The Assassin

Chapter 29

The room we entered reminded me of the last room, except it was darker, thank goodness. The walls were dark gray and the floor was the same color. However, there were holes in the walls; three in each. Paula walked over to one on the right wall, tracing her finger along the edges. "I wonder what these are," she said. "Maybe arrows shoot out of them? Or bullets? Or spears?" She turned around to look at me. "What do you thi—"

Right in the middle of her sentence, pink smoke blasted out of all the holes, and the one she was standing in front of pushed her into me. She yelped as she fell against my chest. The assassin unattached herself from me and whipped around to look at the holes, but it no longer dispensed the pink smoke. In fact, the whole room was no longer full of pink smoke. That's interesting.

I frowned. "What was THAT?"

I waited for Paula's response. She was still turned away from me, staring at the empty holes. After still no reply, I questioned, "Blondie..? Hello?"

"Hmm?" she said.

"Uh, you alright?"

She spun around and put her smooth arms around my neck. "Of course, I'm alright! Why wouldn't I be?" she answered with a cheerful tone.

I blinked at her with slowness. "Maybe because you got blasted with a bunch of suspicious-looking smoke? And a lot of it?"

She giggled. That did NOT sound like her. "Really? All I remember is us being together. That's it."

The assassin brought her nose to mine and I felt her warm breath on my lips. What was happening?!

Then the thought finally hit me like a baseball to the forehead. She was blasted with pink smoke that smelled weird. She must have inhaled it! And for some reason that made her all... ditzy?

Before I could finish pondering on this, Paula kissed me. And she continued. And continued. And continued. And it went on and on and on and I realized I probably shouldn't be kissing her back because I had to figure out what was wrong with the assassin. Definitely do this later, I noted. You know, when we're not stuck in the Diamond.

I pulled away and I knit my eyebrows together. "Er, Paula? Are you sure you're alright? You're not acting the same way."

She just laughed and kissed my neck. I took her shoulders and pushed her away from me. "Blondie, focus. You've inhaled the weird smoke!"

"Smoke?" she questioned, sounding woozy. "Whatever do you mean?"

Before I could slap her face to knock some sense into her, I heard a piercing BEEP! I turned around and noticed the walls were moving inward. I spun around to look at the other one, which was ALSO moving. I raised my eyebrows. We were gonna get crushed! I tapped Paula impatiently. "Blondie, we need to get out of here, somehow. We're gonna die! We're going to get smashed!"

She batted her eyelashes at me. "Hm? Oh, no matter!" The assassin walked up to me and rested her hands on my chest. "It'll be okay."

I groaned. How would I be able to get out with Paula being all crazy?

I raised my head to the ceiling and shouted as loud as I could, "HOW DO I FIX HER? I NEED TO FIX PAULA!!"

Almost immediately, crackling noises came from one of the corners. "Oh," a voice said. "You have to find the antidote! And quick if you want to avoid getting turned into a slushie! I suggest you hurry!"

I glowered at the corner. "TELL ME WHERE THE DAMN ANTIDOTE IS!"

No response except for the assassin laughing so softly that I could barely hear her. I looked down at her, where she was now trying to remove my coat. I shook her off, an angry expression on my face. I looked around the room, trying to find the antidote. I grumbled to myself. "Where is it?!"