The Beginning of The End

Chapter 6 - The Escape

THE ESCAPE

Noah ran down one side of the hallway after telling the others the plan. They crept slowly behind, but keeping a good distance away from him.

"This cast is way easier to stand on," Carlie whispered to Luke. He just nodded and put his finger to his lips, motioning for her to shut up in a polite way.

The cracks between the tiles in the floor were easy to fetch up on, as Carlie learned the hard way by almost falling on her face. Luckily, Luke was there to stop her from crashing to the floor to a hard landing.

"Thanks," she mumbled. She picked her feet up slightly higher as she stepped after that.

"Sure," he said.

Carlie studied the doors. More importantly, the titles on the doors. They read things such as Activity Manager, and Games Director.

She stopped at the door titled Games Director and yanked Luke by the neck of his shirt to stop with her. He cursed at the slight pulling on his shoulder, but reluctantly looked to where she was pointing.

His eyes widened and filled with recognition and fear. "Okay, let's not stop here. Especially here. Anywhere else but here." He grabbed Carlie's right hand and dragged her to catch up to where they guessed Noah was, from all of the commotion.

"Hey! Kid! Those papers aren't meant to be touched! Come back!" A voice trailed off further down the hallway, signalling the departure of a tech worker.

"Let's go!" Luke quietly opened the door that has just slammed shut and slipped inside. Carlie followed closely behind and gasped once she saw the contents of the technology control room.

Inside, there were computers lit up with buttons and stuff that only looked like it would be in alien stations - not on regular boring Earth. Panels covered with complicated buttons and levels and other weird things surrounded the room, and a huge island of the computers and other machines were in the middle.

Odd trinkets of all sorts filled the shelves on the walls and barely had a single dust particle on any of the hundreds of them.

"Holy crap," Carlie stared at all of the complicated machines with her mind already starting to drift off out of boredom.

"Wow," Luke whispered. He brushed his fingertips across the side of the island of machines. He seemed to snap out of his amazement and went straight for the other side of the machines. About to turn the corner, he stopped short and held one arm up, in a surrendering pose, the other arm hanging at his side uselessly.

"What?" Carlie whispered, only loud enough for Luke to hear.

"No sir, I'm alone. The girl went with Noah." Luke spoke to someone on the other side of the island on technology.

Crap. Someone must be over there, Carlie thought to herself, going through plans in her mind,

1. Run away screaming her head off and pretend none of this ever happened.

2. Sneak away and hope for the best for Luke.

3. Try to get help.

4. Try to attack the person the other side, risking getting hurt or killed.

Okay, so number 1 is out. She crossed it out in her mind, calling herself a coward for having it even cross her mind as a possibility. Number 2 would practically be the same thing - leaving Luke to most likely die. Crossed out. Number 3 might work, but there was no telling how soon she would be able to find help, or even if there was anyone good close to here. Number 4 was the only option left to do.

She snuck around the huge pile of machines and peeked around the corner. Her heart stopped for a split second when she saw not one, not two, but three people. The one in the middle had a gun pointed at Luke's chest, the others just stood as backup, glaring at Luke like he was a freak or something.

Luke was good. Like, really good. His eyes didn't even flicker in Carlie's direction as she turned the corner, giving away her presence. Nope. He just kept his eyes aimed at the gun threatening to shoot his skull.

Carlie's brain quickly rethought her other options completely through. All she wanted to do after seeing these men was run away screaming her lungs out.

She finally decided to stick with number 4 and just attack. If she took down the guy in the middle first, he wouldn't be able to shoot anyone.

She advanced slowly towards the guy in the middle like a predator stalking its prey. She reached over his shoulder lightning fast and grabbed the gun from his hand before anyone could do anything. All three men whipped around and faced her confidently, but their eyes had hints of fear shining in them.

"Step away from the computer thingy," she ordered, pointing the gun at them. She obviously couldn't do anything with it, but she just wanted to look threatening.

The men obeyed. Instead on rewarding them for their cooperation, they each got a punch in the face by both Carlie and Luke. She punched one guy, and immediately felt bad about it. She hadn't wanted to hurt anyone. Sneaking into the dance wasn't supposed to end in being kidnapped twice! Ana was there with her and may even be dead because of this whole stupid business involving the end of the world.

Luke saw her mortified expression. "You'll get used to it. Just give it time."

"I'm not going to do anything that will make me have to get used to it! I'm never doing that again!" Carlie shrieked.

"Yes you will," Luke muttered. He tried to say it quietly, but Carlie still heard. She shook her head stubbornly.

"Never."

Luke walked over to the computers behind the island of machines and pressed multiple buttons.

While he was over there, Carlie looked down at what they had done. One of the men started to stir, and she panicked. Just before she could get Luke, a glowing object appeared out of nowhere and caught her attention. She blinked multiple times, trying to clear her vision in case she was imagining things. Nope. Still there. She walked cautiously over to it and picked it up. It was the crutch. But that was impossible. But true.

She closed her eyes and blocked out the thoughts of what she was doing as she squeezed the crutch handle. She felt the release of the dart and heard it make contact with soft flesh. Suddenly, the crutch disappeared and left her hand empty.

After that, she forced herself to space out, trying to distract herself from what just happened. When she came back to reality, it was only because Luke shouted at her to hold a button down as he clicked a few switches and pulled a lever.

"Uh, okay." She held down the button he pointed to and stood there for what felt like ten minutes to her, but was probably more like one minute.

"Done. Okay, just be quiet while I do the talking. Understood?" He said, really focusing on her answer and expression.

"Yeah, I guess." She shrugged.

"Okay. Well, we're going to call now." He picked up a weird old fashioned phone looking thing and held it up to his ear. He yanked it away as a voice came blaring out of it.

--------

knock knock

who is it?

ash

ash who?

bless you

sorry I had to

just say it outloud

trust me :)