The Walls Have Ears

Gerard's POV (Chapter 21)

Why is she looking at him like that.

A twinge of jealousy bubbles deep at the pit of my stomach.

Of course, he's gorgeous, smart and Irish. What's not to love?

I eventually convince myself I don't care. I've never been one to take up my time worrying about relationships and love and all that anyways, so why start now?

I find myself replaying our weird and awkward half-cuddle half-hug moment. I sigh louder than expected and Dr Murphy turns and looks at me with concern.

"Your heart knows Gerard. Your mind is just pulling you back,"

I rub my eyes with my fists, "I'm sorry what?"

He clears his throat and kind of smiles, "you heard me,"

"I know, I just don't get what that's supposed to mean," there was unintentional attitude in my voice.

He presses his lips together and stands up from his chair.

"C'mon children. Let's go to the beach."

"The beach?" Y/N repeats confused.

"Yes, I feel we could all use a bit of sand between our toes. Follow me."

Again he gets up and strides away not giving us a second glance. From the corner of my eye I see Y/N look up at me, but I don't look back, I just follow Dr Murphy, awkwardly going to put my hands in the pockets that I don't have and ending up just clasping the fabric at the sides of my thighs.

We walked down the blank halls in a stretched out line, with me inbetween Dr Murphy ahead and Y/N behind.

I didn't recognise it but when we walked into an equally empty room Dr Murphy told us that it was our room.

"Come, let me show you the variable." He walks over to the screen in the wall and scans the palm of his hand.

"With this, you can have slight control over your surroundings. Here you can pick any area of the world where you would like the room to imitate the weather of. Or, you can modify the settings to fit your fancy." He says this while tapping and scrolling at incredible speed.

All of a sudden the floor we were standing on started moving away from one of the walls, revealing orange sand.

Dr Murphy stepped off the floor with ease, reached down and picked up a handful of sand, letting it spill through his open fingers.

Y/N stepped off cautiously as did I, we'd been bare foot this whole time so when the hot sand warmed the bottom of my feet I unconsciously curled my toes upwards.

"Its hot. Why is it hot if it was under the floor the whole time?" Y/N spoke quickly.

Dr Murphy smiled.

"Who said it's been under the floor the whole time? You saw me type in the coordinates. You are standing on Mediterranean sand."

"Yes but it's hot, and there's no sun here and- you have heaters under the floor don't you? Cos it sure as hell didn't just magically travel from the Mediterranean all the way to wherever the heck we are now,"

Y/N was breathing like air was limited and her voice sounded like she was about to cry.

"Where the hell are we..." she said so quietly I hardly heard her.

Dr Murphy just stared at her.

"Sit on the shore Y/N. It'll calm you down I promise." As he was saying this, the walls started to lift.

For as far as I could see there was just sand behind every wall, except to one side were live crashing waves of magnificent indigo, contrasting so beautifully with the orange sand.