Datalie - if the world was ending

Chapter One

David was sitting in traffic talking with Jason, Carly and Erin about the bit they had just filmed. They were laughing at a joke Jason took a little too far when their phones started blowing up from the group chat.

Heath: is everyone okay?

Zane: that was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt! Holy shit!

Jeff: Nerf almost had a heart attack but we're good!

Scott: Todd and I are too! But man that was huge

'There was an earthquake?' Erin asked from the back seat.

'What are you talking about?' David questioned from the front. Because he was driving he hadn't been looking at his phone.

'The group chat. Everyone is talking about an earthquake that just happened. Apparently it was massive. I didn't feel anything though,' Carly answered.

Jason started reading all the replies and taking a tally of all their friends while Carly and Erin looked at the news articles that were starting to pop up about it.

'Apparently it was the worst in The Hills. I wonder if your house is okay David'

'The Hills? Has anyone heard from Nat?' David didn't even wait for a reply, he was already dialing Natalie to check if she was okay. No answer.

'That's weird. Natalie is always glued to her phone,' Jason said. Sparing a quick glance at David noticing his mood shift immediately.

The Tesla became quite tense as David's mood turned to panic in seconds.

'Why wouldn't she answer me? Someone else try calling her. We were bickering this morning and she joked she was going to block me, maybe she did?'

All three passengers reached for their phones, not wanting to make David wait in his current mood. Carly was the first one to get her phone unlocked and had it on speaker.

One ring, then it cut off.

'Someone else try!' David said with a slightly raised voice

Jason tried next with the same results. Erin had her phone to her ear in the back seat.

'I tried calling TJ and the same thing happened, my texts won't go through either. A power line must be down or something.' Erin commented with a shaky voice.

'WHY WON'T TRAFFIC MOVE?!' David yelled and hit his steering wheel

'Calm down Dave, I'm sure Nat is fine. Do you know what she was going to do today? Maybe we can pinpoint where she was,' Jason said trying to diffuse an increasingly panicked David.

'She said she had too many emails to answer and that's why she couldn't come with us to film.' David said while taking deep breaths and trying to calm his nerves. 'I mentioned that if she was staying home she should try out different camera angel tests for the Elephant Floss experiment.'

'Okay, that's not too bad. So she was in the backyard or in the living room. Not a big deal.' Just as Jason was finishing talking David realized he could turn the radio on and hopefully get an update. It looked like traffic wouldn't start moving anytime soon.

'BREAKING NEWS' the radio yelled 'we've just learnt that some high risk properties in The Hills have fallen'

Jason, Carly and Erin all turned and stared at David as all the color drained from his face.

'Phone lines should return shortly to those outside of The Hills area but a fire has recently broken out causing more damage to those within The Hills neighborhood'