MisPrints

•Chapter 15•

-4.05pm-

"So... where now?" I ask.

I look around at the several glass doors that lead out of this circular room, one is the one we came here through but... which one will lead us to Kat? If she's even down here at all...

"But she has to be!" I tell myself sternly, "she HAS to be down here! There's nowhere else..."

"Lets start with this one," Zak is walking towards the door nearest to us on the left, "If there's nothing down here, we can just go to the next one." I nod in agreement, glad that one of us is able to take control of the situation. My nerves feel like they're charged with electricity, every noise makes me jump and tense, it's almost as if we're not alone.

Zak has the access card and slides it through the panel in a quick sharp motion. The door opens with a hiss of steam to reveal another shadowy corridor with the same metal floor and thick wires running down the walls and ceiling. Zak gestures for me to follow him and I step behind him gingerly, my feet prickling on the cold surface of the floor.

We feel our way along the corridor, our fingers following the plastic tubes, as you would when following a string out of a maze.

"The air's getting colder." Zak says quietly, but he didn't need to point it out. The air was becoming more still and frosty as the temperature began to slowly slink down, the further we walked. There are no seasons in the Xplic. I wonder if this is what winter is like?

Zak comes to a sudden stop ahead of me.

"The wires have curved round, this is another circular room." This area wasn't as black as the other one. There are tiny lights everywhere. Coloured lights, red ones, blue ones, green ones covering the walls and flickering away like the stars.

Even in this dim light I could make out that the floor of this room is practically empty. Zak had walked ahead of me, his arms outstretched in order not to hit into anything.

"Zak, it's ok, there's nothing you can walk int-"

I stop, my eyes growing wide. Suddenly...it was like I couldn't take in oxygen any longer, my throat had seized up.

Faces.

There are faces in the walls.

Faces with closed eyes. The more I looked the more I saw, lining the walls of the room, their lifeless features lit up dimly in the flashing red glow.

"Za... Zak..." I gasped out. I can't breath. I clutch at my lower ribs as a pain starts to develop and grow outwards from my lungs. My legs give way and I crumple to my knees, still holding my chest.

Children. Children in the walls...

"Ely?! Ely it's ok, its ok, you're just having a.." his words jumble inside my head, I don't understand him. It feels like I'm floating in space. I need to get out, need to get out of here. I just need to get out, I don't care about Kat, I just need to get out. I suddenly realise that Zak is shaking my arms, talking to me.

"Breath Ely! You have to breath just....or you'll....its ok...breath. It's only..." I can only pick up certain things that he's saying, the rest just floats away into the darkness. Is he talking to me?

The darkness.

The children.

They're waking up. They're running towards me. The dead children..

Zak...

Suddenly I am awake again. My senses drop back suddenly as if being let go from hooks far up above us. The room stops spinning, the children stop stepping out of the walls and reaching out towards me. I am kneeling on the metal ground.