𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐤 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐎𝐟 𝐔𝐬

04. Gaffer Tape Can't Fix Everything.

F O U R
Gaffer Tape Can't Fix Everything.

My shoes squelch with every step, "I'm going to get trench foot." I groan. They are going to so fucking long to dry.

We climb up floor after floor, Ellie looks unaffected, Tess and Joel, however, do look affected, and I'm just annoyed my shoes are wet. The texture makes me want to vomit.

After about five floors I get a stabbing pain in my side and have to stop. "Jesus Christ," I hiss, my hand grabbing it in reaction to the sudden pain. It throbs, making sure to shoot down my leg and up to my shoulders, making the muscles tense in reaction.

"You good?" Ellie asks, looking at me weirdly.

I stay still for a few seconds, the sharp intense pain fading away to a dull ache after a few agonising seconds, "Peachy." It's like a stitch, but only a thousand times worse - sharper, deeper.

"What happened?" She asks as we continue to walk up, despite having stopped Joel and Tess are still behind a good few steps. She's way too nosey.

"I got shot, didn't heal right," I tell her. I've given her an inch, and I'm sure she's going to take a mile.

"Ohh, how did it happen?" The smile on her face makes it clear she's thrilled with the information.

"Someone pulled the trigger of a loaded gun that was aimed at me, the bullet hit me. Voila." I don't give her the answer she wants.

"Sore subject. Get it? You got shot, notoriously painful." She jokes, I just give her a'fuck off' glare and she raises her hands in defence.

We continue walking, Tess and Joel eventually catching up.

At the top, we wait for Joel to scope it out before Tess goes, and then Ellie and I follow, "Fuck... Holy shit."

"It wasn't that bad," Ellie says as Tess complains, moving to lean against the door frame for a second.

"You try climbing ten fucking floors with our knees. See how ya feel." Tess bites back, not impressed with the fact Ellie is not middle-aged and sharing the pain.

We walk down a hallway. Once nice blue paint now peels off the wall in strips, dropping into the floor with time, holes in the roof let water drip through, corroding the floor. Old carts with plates and cutlery lay around, I don't entirely know why that would be useful to anyone, ever, but they're there. As we turn the corridor to where we're meant to walk through, there is instead a caved-in room, blocking the walkway completely.

"Well, when the fuck did that happen?" Tess asks, annoyed. This is all going so very smoothly.

She tries to open the doors on either side of the blockage, but they're both unopenable, probably having rocks behind them.

"All right, well, I mean, maybe I could climb up there," I offer, looking at the slither of light that shines through, exposing the daylight.

"You don't know what you're looking for, I'll go." Tess decides for me, she looks over at Joel, "Can you give me a hand?"

"Love that everyone has faith in me," I say in an annoyed whisper.

Tess gets a boost and then climbs through the crack, making her way through to the other side, working her way through the unsteady concrete.

"You good up there?" Joel asks.

"Yeah, uh, it's a bit of a mess, so I'm gonna need a few minutes," she explains.

Silence falls upon the room, Joel takes a seat, as does Ellie, I lean against the wall, undoing my shoelaces I pull my boot off and dump the water stuck inside out, repeating the same thing on the other side. Sitting beside me Ellie pulls out her knife, uncliking it she begins throwing it up and down, doing a rotation with it every time.