Just for a Moment

82 | Circumvent

Joshua was on the verge of passing out. He had finally made it to the front of the El Rey, finding his car in the parking lot quickly; there wasn't anyone besides the cast and crew, and everyone had parked relatively close to each other. The slightly unfortunate part was that they had not chosen to park close to the building. Joshua cringed though when he realized that he didn't have his keys or phone; they were in the theater seats. Fuck.

He tried the door anyway and was incredibly shocked and lucky that it opened. I must've left it unlocked. He carefully laid Olivia down in the back seat and was relieved because he's pretty sure he would've dropped her if he had to carry her any longer.

Joshua opened the driver's side door and sat down, feeling a weight come off his shoulders now that he could rest his aching body. That gas was making him tired, and he debated on whether or not just to take a nap now. The only thing was that since he didn't have his key, he couldn't turn on the heat.

He leaned back against the headrest and breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh air. He looked out his windows and didn't see the cast, assuming they probably left the building through another door.

He felt his eyes droop and his head bob, his body begging for at least a few minutes of sleep. He couldn't fight it much longer and gave in, closing his eyes as all of him finally relaxed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The firefighters came back out of the building, Tim rushing towards them. "Sorry, there wasn't anyone else in the building."

The producer's face fell. "What?! How can that be? Sir, I can show you what room they were in. I'm telling you; they have to be in there!"

A second person came out. "Also, there wasn't a fire," a woman said.

"What!!?" the cast all shrieked.

"Someone just pulled an alarm somewhere in the building."

"It must've been Josh and Liv. There had to have been something going on in that storage room," Joe said.

"I don't remember a fire or something smoking," Joanna said.

"Well, whatever happened," a third firefighter said, "there is not another person in there."

Tim's whole body froze, and his face paled. "I- I don't understand."

"Well, there was this." A fourth firefighter came out holding some cylinder that was about the size of a two-liter bottle of soda. "This was releasing some kind of gas into the theater. It probably triggered the sprinklers then the fire alarm."

"What was in it and where did you find it?"

"Some storage closet," the woman answered. "It's going to take a few tests before finding out what it is. Wait about another hour before going back in there. Just to be safe."

Tim shook the hands of each of them before they left, giving them his number to call once that substance was tested. "I- I don't know what to do," he said worriedly, rubbing his hands over his face. "Where could they be? They couldn't have just up and evaporated!"

"Well, they don't have their phones, and neither do we, so we can't call them even if we wanted to," Julia said.

"Ok... Ok," Tim began, turning to everyone else. "We're all going to walk around the building and see if they made it outside." Everyone nodded, speedily going around the property.

Joe ended up going with Frankie. "So what do you think happened?" Joe asked.

"I don't know, but whoever thinks this is just some big game is sick," he spat as his head turned in all directions.