Disaster Report Diaries (Raw Danger!) Part Fourteen

This is my exploration of the Disaster Report series where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. Now let’s continue Raw Danger!...

After managing to escape certain death several times with his driving skills, Isaac Schiller had escaped Del Ray, but now I moved on to Paige Meyer’s story…

It was 25th December at 14:09 (24 hours since Mayor Goldstein’s reception), when Paige was awoken by the school bell. Opening the locker she had been in, which was now laying on the floor, she took in the damage of the classroom. The entire school was now sitting at an angle…

Looking at the locker, a flashback to what put her in there played through her head: Emily Rose and her friends pushed her in and then left to take part in the evacuation which had just been announced.

Taking control, I decided not to dwell on it, I had to get to the gym for evacuation, as per a message on the blackboard. Most of the doors in the hallway were locked, but thankfully the one at the end of the blocked hallway wasn’t! It appeared that the building had shifted to the left, as the only route open to me was the apparently missing wall which let out onto a window ledge. I had to crawl beneath a blackboard to access it and kept crawling over to a broken window, but not wanting to hurt myself on the glass I stood up before I reached it. I picked up a Triangle Compass and got inside, out of the wind and rain.

As I reached safety, I heard someone calling — it was a teacher in a window opposite, across the courtyard. Her name was Kelly Austin, and if that sounds familiar, she was a survivor of Stiver Island! She was a student teacher and recognised me by name, telling me to get to the gym. I signalled the letters O and K with big cheerleader letters, and she signalled back that she understood — then there was a tremor and she screamed, disappearing from the window…

I left the classroom and had a flashback of being bullied in the hallway by Emily, and a teacher who sounded like Peter Lorre interrupting it but believing the lie of “It’s nothing”... While I knew that I had to go up the hallway, I backtracked to the classroom behind me where I found a Class Journal. The entry I read was dated 20th of December, thanking someone for helping them realise that they had to explain something to their parents.

Along the hallway was a noticeboard with a copy of the Campus Newspaper pinned up. I read what was the December issue of the Del Ray High School Paper, which asked for people to vote for their favourite event in 2010, featured popular and beautiful Emily Rose, and warned about suspicious individuals in the area.

I stopped for a flashback to Emily throwing toilet water on me while talking with her friends about me not returning to school anymore. The sound of a door made me wonder if anyone was in the restroom, so I decided to check but found both of them empty. One of the cubicle doors was shut, but I was unable to open it. As I walked away from the toilets, a tremor stopped me in my tracks.

When the tremor ended, I discovered a teacher behind me! He had a weird look on his face, and told me that my exam scores were awful, and in fact I was awful. He proclaimed that he was my new tutor, and we would begin immediately. I screamed for help and ran as he chased me downstairs and out through an open door. A flood of water barrelled towards us, as did a taxi which barely remained ahead of it!

I got into the building opposite and shut the door just in time, trapping the lecherous teacher outside. I grabbed a Sports Bag from on top of a locker, then went into what appeared to be the school supplies store, though it was empty apart from a Heating Pad and some Knit Gloves, both of which I grabbed. I also found a Hot Dog Compass, before having a flashback to Emily somehow guilting me into buying her things. I decided to not focus on bad memories and keep going, heading upstairs.

I checked the roof access and found a Beam Compass… uhh… Compass? One of those things you use to draw circles, but as a tool for cardinal directions. I managed to locate the gym, but it was locked and a note on the door was addressed to me, from Emily, and telling me the key was in the staff room. I picked up a Fire Hose and a Mop, then tried to find the staff room, but I was stopped by Kelly calling out. She was trapped under a piano and asked me to help, so I offered to look for something to move it.

In an office nearby, I found a Propane Tank, Vegetable Oil, and a Portable Stove, all of which I grabbed. Returning to Kelly, I decided to pour the Vegetable Oil on her feet, but it didn’t help me pull her up no matter how much I lubricated. So, I used the Fire Hose as a pulley to lift the piano enough to free her. Kelly asked me to stay with her and go warm up at the stove in the staff room, so I agreed.

Sat in the staff room, Kelly asked what I had been doing since the evacuation, so I told her that Emily had locked me in a locker. She said that she would speak to Emily’s parents. I asked about the evacuation point, and Kelly told me a rescue helicopter was on its way to pick people up at the gym. Unprompted, she explained that she had survived the Capitol City debacle, but since I would have been 11 years-old at the time, I said that I didn’t know about it.

Kelly was starting to get depressed at being in the middle of yet another disaster, so I tried to tell her that I was just as unlucky as her. Instead, I laughed and said “perhaps our luck has changed”? It somehow cheered her up, so she got the key and went out into the hallway. I quickly browsed the desks and found my Report Card, which said that I studied hard, was sociable, and should get involved in the school government.

I followed Kelly to the gym, when the corridor floor caved in! I barely grabbed hold of the metal beam in time, but I didn’t have a chance to climb up, as Mr Savage (AKA the lecherous teacher) reappeared at that moment! I quickly clambered hand-over-hand across the bar while he walked across it, and when I reached Kelly there was a tremor which caused him to fall!

It had been three hours, as it was 17:02 when we got into the gym, with Kelly telling me that Mr Savage’s death wasn’t my fault. She went downstairs, but I stayed on the upper level, where I found a Rubber Compass, before heading down after Kelly. At the far end was a stage, which had a few kids on as well as who I assumed was the principal. He was coughing and clearly unwell, as were the children, but the rest had been evacuated already and another helicopter was on its way.

The principal gave me the Gymnasium Key and told me to check if I could see the helicopter. First, however, I picked up a Heating Pad and First Aid Kit from a box and warmed up at a space heater before heading outside.

Someone was stood next to a recycling bin, so I asked what they were doing there and they said they were waiting for the spaceship. Apparently, since we were alike, they gave me a Crimson Ruby (apparently AKA Ruby of Pain). I put the Gymnasium Key and a Heating Pad in the recycling bin, then looked around and got an absolute shock: there was a canister with a radioactivity warning label just floating in the water next to the gym. A red light on either end of it flashed menacingly.

I ran back inside to report to the Principal, and a tremor dislodged part of the balcony, creating a ramp up to a now-broken window. I warmed up, then spoke to the teachers, but we were interrupted by someone in a lab coat, who said something was worse than he thought. I asked what was worse, and they said that the situation was bad, so they needed “his” help. Kelly asked why we needed to get out of here quickly, and I wondered what part of escaping a natural disaster she didn’t understand after having survived two of them…

The principal said that we should go to the rooftop of building one, but the lab coat refused, saying they deserved to stay there. The teachers and two of the unwell students disappeared without a trace and the third student grabbed my ankle — it was Emily! I had a flashback of her saying she’d forgive me for being me if I begged her. From her position on the floor, she asked for my help as she couldn’t walk, she wasn't feeling well. Probably the radiation poisoning, I’d say. I stared, laughed, yelled, told her to apologise, and asked if she was sure she wanted my help, before finally agreeing. If I was going to save her life, she was going to pay in humiliation.

We exited via the broken window, and I took her down to the far end of the small rooftop we were on to get a Hardhat Compass. Then, we crossed into the next building and warmed up at the heater in the classroom before exiting into the hallway. Spotting someone in a lab coat, I assumed it was Mr Savage back for more, but it was just some guy with a bandage over one eye, and when we approached they were joined by a woman in a pink cardigan, who told us not to worry about him.

There was a Cat Compass in a bathroom, but we had to go back the other way. A storm had begun, with thunder and lightning that none of the other characters had experienced… We went upstairs and could hear the helicopter nearby, so continued on. The hallway began to crumble, but remained intact until we were out of it, and had reached the stairs to the roof! But a tremor took out those very same stairs, and Emily barely managed to save herself from falling.

I remembered her taking me to the roof and threatening me that I shouldn’t return to school the next semester. The temptation to leave her or refuse to help was nearly overwhelming, and I looked down at her and laughed. However, I did reach down to help, and she apologised, asking for forgiveness, which I said I could never give. But I couldn’t leave her. Together, we went out onto the roof and got on the helicopter with the teachers.

After an epilogue which summarised events, I received Ending Type 4-A, which stated that I had travelled two miles and warmed up five times across 00:39:59, with my Pedometer Compass saying over 23,145.

But the disaster wasn’t over. Joshua, Stephanie, Amber, Isaac, Sophia, Paige and Emily weren’t the only people to escape the city, there was also an amnesiac in a lab coat. Now, I was taking control of him!