The Misadventure

Chapter 17

Fallout's POV

We stepped into a hallway, allowing the door to close behind us. It was a standard wattpad mansion hallway, nothing out of the ordinary at all about it.

Bella walked several feet away from me, examining the doors. She paused, but didn't walk back.

"It seems normal," She noted. I nodded.

She doesn't trust you. Why the sudden distrust?

"That can't be it." I said. "What's Evil playing at? She wouldn't let us go so easily."

Down the hall, Bella suddenly stiffened but said nothing. Her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest.

"I guess we should just pick a door and go with it, then."

What, don't I get a say?

She grabbed the knob of the nearest door and yanked it open.

"Wait, we should-" I protested, but she stepped inside of the door. Something instantly yanked me toward her, and I heard the door slam behind us.

The force that had yanked me forward propelled me to my knees. I fell and forced my hands out in front of me, breaking my fall before damage could be done. All I could see was misty and gray, a blank void spread out in all directions.

My sword wasn't hanging on my belt, as it normally was.

I couldn't even make out my hands through the fog that surrounded me, even though I was holding them right in front of my face.

It suddenly hit me how silent it was, how blank it was, how there was nothing. There was nothing.

There was no ground beneath my hands, and no metallic taste of the air when I opened my mouth. I tried to get to my feet, but couldn't tell where the ground was. Despite that, I still managed to stand on something I couldn't feel.

That was how it was when I realized it. I couldn't see it, and I couldn't feel it, but I knew something was standing a few feet in front of me, and I realized.

No senses. Deprived contact, completely detached from surroundings. Blind, deaf, anosmic, ageusiatic, paresthesiac.

She must have left the room already.

Whatever it was, it was still standing in front of me. I don't know how I knew, but I did. I reached out to touch it, but no feeling came to my fingers. Well, worth a shot.

I yanked and twisted.

The door opened and I spilled out onto the carpet of the hallway. Everything came rushing in too fast, making me want to throw up as colors and noises and feelings and smells assaulted me all at once, overloading my brain and making me gasp and squeeze my eyes shut.

"Cavet?"

"Bella," I said quietly. "Is that my sword you're tapping?"

She stole my sword.

"Yeah, it was laying right outside the door." She answered.

"Oh, thanks so much for getting me out of there when you left. I didn't need help or anything." I groaned.

So she leaves the room without me and then decides to casually hang out while I'm floundering about in there?

I pushed myself to my feet, using the wall as support. Bella leaned against the other wall, watching me uncertainly, and tapping my sword against the ground.

"Sword," I growled, "Give it here. Now." I extended my hand, and she frowned. We locked eyes, and she placed the hilt in my hand. I spun it around experimentally.

"You've been holding it a while," I mused, noticing that the hilt was quite warm. "Didn't want to maybe check that I was, oh, I don't know, okay?"

She nodded and shrugged at the same time. "You can handle yourself."

"I can't exactly handle myself when I don't have any senses!" I spit. "Did you even bother to check what was in that room?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Thanks," I scoffed. "It's a good thing I don't need you to get out, like you seem to need me. That's why I'm here, right? Evil decided I was your bodyguard?"

Bella glared at me. "I don't need a bodyguard."

"Oh, really?!" I mocked. "You would have died in that first room without me. I didn't ask for this crap." She had turned an angry shade of red.

"Yeah, well, neither did I!" She yelled.

"Well, next time it happens, don't go dragging me into your issues! I got my own problems, I don't need yours!"

"Well then, leave!" She screamed.

"I didn't know that was an option!" I retorted.

"Then deal with it, because I have to deal with this too!" She said.

"This isn't my mess. This is yours, and you dragged me into it. This is your fault." I growled. "Honestly, I don't need any of your crap."

"Because your's is so important? What's so important? I thought you were the perfect soldier and all that! Saving people and doing your duty! So what's so important that you can't deal with this?" I glared at her, fuming. My knuckles were white from being gripped around my sword so tightly.

"I don't care, Cavet, or Fallout, whatever! I don't need you, and nobody cares if you have issues!"

I always thought the expression 'seeing red' was just made up.

When I launched at her, though, sword out, my vision definitely went red.

When my vision cleared, though, my knuckles were bruised and split, blood leaking out. I was in a different hallway, Bella nowhere to be seen.

Good.