Chapter Thirty Six
One of the two massive Service Bots appeared an hour later, gripping a large plate filled with what appeared to be trash. The other hand held a torch that illuminated the room. I had long since extinguished the miniature sun with my hand, and we had waited for an entire hour in complete silence.
The Service Bot shoved the plate of scraps through one of the gaps in the metal bars. The food fell to the ground, and I could instantly tell that it was the food the Empress had eaten for the feast – a half-eaten turkey and a meager amount of stuffing, mixed with some sort of cranberry sauce.
Before the service bot could pull its arm out of the cell, Ellie grabbed it and flung on it with her entire body. The Service Bot let out some sort of groan and tried to pull its arm out. But Ellie gripped the slippery brass surface with all her strength. The arm of the Service Bot bent backwards, sparks flying through the air. Then, everybody except for Anthony and I went up and twisted the robot’s arm.
After closing my eyes for a brief moment, I created another ball of light. I caused it to float over to the Service Bot’s arm, melting it to the iron bars. I extinguished it with my mind and caused the metal to cool immediately. I’m getting the hang of this Lucid stuff.
The Service bot dropped the torch in his other hand in an attempt to pry its arm from the gap in the barred door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was fused to the iron, and, it its attempt to free itself, it broke its arm off entirely. More sparks flew across the room, and the area where its arm had once been was now a tangled mess of fragmented wires and brass clockworks. It groaned as if it could feel pain coursing throughout its brass body.
I went up to help the others press the dismembered robotic arm towards the iron bars, using it as some sort of crow bar. After a series of grunts, the iron bars finally began to widen. We continued to push on the brass arm with all our might, and finally, the iron bars had widened enough for an average-sized person to squeeze through.
“Hurry!” I shouted.
One by one, the kids squeezed through the widened gape in the iron door. Ellie and I went back to help Anthony get up.
“No,” he shook his head. “I’ll only hold you guys back.”
“We’re not leaving you,” I said stubbornly. “You’re coming with us.”
I thought back to that quote from Lilo and Stitch, a movie I had adored so much when I was a kid. It was, “Ohanni means family. Family means that nobody gets left behind.”
Anthony tried to sit back down, and Ellie and I found that we were practically fighting with him.
“We don’t have forever!” Ellie exclaimed. “You can do this!”
Anthony shook his head. “Who do you think is supposed to distract the Service Bot?”
Ellie stared at him. “No, you never told us about a distraction in your plan.” She tried to hoist him up by his arm. “I thought we could just make a run for it!”
“That’s not possible!” Anthony shouted.
Half the occupants of the cell were already on the out on the other side.
Ellie looked back at Anthony. “No. We can still escape!”
Anthony felt for her face and caressed her cheek. “I wasn’t meant to escape.”
The service bot was beginning to run after the children going up and out the dungeon.
“Ellie, we have to go,” I told her.
Ellie started to cry. She hugged her brother tight and kissed him numerous times on the forehead. “I love you,” she sobbed, knowing that nothing would convince her brother to come with us.
“I love you too,” he replied.
The service bot was now running across the other side of the dungeon at the last of the kids who had escaped the cell.
Anthony heard this and hissed, “Go!”
I squeezed through the iron door, Ellie taking one last moment to kiss her brother before doing the same. We waved to Anthony on the other side of the door.
He called out, “WHAT ABOUT ME?”
The Service Bot turned around in response, one foot already on the first step of the coiling staircase.
Ellie and I dodged it as it ran towards Anthony, beating on the iron door.
“This is all your fault, wasn’t it? There’s a 100% chance that THIS WAS YOUR IDEA!” The Service Bot continued pounding on the door.
The only light inside the dungeon was the torch that the Service Bot had dropped. It continued to pound on the iron door, desperately trying to get into the cell. Then, as if the thought just occurred to it, it pulled out a familiar gold card. The bot swiped it in front of the scanner, and it gave of a beep, indicating that the door had been opened.
Not wanting Ellie to see her brother getting killed, I grabbed her arm and raced towards the coiling staircase. By the time we had made it three steps up, the bone-shattering cries of Anthony split through the air.
I felt Ellie’s arm tense up and her body stop, but I dragged her on.
“We’re almost there!” I screamed.
Anthony screamed three more times before the sound of a loud BANG silenced him. Ellie and I both jumped. There was no light in the stairwell, but I could see the soft glow of the fallen torch spilling out from the entrance to the dungeon. The service bot gave some sort of grunt.
By now, Ellie and I had made it to the top of the coiling stairs. The small, wooden door was open, courtesy of the other kids that had escaped. Ellie and I shut the door behind us and I broke the handle with a rock. Hopefully that would keep the Service Bot in there long enough for us to teleport back down to the Teleporter Room.
I turned to find numerous pairs of wide eyes staring at me. They were all obviously shaken up, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
“Where’s Anthony?” Deothoy asked.
I sighed and heard Ellie cry beside me. “He didn’t make it,” I said, holding back my own tears.
“What?” Enthania stepped forward. She was just as beautiful as I had imagined her, though, I had to admit, Ellie was far more attractive.
“He distracted the Service Bot to buy you guys’ time to escape,” I explained. I glanced at Ellie and said, “If it weren’t for him, we would’ve all been captured and killed.” I can’t believe I can actually die in a dream . . .
The knowledge that I could’ve actually died down there made me even more grateful towards Anthony’s sacrifice.
But we had no time to mourn.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
