Elevator 14 // Austin Mahone

Chapter 6

"How do you just go out in public when you know you're supposed to be quarantined?" Austin asked Bradley angrily. "How pathetically selfish can you be?"

5am. No one came like they said they would, they're almost 12 hours late.

No one ate. We all rarely drank anything. Going to the bathroom was occasional and it was so much work that everyone just held it until they absolutely had to go. Blake had like 3 packages of gum and insisted everyone had some so our breath wasn't horrible.

Brad had mints, but no one would take any. No one touched him or even talked to him for the most part unless they were yelling at him. It had been relatively quiet lately. No one had the energy to talk.

Blankets were used to soak up all Dad's blood, so we were all freezing and slept sitting up. The guys were nice enough to give me a corner, far away from my dad and gave me the only surviving pillow.

I could tell Austin was constantly super uncomfortable and restless. He was always getting up to stretch and he had a hard time sleeping. Most of the time, his eyes were closed and he was trying to sleep, but he only got in around 6 hours of sleep the whole time we've been here. Which, by the way, is 3 days.

It was the longest 3 days of my life. Not to mention the worst 3 days. Nothing's worse than knowing you're gonna loose your dad, especially when he's been all you've had for as long as you can remember. I knew he was in so much physical and emotional pain that it hurt me to look at him. So I didn't. Everyone was wondering where these people were, so they could come and get him out, but no one said anything. The only sound was the occasional tapping of shoes on the floor and breathing.

Dad seemed to be doing better, gladly. I didn't know when he was gonna die or what it was gonna be from. I only assumed it would be from bleeding out.

Brad was always asleep. He definitely slept the most. That's what sucked, cause he had all the answers to the questions I had.

Right now, Austin was pissed. He woke Brad up just to interrogate him and, more or less, insult him. Brad never offered any good answers, and when Austin would ask him to justify them, he would give him a bunch of bullshit. We were getting absolutely nowhere when it came to just about everything. We're still stuck and confused.

The thing about situations like this is that you have to work together, or else nothing good is gonna happen. You have to communicate and understand and trust each other. All we did was sleep and yell at each other. No brainstorming on how to get out, no attempts, no communication.

At least it was semi-clean in there. We threw all the bloody blankets up on the roof and used a bag of disinfectant wipes that Blake had in his pocket to clean up the rest of the floor. I still felt like an animal trapped in a cage, but it made it a little more comfortable.

The silence was peaceful. That is, until it ended. 23 hours of peace was the most we got, cause commotion started and never settled after that.

6am. The Austin vs Bradley conversations diminished and turned into a group discussion about pizza places. Normal. Entertaining. But not for long.

"Screw all of you," Austin argued, "Little Caesars is not that bad."

"It's disgusting," Blake argued back. "I hate Dominos, but even that's better than Little Caesars."

"Whatever. And Dominos is good too!"

"You just like all pizza," I laughed. "Pizza Hut for the win. They have the best desserts too."