A Race to the End

Chapter 4

At the sound of the voice, I rush to find some light. Finally stumbling upon a flashlight, I turn it on and point it in the direction of the voice. For a moment, I freeze up when I see who's in the spotlight.

"Sophie? Mason?" I question in disbelief

"Alexis. Oh my god." Sophie cried out, struggling in the ropes tied around both her and Masons arms and legs.

Mason just stares at us, as if he's too afraid to blink like we might disappear if he does. Ethan and I snap out of our shock, and we raced to their sides to start untying the impossible knot that kept our friends from escaping. It takes a while, but we finally untied all the ropes, and Sophie and Mason immediately engulfed me in a group hug. There may have been a few tears from all of us. After a moment or two, Sophie and I ushered for Ethan to join the group hug, and once we had convinced him that he was apart of our friend group now, he obliged and joined the hug.

A crash from upstairs made us break away from the hug, and we looked up at the ceiling, wondering what was going on above us.

"Ok. I don't mean to state the obvious, but we have to get out of here." Mason stated

"Agreed" Sophie and I said in unison and then burst out laughing.

Once we calmed down, Ethan suggested that we look for a better light source rather than just using the one torch we found when we first arrived down here. We began our search for a better light source. After trying the many switches that lined the wall and looking through boxes, we found lanterns along with a box of matches. Just as the boys lit the lanterns, my flashlight began to blink on and off before switching off completely. Groaning, I threw the dead flashlight into the same box where we found the lanterns. Ethan and Mason held the lanterns in the air, creating a glow of orange and yellow around the room.

Taking a better look around the room, I look for a way out that didn't involve picking the lock and walking back through the club above us. I don't believe that we would have made it that far without the bouncer dragging us back into the basement, and probably not caring whether we get hurt or not. Touching my forehead at the thought, I flinched and pulled my hand away. I suddenly took notice of the sticky feel of dried blood on my forehead. When I look down at my hand, there was blood from the cut that I had on my head. I scrunched my face and found a towel to wipe as much blood off of my hand and head.

"Hey, are you ok?" Ethan asked

"Yeah, just a cut from when we got shoved down the stairs by that bouncer" I replied dryly, suddenly feeling slightly dizzy.

I lean against an open box to steady myself and inside were a stack of newspapers, dating back years by the looks of them. Out of curiosity, I pick one up, and the first-page article is shocking.

There was a picture of my family and I, and it looked like it was taken recently. What threw me off was that my mum was also in the picture, which couldn't be possible because she passed away when Sean and I were three. I stood frozen, leaning against the box, looking at the newspaper while everyone else was looking for a way out. All that's going through my mind right now is how this can't be right.

The sound of glass smashing broke me out of my thoughts. I look over at where the sound came from and see Mason holding a bat over his shoulder, indicating he had just swung it at something. Looking down at the floor in front of him, I notice the shattered glass everywhere, and I look back up and see the seemingly large window, for a basement, that now has sharp pieces of glass sticking out in every direction all over the frame.

"So, I found an escape route" Mason exclaimed using both arms to show off the now broken window.

We all nodded in acknowledgement and also realising that it was the most obvious escape. Suddenly, the music from upstairs turned off, and footsteps could be heard coming towards the basement door. The four of us froze and held our breaths as the door started to unlock.