A Daring Mission

Chapter VII

SAM

Music: A Fighter from Nemesis 2 MSX

For a second, we couldn't tell where the voice had come from. Then Shanna exclaimed, "Guys, that's Elle! She must be in trouble!"

"No kidding," Heath muttered. Then he shouted, "WE'RE COMING, ELLE!"

At that point, the four of us left the office room and backtracked our way to the stairs leading to the third floor. As we began climbing, Heath instructed, "Elle, keep talking! We need to hear your voice so we can find you!"

"Okay! Look for a dead end hallway, and I'm in the last door on the right... literally!"

I looked at Heath in confusion, and he just shrugged.

Finally, we got to the door, and I began banging on it as hard as I could. "Elle? Can you get to the door?"

Music: Fighter Blood from Nemesis 3 MSX

"You might wanna look down," Elle's voice said. I looked down, and what I saw was a little... odd, to say the least.

There appeared to be a hole in the door, and Elle's front half was sticking out of the side we were on. She looked at us sheepishly, waved, and muttered, "Um... hi..."

Then I heard snickering. I turned my head verrrrrrrryyyyy slowly to see Sean, Shanna, and Heath putting their hands to their mouths, trying to stifle their laughter. I should've tried to keep my cool, but I didn't, and I gave them all electric shocks.

"Hey! What the hell?" Shanna yelled in frustration.

"This isn't funny. Seriously," I said to them sternly.

"Then why are we laughing?" Sean said, while beginning to laugh himself. I charged for him, and Elle yelled from behind me, "Sam, don't."

Heath took a deep breath to calm himself down, and then asked Elle, "Well, how did you end up like this?"

Elle shrugged (or at least, she tried to), and answered, "Well... I followed this guy because he had a book I wanted to see... and I went inside this room with him... and then he left and locked the door... and now I'm stuck in the door. Pretty simple, to say the least."

Sean sighed, facepalmed, and said, "Elle, have you ever thought about how stupid you are?"

Shanna slapped him. "Shut up, Sean."

"Just help me out here, please," Elle sighed, putting her head in her arms (well, again, she tried to).

Music: Titans from Gradius IV

Sean and Shanna first tried to free her by grabbing ahold of each of her arms and pulling. Even with their strength, she was pretty wedged in there, so no progress could be made. Heath and I joined them, to no avail. Eventually we were all pulling so far back we couldn't hold on and flew backwards into the wall.

After the four of us got up, I sighed, "God, Elle. How can you get in but not be able to get out?"

"I don't know! Maybe try from the other side?" Elle suggested.

"Yeah, but the door's locked."

"Leave that up to me," Shanna smirked, walking up to the door. I wasn't sure if it was a pull or push from the outside, but it was apparently push, because Shanna was able to kick it open.

ELLE

I winced slightly as I flew backwards and nearly hit my head on the door from the knockback. Sam, Heath, and Sean went behind to join her, and this began to frighten me, since I couldn't exactly see behind me at the moment.