CHAPTER 18
THE VISIONARIES

CORALINE didn't remember how she fell asleep, but she woke up with dry tears staining her cheeks. She assumed the couple who took her sedated her with some drug. The last thing she remembered was screaming in the van at the top of her lungs, making sure people outside could hear her, and then – nothing. Ultimate blackness, like when she had a vision. If only one of those could've foreseen her kidnapping.

Scrubbing a hand down her face, Coraline fluttered her eyes open. Her butt felt cushioned, and she sat up to realize that she was strapped into a comfortable seat. Her eyes scanned the compact room: other cushioned chairs, marble tabletops, an unopened bottle of wine, subtle vibration from the floor.

She blinked her eyes quickly and turned to the small, circular window beside her. A plane, she thought, you're on a plane, dumbass. But how? And where were the Cooperative members?

Coraline rubbed at her temples and hunched forward. How could she have gotten into this situation? In the middle of the Apocalypse, kidnapped by an unknown organization ... Things had become so normal – well, as normal as they could be. The visions predicted this, but ... she would never be prepared, nor did she think she would survive it.

She had to find someone, and they had to explain what was happening right now. Coraline stood up and stumbled across the shaking floor. She gripped the chairs around her for support. For a second, she almost considered opening the wine bottle first and then worrying about answers later. She shook her head, reminding herself to stay focused.

Pounding her fist against the pilot doors, Coraline felt the heavy rumble of the plane and almost tripped over her own two feet. The door flew open, revealing the female agent. Coraline's vision swirled and she tried her best to focus. "What's ..." Coraline shook her head, eyeing the male agent driving the plane from behind his partner. "What the fuck is going on?! Take me back!"

"We're preparing for the blast," the female answered quickly. "Get down and stay there. You need to prepare for it too."

Coraline ran a hand through her hair. "The blast?! You need to take me back to L.A. right now —"

"Miss Avery, get down!" The male agent called out.

"No!" Coraline seethed, trying to shove her way into the pilot area. "Where are we –?"

And then it came.

The plane flipped sideways, sending Coraline across the carpet. Light flashed and flickered across the walls. Coraline heard an earsplitting explosion and a ringing sound emerged in her head. The light reflected a red hue across the entire cabin. She clutched her chest, trying to find air to breathe, before she looked up at the female agent, staring at her with wide eyes. Coraline crawled over to one of the windows and pulled herself into a seat.

She couldn't believe it. She really couldn't.

Fire reached the clouds, bursting into the open air. Fog spread over the Earth and coated every inch. In the blink of an eye, everything was just ... gone. No more houses. No more land. No more animals. No more people. Life simply ended.

Her mother. She was gone too. Coraline trembled as the realization ran through her brain. She placed her hands on the window glass, feeling the warmth from the blast radiate to her fingertips. Coraline shook her head. No, she refused, mom. It can't be real. It can't be real. This is all just some long vision that I'm going to wake up from and I'm going to find her and she's going to be reading that fucking, goddamn Bible, while muttering things about dad and –

It was true. Coraline's lip quivered. Tears sprang from her eyes – hot, wet tears that just wouldn't cease. Her hands curled against the window, and she began to softly hit them on the glass. Her mother was gone. Fucking gone. Killed in the blast, probably not even knowing that it would happen. Red lined Coraline's eyes as she thought of her mother's death. The female Cooperative agent watched Coraline with a sympathetic stare, hardly moving from her spot. There wasn't anything they could do.

A voice invaded her mind then, one she hadn't heard in a long time. She almost forgot what it sounded like, but upon noticing the tone, her tears stopped. She sniffled loudly and lifted her eyes to the fiery explosion outside her window.

This is only the beginning, Coraline, he once said, determination pulsating in his voice. With your visions predicting the future and my power ... we could take down every bad person by ending the world.

His guardian used to have a name for him: The Chosen One. He could do extraordinary things – things that could destroy life as they knew it. His title meant something fouler, more vile than anything she could've imagined. His title handed him a destiny he couldn't outrun, and neither could she, but she didn't know that yet. Coraline researched it once he was gone, and pushed the information to the back of her mind, wanting to forget it ever existed and only remember the sunshine boy she once knew.

But it couldn't have been him. He was gone. His reckless and childish soul probably got him killed. Besides, how could one boy obliterate the world alone?

•••

It took a day for them to safely land the plane. Good thing too – Coraline overhead the male agent saying that they were running low on fuel. Once the fog cleared enough, he was able to land near the edge of California, but when Coraline looked out the windows, fog was all she saw. It was milky grey and the sky was nothing but a faded green. Every part of the ground was littered with ash and death. It was like everything now ceased to exist and was waiting to be rebuilt.

Coraline decided to keep her mouth shut as they dressed her in a yellow hazard suit. They weren't going to answer most of her questions anyways. She held her breath as they stepped outside. Sweat coated her armpits. When she finally exhaled, she waited for the impact of toxic air, even though she was wearing a protective suit.

A black Jeep was waiting for them outside the plane, with whom she assumed was another agent in the front seat. The three of them loaded themselves into the back seat. Coraline ripped off her mask once they were inside. She sat in the middle, squished between the two agents. She knew they did this purposely.

"We're taking you to an outpost equipped for long-term habitation," the male agent explained, lifting the hood on his suit. Coraline's eyes went wide upon realizing that one of her questions had finally been answered. "It's one of ten around the world. Each of them constructed in minimal fallout zones."

Coraline swallowed hard as the fogged cleared in front of the Jeep, revealing a structure in the distance. "An outpost — gotcha. Are there other people there?" Her voice was slightly trembling.

"Yes," the woman on her right nodded. "But only others like you, and those who could afford to purchase a ticket. The money they paid helped finance this operation."

"So — what? Am I being used for some procreation facility or something?" Coraline muttered, staring ahead as reality hit her.

The man chuckled lightly, but it had a dark tone hidden beneath. "No, Miss Avery."

She was dumped off in front of a deteriorated gate. Picking at her hazard suit, Coraline turned, wanting to ask who was coming with her, when she realized the Jeep was driving away. Her mouth dropped.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" She shrieked, but it wasn't audible inside the suit. "You're leaving me in the middle of a barren wasteland?!"

Slowly turning on her heel, Coraline looked up at the gate. Before she could formulate a plan, the gate opened for her automatically. The fog cleared in front of her. Coraline's eyes flickered around. There was no one.

She walked forward, boots crunching against the ash-covered ground. Looking to her feet, she saw that she was stepping on several dead snakes. Coraline yelped and sprinted forward, looking back to see the gate close again. As the milky fog grew lighter, she saw a person appear a few feet ahead. They were dressed head-to-toe in a black suit with a mask fully covering their face. With a gentle wave, they gestured for her to come forward. Coraline wasn't going to decline a way out, no matter how strange they looked.

The Outpost was a swirling, stone structure, situated in a desert of dead weeds and animal bones. It looked small once she was near it, but when her guide led her through the entrance, Coraline realized that the entire Outpost was underground. She followed the masked figure down a long, dimly-lit hallway, not daring to ask a question. They brought her into a cleaning station, where two other masked workers revealed themselves behind Coraline and shoved her under a vent, which blasted dry-air over her suit. She blinked a few times.

More workers arrived, but these ones wore normal clothes – at least, the most normal outfits she'd seen in the last hour. They were two women, dressed in all grey. One of them unzipped the back of Coraline's suit, while the other removed her mask. Coraline breathed out a sigh of relief and felt her matted hair. She didn't have time to question her surroundings as another entrance opened.

It was a woman, as tall as Coraline's mother. She had dark red hair and eyes that almost appeared black. Her clothing was ... an interesting choice. While Coraline was dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and tight, low-cut Henley, this woman had on formal attire for the 1800s. A flickering candle resided in one of her hands. She carried a cane on her, which clicked loudly against the floorboards as she approached.

"I'm Wilhemina Venable," she greeted in a cold voice. "Welcome to Outpost 3."

Coraline assumed she didn't need to tell Ms. Venable her name as the woman turned on her heel and walked away. She looked around at the workers around her before fast walking down a dark corridor to keep up with Venable's pace. It wasn't that hard, seeing as she walked with a cane. Coraline wondered why.

Venable led her straight forward into an entry hall. A large fire rose from a structure in the middle, with vintage chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The rest of the space was lit by candlelight. Coraline spun around in place, marveling at the classic aesthetic.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

Coraline turned when she realized Venable was speaking to her. She replied in a raspy voice, "This ... this place is underground. Why build it that way?"

Venable smirked and gestured for Coraline to walk by her side. "For many years, this place served as an exclusive boys school. Exclusive enough that no one could know about it. The Cooperative – to whom we owe our eternal gratitude to – took ownership and converted it once they realized what was coming."

So they knew about the End too, Coraline presumed.

The young brunette kept her hands together and stood a careful distance from Wilhemina Venable. She swallowed hard as the older woman led her up a tall, old-fashioned staircase. "Yeah, about that Cooperative," Coraline muttered. "Who even are they? How do they know I have some kind of weird genetics –?"

"The Cooperative is not made up of nations, or armies. It's a collection of the dozen greatest minds mankind has to offer. The visionaries." Venable smirked slightly, taking slow steps up the stairs and revealing a more expansive upper level. "They have plans far beyond the temporary cleansing fire of the bombs."

"Visionaries," Coraline repeated. "If they are such visionaries, how did they not come up with a way to stop Armageddon?"

Venable chuckled, leading Coraline around the second-floor hallway, where the suites resided. Coraline eyed a worker in a grey uniform, scrubbing the ground with a dirty brush and an empty bucket. Every panel inside was either brown or grey, but the candlelight casted a yellow tone across the walls. Coraline wondered how old this boys school truly was, or if that was even it's true origins.

"Silly girl," Venable replied. She shook her head and stopped in place, turning to Coraline with a narrowed stare. Her purple cane tapped loudly against the floor. "Men did a make of this world, because there is no stopping it. The Cooperative offered the worthy a way out. You should be grateful." She cocked her head to the side. "How would you have prevented the Apocalypse, hmm? It isn't so easy."

Coraline crossed her arms over her chest, glancing at anything but Venable's penetrating glare. "I'm not saying that I'm not grateful. I just think –"

Her voice gave out when her eyes landed on a face at the end of the corridor. Walking forward with her hands behind her back was a woman all-too-familiar. Short, dark hair. Piercing blue eyes. Mauve lips. Stout stature and wrinkles that told a thousand mysteries. Coraline's eyes went wide, the sight causing her to take a step backward.

"Oh, I wasn't expecting you," Venable smiled towards her comrade and gestured her way. "Miss Avery," she introduced, viewing to Coraline with a crooked smile, "meet Ms. Mead."

•••

A/N: This chapter is,,,,,,,,,so short ://// I hate fillers gOD I just want our manz to get here but!!!! Not for a few more chapters!!!!!!! It'll be worth it, I promise 💖

In other news, this is how ecroeuf and rxthlessly treat me 🤧🤧🤧 Call out culture is real and thriving!!!!