You Saved Me (Emison Fanfic)

Ch. 27 - The New Dolls

The New Dollhouse Part 2 - The New Dolls

Emily's POV

The air rushed out of my lungs the way it would escape from a punctured balloon; so fast and all at once until what little air was left barely sighed out of the open wound, leaving what remained behind all limp and deflated.

"This doesn't make sense," Mona spat.

Caleb agreed, "we did everything right, there was no way Charles could've transmitted directly from here and no be here, it was live video. Even if he did try to trick us, Mona and I tore down every firewall there was and we got to the root."

"We couldn't have made a mistake."

Ezra got in Mona's face, "well, it looks like you did, you both did!"

"What are we going to do now? I can't shoot our way out, and you two certainly can't hack us out huh, now what?"

I was starting to feel that lightheaded feeling again. Like maybe my balloon was filled with helium and not just the air I wish would find my lungs again. I felt my mouth opening and closing, silently screaming and gasping for air to only be met with that insanely sharp stabbing sensation in my chest.

I wondered if I should try to get used to this so that it might hurt a little less each time it happened.

We had been fooled. They weren't in this room and it was possible that they weren't even in this cabin. I really thought that we could end this right here and right now. I had just begun to imagine what going home would be like, what it would feel like to hug my parents, how my pillowcase would smell, what we'd eat for our first dinner together as a family again, what it would be like to have that "fresh start" with Ali...

But Charles' words sank in and everyone else became a blur as the room started to spin on multiple axis. I had worked myself up to get this far, to let Ali go through with this. And now we had nothing.

The faint sounds my brain was drowning out broke the surface and I heard it all: Caleb and Mona cursing and trying to figure out how they'd been fooled, Toby and Ezra trying to use brute force against the metal door. The thumping sounded painful, like they'd rather shatter their own bones than be confined another second.

For once, I wasn't the center of everyone's attention. I was the only one keeping it together for the first time since waking up as this broken version of myself except I didn't feel broken right now. I felt like I had some sort of insider knowledge on him, like I could somehow think like him, and as sickening as it was, to understand him.

Charles wanted us here for a reason. I know I'm no genius, my skills are non-existent, and I am nothing special, but I knew that that was why we were here. Charles thrived on games, in particular, playing them so he could win.

We missed something. We were missing something and that's what we needed to figure out. Everyone else was so consumed with rage that they weren't thinking. We had to think like Charles. There was nothing we could do, no way we could catch up to him if we didn't crawl into his head. I spun around, trying to regain my voice and yell at them. That's when I noticed it.

"Guys," I tried to yell, but I wasn't heard over the clamor of their own voices.

The room was dimly lit, but the far wall, it was different than the others. It didn't interact with the light the way the others did. This wall, it...it reflected the light, like it wasn't made of wood or even the metal that the doors were. I stumbled closer to it, hoping I wasn't having another hallucination caused by my traumatic brain injury, or TBI as the doctors put it.

"Caleb," I shouted, "Caleb," I tried again, "CALEB!" I shouted with everything I had and the room finally stilled, eyes on my back, sobbed choked away from heavy breathing.