how long, uncaring they were in public and people could see them. They were just so unbelievably relieved and grateful. They were still three, together again, as they were supposed to be. So whatever the fallout, be it nightmares, ptsd or even the excessive bureaucracy of skipping their last few tour-dates, they’d deal with it together. They’ll be just fine.