[center][color=00a99d][h3]Ming Hua/Noah[/h3][/color][/center]

Ming Hua shook his head slowly at Alex. Adults disappearing - there was a baby by the beach, orphaned in a second - planes crashing. [color=00a99d]"None of this makes sense,"[/color] he murmured, as Emma reemerged from the top of her stairway.

Playing with a lock of her hair, she asked, [color=lightcoral]"How can that be...?"[/color] Ming Hua could only shrug. [color=00a99d]"Your guess is as good as mine,"[/color] he chimed, when a boy appeared in the door.

Ming Hua turned to take him in properly. A bicycle lay on the lawn behind him; Ming Hua could see it over his shoulder. Politely, Peter greeted the three teenagers, even tossing a courteous salutation Ming Hua's way, even if Ming Hua couldn't recall the boy from Adam.

But he and Emma seemed friendly, so even if Ming Hua was inclined to be wary, he tilted his head to the boy to reply, [color=00a99d]"All right, thanks."[/color] He was confused, to say the least, and not just because the boy persisted with courtesies when the world had been turned on its ear.

[color=00a99d]"You know,"[/color] he mused, feeling his eyes glazing over and speaking to no one in particular. [color=00a99d]"With the adults all gone, how long before you reckon things start getting wild?"[/color] He shuddered, and his gaze focused on Peter, blinking in what almost felt like bewilderment, as though realising suddenly that he, Alex and Emma were all before him. Shrugging to cover it up, Ming Hua felt his arms wrap around himself, fingers curling possessively over the bag that now contained his spoils. It was safe to say Mrs Rochester wasn't coming back tonight to chastise him over pilfered goods from the pantry. 

The wide-eyed boy inside him - reproachful in his stare, starved in his clutches, childish and distant, but unmistakably [i]him[/i] - ran his scrabbling fingernails under Ming Hua's skin, shaking his shoulders again. [color=00a99d]"I mean, now there's no one to enforce their rules on you."[/color] Ming Hua's eyes skittered on the streets that lay beyond the door, idyllic and peaceful for now. [color=00a99d]"It doesn't take a lot for us to descend into chaos. And most of us..."[/color] A chill ran through Ming Hua, [color=00a99d]"...we crave it."[/color] His eyes flickered back to the three, slowly becoming aware of how crazed he must sound. Clearing his throat, he added hesitantly, [color=00a99d]"Living now is going to be a lot harder if people go crazy with newfound freedom. It'll spread like a contagion, and become pandemonium."[/color]