Lex had opened his mouth to tell her everything that he and Marcus had worked so hard to keep secret since they’d found it. His probably very coherent thoughts came out in a series of swears as he clapped his hands over his ears to shield them from the blaring alarm. “What in the<span style="font-style: italic">hell</span>is that?” he shouted over the immediate onslaught of panic. He couldn’t make out much through the disorienting sounds coming from<span style="font-style: italic">everywhere</span>and<span style="font-style: italic">all at once</span>, but it sounded like everyone else knew something that they didn’t. He felt a hand, much smaller and less calloused than his brother’s, latch onto his arm to anchor him to reality.<br/><br/><span style="font-weight: bold">"I can't tell if it's a fire or something worse,”</span>he heard Blue shout from beside him. He could tell she was close, at least close enough to hold onto his arm, but she sounded yards away.<br/><br/>She yelled something after that, something about not having to walk, but he couldn’t make it out over the sensory overload. “Marc!” he called out, grasping out wildly. “Marcus!” He finally batted around until his hand found Marcus’.<br/><br/>Wild eyes tried to follow the directions people were going, but Marcus quickly found out that they weren’t all congregating in any particular direction, but rather breaking up and scattering. “What is happening..,” Marcus whispered to himself, watching the chaos unfold in slow motion around him. Lex let his hand go and gripped his forearm instead, shaking him a little bit.<br/><br/>“Mom!”<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Fuck.</span>“Come on,” Marcus instructed them, grabbing Lex’s hand again and pulling him behind. Lex instinctively reached behind him, untangling Blue’s hand from his sleeve and grabbing onto it as they ran, still in the direction of the South Gate. They definitely weren’t moving with the bulk of the traffic, like salmons swimming upstream, but they were so close. Their house was one of the closest to the South Gate; if they could just get in, get out, get their mom and the speeder… Then maybe they could get far enough away to get a handle on what was going on.