~ Hidden Love ~

CH5 - The Flayed [PT1]

We continued falling down and down. I kept an arm wrapped around Steve's arm to keep myself stable. Everyone was screaming and Dustin was cursing.

"We're going down! We're going down!" Steve shouted.

"Yeah, no shit, Harrington!" Robin yelled at him.

"Why don't these buttons work?!" Dustin yelled at the panel. As we continued screaming, Erica stumbled to the panel with Dustin.

"Press the button!" She yelled at him.

"What do you think I'm doing?!" He yelled at her.

"Come on, press something!" I yelled at the two.

"Just press the button!" Steve yelled as Dustin started screaming. Suddenly the elevator stopped and we were all thrown to the ground. Luckily, Steve cushioned the impact for me.

"My groin. You fell on my groin." I looked up at him and his face was beet red. I crawled my way up avoiding Steve's groin and I helped Steve stand up.

"Is everyone okay?" Robin asked us.

"Yeah, I'm great, now that I know Russians can't design elevators!" Steve shouted as he moved past Dustin to the panel.

"I think we've clearly established that those buttons don't work." Robin told him.

"They're buttons. They have to do something."

"If we had a keycard."

"What?"

"It's an electronic lock. Same as the loading dock door. If we don't have a keycard, it won't operate, meaning–"

"We're stuck in here." Dustin said.

"Yeah."

"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you four are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat." Erica told us.

"I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's party! Your mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" Steve shouted at Erica.

"Hey." Dustin said as he could our attention. "What if we climbed out?" He said pointing to the trapdoor in the ceiling. Steve and I then moved boxes under the door and Dustin climbed on top of them and opened it. Dustin climbed up and Steve followed him. Then a hand of Steve's poked down below as I grabbed it and he helped me up. I looked above us and saw what's like an endless void. We were stuck down here.

"What were you saying about climbing?" Steve asked the now hopeless boy. There was nothing we could do except sit, with the side of dying. Who knows how far we are down in the ground. I decided to go back down and sleep, because what is there better to do? I propped myself on the wall as I shifted a hundred times to fall asleep.

> TUESDAY.   JULY  3rd <

I woke up at one point to see Steve sitting next to me, sleeping. He didn't look as cranky as he was earlier. I mindlessly moved beside him and rested my head on his shoulder. I slowly drifted back to sleep.

I was then woken up to some kind of clinking. I was laying on the floor. I looked up and saw Erica hitting the container of green goo on a barrel. I shot up and ran towards Erica as did Robin.

"Hey, Hey! Be careful, careful, careful!" Robin said, grabbing the container from her.

"Exactly. It could be useful." Erica defended.

"Useful how? For all we know it could start the apocalypse if we open it." I stated.

"We can survive down here a long time without food, but if the human body doesn't get water, it will die." Erica told us.