Endurance // M. Taylor

vii. loyalty

I had been looking for Matt for almost an entire hour. I don't know where he was or what he was doing. I wasn't sure what he could be doing. He was probably off with Emily making out or something. Whatever it was, it made me sick to my stomach.

I was getting ready to walk into the kitchen and dining room area when I saw Chris lying on the floor. He looked like he had been knocked unconscious. I was extremely worried, and had no idea what was going on.

"Chris? Are you okay? What the fuck happened?!" I ask him, helping him stand up. He looked like he had been hit with something in the head very hard. There was a huge black bruise on his forehead with blood dripping from the open wound. It was fresh, very fresh.

"Y-yeah. I'm okay, but he took Ashley and I don't know where he took her!" Chris says, starting to freak out. Who was 'he' in the first place? Who would have taken Ashley?

"Who's he? What are you talking about?" I ask him, still shocked and confused as to what the actual fuck he was saying.

"The maniac! He knocked Ashley out and then me out and then he took her away before I woke up!" What the hell? There's a maniac? I do remember seeing a 'WANTED' poster on the cable car station. What if it was that Victor Milgram guy? My heart started to beat faster and I swallow loudly.

"You don't think it's that Victor dude? The one on that wanted poster we found earlier?" I ask him, seeing if he can even remember the poster. I know I do, but I wasn't sure if he would. Chris looks at the ground for a second, clearly thinking about the possibility of such happening.

"I don't think it's too far fetched." He say, and we begin to look for Ashley. I checked upstairs and he check downstairs but there was no trace of Ashley. Other than the blood-stained pouch that had Ashley's name on it.

"Hey, Roslyn! I think I found something! You're going to want to see this!" I hear Chris yell, so I immediately make my way downstairs to meet with him.

I walk closer to him and see him holding a bloody bag with 'Ash' written on the front. I froze. There was a lot of blood on it, like an amount that could kill someone. If you lost that much blood, you'd probably be dead by now. I didn't want to share my medical knowledge with Chris because I didn't want to freak him out. I figured it was something I should keep to myself for now.

We are led outside the lodge and into some sort of shed it looks like. I hadn't ever really gone to the shed but maybe one time. Usually, Josh took care of that stuff. But, this time it was important. Some murderer could be seriously hurting Ashley, so I made sure to have a weapon handy. All I had was a hammer from one of the drawers in the kitchen. I'm not sure why the Washington's would have a hammer in the kitchen, but I knew it could give us the upper hand against the attacker.

What we came across was a total nightmare; Josh and Ashley were both tied up against a wood wall and there was a huge saw ready to tear right into them. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't let Josh die like this, I had to save him. But what about Ashley? I couldn't let her die either.

"CHRIS!" I hear a faint scream coming from Ashley. She was awake, and as far as I could tell, Josh wasn't. I began to shake at the thought of Josh already being dead.

"JOSH?" I yell, hoping to get him attention or at least wake him up. That is, if he's even alive...

"Ash, I'm here! Are you okay? What the hell happened?" Chris asks Ash, and she explains what happened to her. It was like she didn't know Josh was even there. This all was really weird and scary and Chris and I didn't know to get them both out alive.

"Hello. And thank you all for joining me. Tonight we're going to conduct a little experiment. A sort of test. Now for this experiment, we'll need the cooperation of our two test subjects...Joshua and Ashley." A voice says over some sort of intercom. What the fuck was this?