How Long is Forever [COMPLETED]

The Second Strike

The shock doesn't last longer than a heartbeat, but the pain stays. Tears are again blurring your sight, and you feel how your body is pressed into the chair as if it could help you to retreat from the buckles.

Your breath has quickened as if you just finished running a marathon, and your hands continue to twitch slightly for a few more times until they calm down again. You swallow a couple of times while you wait for your hearing to return. Right now there's only the rushing of your own blood, but you can see from the blurred faces on the monitor that they're speaking.

Whatever leaves your mouth was supposed to sound like "I can't hear you", but it's probably just a mingling of guttural sounds. Luckily for you, neither of this takes long to cease, except the burning pain around your wrists.

And then, finally, you can hear them again. Just that it's not Chishiya calling your name or the schoolgirl asking you what's wrong that reaches your ear first, it's the rattling laughter you have grown to hate so much.

"Listen to this! This is what punishment should sound like, eh? Honestly though... you sound more like the nightly visitors my brother used to have before he died."

You know there is no use to argue with him, but it feels good to imagine how he'd walk out of this building, with that ugly grin on his face, only to be shot by the sniper King immediately. A nice and accurate bullet hole would suit his head just perfectly.

Chishiya calls your name again and you blink away the remaining tears so you can see him clearly. He has stepped up to the one camera they mostly stare into, probably because this is also where the sound comes from, and a deep frown covers his face.

"...switches again."

"I'm sorry... what?" It feels as if there's water in your ears and you want to rub it out so you can hear him better, but cold metal is in your way. What you can hear though is the tremble in your voice, and there is no doubt the others hear it too.

"You need to tell me the room currently active before it switches again. Otherwise it will complicate figuring out the sequence."

Yes, I love you too. You roll your eyes automatically about Chishiya just being, well – him, while you probably just experienced the worst pain of your life. Although he is not wrong, and you quickly glance towards the green lamp. It currently glows right over the Diamonds room, and you wonder why it hasn't switched to Hearts until now, not even once.

"What he is trying to tell you, is-" Schoolgirl looks up into the camera as well after throwing a scolding yet unnoticed glance towards to Chishiya while she holds her arms tight around her stomach, "-make sure to remember what you see. Maybe if you wait for the next one and tell us both symbols at once, the punishment will be less hard?"

You grunt as a sign that you understood and don't take your eyes off the screens as you take a few more deep breaths. That second shock was way harder than the first one, and you doubt that its intensity is completely random. Just as the doors, there seems to be a system behind it.

"Where's the fun behind that? The mouse should scream for us!" The big guy turns away from the camera, crossing his arms as if he is sulky.

The light over the monitor flickers, but remains on Diamonds. You clear your throat and speak slowly so it won't hurt too much. "It might still be too early to tell for sure, but I think the shocks are not that heavy when I tell you the right door without someone passing through. Only when it actually saves someone, the punishment gets hard."

And again, there is only one way to find out if you're right. Shouldn't the room have changed already?

"Where's the point in finding out the sequence if we still rely on their help to find out when another room is activated? It doesn't seem like anyone here has some kind of inner clock." The words are spoken with a rough and heavy accent, and they've come from the punker with the blood-stained suit who hasn't said much so far.