MisPrints

•Chapter 16•

-4.39pm-

-Ely's POV-

I'm trapped in the lifts. I'm all alone, trying to hold onto the hand rail but it's moving so fast that I can't quite seem to grasp it properly. Once again the elevator reaches its highest point before plummeting straight downwards on the tracks, but this time it doesn't stop. It just rushes down and down, the rails plunging me into pitch darkness as gravity sucks the lift towards the centre of the earth. Suddenly Zak is there; he reaches for my hand and holds it tight telling me that it's all ok. It will stop soon...it will.

Flashing lights suddenly appear on the outside of the lift and it stops abruptly leaving me breathless and gasping for oxygen. I look up the see Zak and run forward to embrace him, but as I run forward his face starts to change... It pulses and morphs as it changes and grows and suddenly there she is with her white eyes scorching the air between us.

"No, get away from me!" I scream, backing away from Edine who is now reaching toward me, her fingernails curling around her fingers, sharp as razors. Suddenly I can feel the burn of cold hard metal against my back, there's no escape, nowhere to run. I try to open the doors and reach for the control panel but when my fingers slam the buttons I can only feel a rough flat surface where the controls are supposed to be.

"No where to run Ely..." Edine sneers behind me, "just come here and it'll be over... death is coming Ely you can't escape it...you know better than that." I glance at her in terror and suddenly Edine looks like Kat. She's screaming at me and then she lashes out at me scratching my face with her nails. "I hate you!" she wails, "I HATE YOU, it's all your fault, I'm DEAD because of you Ely. You left me..." she then pulls me to the ground and holds me against the floor, I try to escape but I can't shake her off. "I thought you'd save me..." she whispers, her anger disappearing as quickly as it had come. "They ripped me apart Ely.. you didn't come... you didn't come... why didn't you come..." tears begin to run down her cheeks as she shakes my shoulders and her glowing red eyes stare right into mine, searching for an answer as to why I abandoned her, alone in the dark.

But I can't find an answer. My throat seizes up and I can't say a word, no matter how I try. I want to tell her about how I tried... tried tell her about how far I came, how close I had been to saving her...but now it's too late. I've failed. She's gone. And now I'm going to die too. Suddenly the whole world stops still. The lights switch off, Edine and Kat are gone and then the floor dissolves and I'm just falling down... down into infinite blackness grasping at the air as it runs tauntingly through my fingers.

Gone.

I wake with a start, my whole body is shaking and I can feel the sweat of the nightmare dripping down my face. It was just a dream....just a dream...

But that's when I realise I've just woken from one nightmare into another. I'm lying on my back, my face looking up towards the ceiling that I can only just make out in the dim light. My limbs are aching and my head feels like it's about the cave in. Slowly I begin to remember where I am, I'm down below the Xplic, and I came to find Kat. But where is Kat? Did I find her... where is she?

I move my fingers up and down slowly and then I scrunch up my toes as hard as I can. I'm filled with relief when I realise I can still move, I'm still alive.

I turn my head to the left but I can't see anything very clearly so I try to move me body around so I can see better. That's when I realise that I can't move my limbs, I'm being held down with straps around my arms and legs and even my torso has been secured. I start to wriggle desperately, trying to dislodge the straps and free myself but I can't even move my arms a centimetre. A feeling of panic begins to rise in my stomach and it wells up into my lungs. It's too tight, I can't get out, I'm trapped here, there's no one that can come and get me. I'm completely helpless.