By Alexandra Holyk
Ryerson security issued their first series of RyersonSafe alerts on Jan. 16 after a nuclear explosion broke out from the metal tubes protruding from the middle of Gould Street.
The opaque white smoke emitting from the tubes became grey in colour. Almost immediately, green goo covered the surrounding buildings, which turned into black silhouettes marked with white letter R’s.
In the week prior to the incident, students reported changes in the appearance of the pipes.
“I noticed that they were getting bigger and more inconvenient, kind of like all of the problems in my life right now,” said first-year student and full-time Gould Street traffic navigator Jon Couch.
As the buzz of the RyersonSafe email alert was collectively heard by everyone on campus with an iPhone—those with Androids were notified about an hour later—everyone dispersed in different directions.
Ryerson President Mohamed Lachemi blasted “Run” by AWOLNATION through Gould Street’s new light fixtures, because according to him, they have “expanded functionalities.”
Unable to see through the radioactive cloud, several students took shelter in Kerr Hall—the first of five essential rules in order to survive a nuclear disaster, according to local news outlet No Ill Will Here. However, it is believed that most of them got lost between northeast and southwest Kerr Hall and have yet to be found.
In the Sheldon & Tracy Levy Student Learning Centre (SLC), third-year retail management student Pan Ikatak went to Starbucks after she became instantaneously dehydrated from running.
Ikatak ordered a venti strawberry açai refresher with coconut milk and light ice, barely able to open the Starbucks app and scan her rewards card because she “just can’t even with this nuclear disaster.” To her demise, the barista informed her that the tap water used to make ice was contaminated after the explosion. And avoiding tap water is the second essential rule.
“Well then how the fuck am I supposed to take my potassium iodine pills to reduce the absorption of radioactive iodine into my thyroid gland?” Ikatak replied, citing the third essential rule of survival.
Numerous journalism and RTA students in the Rogers Communications Centre (RCC) were paying close attention to their phones for updates on the nuclear blast, ignoring the radio and TVs, despite both of them being a vital part of the fourth essential rule for survival.
“All the TV in the RCC plays is reruns of the same three interviews that happened months ago,” said fourth-year journalism student Karina Paris. “The journalism students in the interviews don’t even go here anymore—they miraculously got jobs.”
Other students found themselves on the sixth floor of the SLC exercising the fifth essential rule for survival—removing outerwear that was exposed to radiation. However, some students took this rule more seriously than others.
Han Diedge, a fifth-year student from the University of Toronto, thinks removing all your clothes is one of the most important things to do following a nuclear explosion.
“I don’t even go here, but I heard people were taking off all their clothes and I feel like that’s just so natural for me,” Diedge added, while proceeding to remove his last article of clothing—his socks.
Ryerson was in a state of emergency for the remainder of Jan. 16 while campus remained covered in green goo and chaos.
By the time the smoke cleared, all that was heard was the buzz of the RyersonSafe alert signifying the end of the emergency and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons playing through the multi-functional light fixtures.
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