Trapped

Chapter 4

Xavier began shaking, his face turning green like he was about to vomit.
I couldn't even imagine what he had just seen.
Tears filled my own eyes as I leaned back against the wall, trying to fight them.
Jackson's face filled with sorrow as helped Xavier out of his blood covered sweater.
"What do you mean...by he got Mikey..." Toby whispered and looked over at Xavier.
We all knew what must have had happened. I secretly hoped Mikey was just injured. I didn't want to think about the other option.
"T-The Bear, Freddy? I'm guessing...well he charged at Mikey...and he-he..."
Jackson's eyebrows knit together, "What did Freddy do Xav?"
Xavier started shaking at the memory of it all. I stared in shock, I've never seen him act like this. I braced myself for the worst.
"He bit into Mikey's head!" He said in a hushed panic, "I-I saw part of Mikey's brain fly out! It was like something from a horror movie!"

I burst into tears, thinking about Mikey's unsure face when we talked about sneaking in here. He didn't even want to come in the first place, and now he was gone.

We all sat there in the corner of the room in silence.
Unable to speak as realization what we had gotten ourselves into clicked. The lack of signal in our cells proved we had no way of contacting anyone for help, we were stuck in here, our friend in the next room dead.
I mourned silently for Mikey and I'd hope to explain to his parents that we didn't know better... that we should have believed the stories they had told us about this place.

I stared at my friends who were still with me,
Xavier was curled into a ball in a corner blinkling at a wall unsure of himself. It was so unlike the fun-loving, fearless Xavier I met back in middle school.

Looking over at Toby it was worse, He and Jackson had out their pocket knives, grabbing the lose boards scattered around the room and sharping them into points.
Making spears because their knives too short to do damage. It was heart breaking, seeing my friends like this.
I kept looking at my phone as if it had all the answers to the universe. My battery remaining full, the time ticking away, minute feeling like an hour.
After what felt like an a century of sitting in this room trying not to make much noise. Toby silently crawled over to my side. His face softened from the serious expression he had worn and he brought my head into his chest. "Jane...we're going to get out of here...I promise you..."

Jackson sighed, his expression mixed "Not to mention we're trapped in a smaller space...the vent is screwed shut..."

I looked at the knife Jackson was holding and back at Toby realizing they hadn't figured out the tools they were using could have helped us escape from this room and hopefully outside.

"Did you two even think to using one of your little sticks to unscrew the vent beside us? Or better yet the knife you used to sharpen them...?" I stared up at them in disbelief; even in survival mode neither of them had thought of it.

Jackson opened his mouth than closed it sitting beside me with a blank expression. He set the knife and stick down beside him."What would we do without you Jane?"
I laughed a little bit, but there was no humor in it. "Probably die. You two are major idiots for not even thinking of that."
Grabbing my flashlight out of my bag again, I turned it on to see through the grate and into the vent shaft.
"It seems to go pretty far, I can't see the end of it."
"So?" Jackson asked.
"So, I might be able to crawl down and see if it leads outside...or at least out of this party room. I don't wanna wait around and see if they could break through locked doors..."
I glanced over at Xavier, this the sight was kind of depressing.
"Will you be okay enough to move forward, Xavier?"
He didn't even look towards me, just nodded his head lazily.

I drummed my fingers lightly on the floor, looking over at Jackson.
"Hey, can you hand me your knife?"
He looked down at his knife, a sad expression on his face.
"Don't break it, it's kind of important to me."
I rolled my eyes and handed him the flashlight.
"Hold this for me as I unscrew this?"
Jackson angled the flashlight in a way that I could see all the screws. It wasn't the easiest task due to the screws being mostly rusted into the metal. I had almost cut myself multible times due to dropping the knife, but when the first bolt gave away. I released a sigh of relief.
I soon got all four off and cracked my tense fingers before pulling the grate from the wall.
Jackson handed me the flashlight as I handed him his knife.

"Wish me Luck Guys..." I slid my phone into my phone pocket, praying this vent lead outside and my service returned so I could call for help.
With one final wave to my friends I crawled into the vent shaft.