Last Dawn of a Horde

Chapter Nine: The First Prince ~4 John

~John~

            “Press that shit,” I told James.

            I can do that myself, but I felt like every bone on my body got twisted. The whole Matrix thing was easy, and I hardly can believe this was put to trap smart people. Maybe someone had put it in there for us to lose valuable time.

            Nonetheless, the lasers crossing the silver door whizzed off, and James gave me a high five.

            “This is it,” I tell him, and I cracked my pelvic bone to steady myself up. The elevator door dinged open, and the box smelled of nutmeg. On the panel, there were too many buttons—far more than the regular elevators. There were ones colored red and blue, and they were grouped into two. The legend says the red was for underground use, and the blue was for the surface controls.

            I smiled.

            “I told you we’re underground,” I murmured.

            “I’ll press random red buttons if you don’t want to help me here,” James said.

            “Right.” I closed the door, and randomly chose a number. The number 12 was pressed already, and it must mean we’re on twelfth level. Too bad to call it a floor—it’s just a cell for humans. 13 was the last red button, and 17 was the last on the blue ones. I didn’t want to know what’s on red 13, so I pressed number 7.

            I sighed. I thought something will explode in contact, but nothing happened. “There,” I said.

            James was so close to laughing, but he said “Idiots!”

            I turn to him. “What?”

            “What’s what?” James turned to me, and he looked perplexed.

            “You said ‘idiots!’” I answer.

            He raised a brow. “No I didn’t.”

            “You did,” I said.

            “Real idiots,” the same voice I heard a moment ago said, and this time it was louder.

            James nudged me hard on the ribs. “Told you it wasn’t me.”

            “In the speaker, morons!” the voice said louder, and this time I can barely recognize who owns it. We pressed our ears on the nearby speaker next to a roving spy camera, and I swear my fist was itching to punch and bring it down.

            “Rolcene,” James said, rolling his eyes. “You loser!” he yelled back to the speaker. “Where are you? Where are the others?”

            “First things first,” said Rolcene. No matter how calm he wanted his voice to sound, I can still sense he’s been going under stress like what he’s about to say involved real horror.

            “Mr. Niggins wanted us to—“ Rolcene said, but stopped when a voice interrupted him.

            “Hey John! James! Guys! Are you alright out there? I can see you!”

            “Who was it?” James asked.

            “I’m Perry!” replied the background voice. “Hey James, you’re cute on camera!”

            “Knock it off, fag,” Rolcene said. “As I was saying, our Mr. Niggins wanted to get us all together.”

            James said, “You mean we’re isolated from the others? God!”

            Rolcene answered, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but calm down guys. To make this shit short, our friggin’ teacher wanted to get us altogether again. And that involves your trip up to level four.”

            “We’re on seven,” I said back.

            “Just press the number four, stupid,” he replied.

            I nod to the camera, and I hear Perry laugh. I went back to the buttons again, and one display said we’re still on level 8. I pressed the 4 in spite that the 7 was still flat, and I hear that annoying ding! sound again.

            “Well, just run to the first door you’ll see,” Rolcene said, “and the only door on the hall you’ll see contains us. Mr. Niggins went away and—the hell what?!”

            I sighed. “Rolcene, what’s that?”

            “Yeah, I’m talking to them right now. They’re going here. What? Shit, I told Jules not to go,” Rolcene murmured. James was about to yell hard at the speaker to deafen Rolcene and Perry, but I stopped him. He wasn’t talking to us.

            “Yeah, what are we talking about again?” Rolcene said.

            “What happened there?” James finally asked. “Where’s Jules?”

            “Jules got spanked,” he answered. “”He’s with Niggins.”

            “What are they doing?” I asked.

            “You will see,” Rolcene added. “And please, help them.”

            I was close to crushing the speakers, but he replied no more. The panel showed the number 4 in glow, and the door opened.

            I would probably run and hug Mr. Riggins if he was there, or chest-bump with Jules and the other boys, but the time we arrived, my friend Jules was getting strangled to death by a psychotic-looking old man.