Oozing Chemistry

2nd Thing's 2nd

Los Angeles. 2020.

Darkness.

Complete darkness surrounds us as Alex drowns in a pool of his own tears. Sometimes he can be so emotional.

Suddenly, the entire room shakes, and we huddle together, desperately holding onto each other as the blackness is replaced with more blackness and we're thrown into a free fall.

I scream at the top of my lungs, my stomach rising into my chest, and flail my arms about, trying to grab hold of anything.

Then, in an instant, the endless chasm disappears, and we're spit out onto cold concrete. My brain jumbles in my head and I groan as another body lands on top of me.

"Ow," I squeak, my lungs completely crushed by Alex, Reggie groaning dramatically beside Luke.

The boys struggle to stand and hobble around, and after catering to my broken body, courtesy of Alex, I join them, completely disoriented and barely holding myself up. My knees wobble, and I'm afraid to take a step forward.

"Woah!" Luke coughs, out of breath, and we all slowly turn around, adjusting ourselves. "How did we get back here?"

Suddenly, a loud scream erupts from across the garage, and I jump up and shriek, Alex catching me in his arms. Luke and Reggie start jumping up and down, holding each other as they rival the girl's screams. My hands jet to cover my ears, my eyes landing on a girl in an orange sweatshirt, a yellow happy face plastered across it, and her dark curls tied back. Her eyes meet mine, and she flails her arms and runs out, leaving us beyond freaked out.

"What was that?" Reggie breathes, composing himself and pretending that never happened. "And why do I feel weird?"

"More importantly," Luke says, ignoring Reggie's question to ask another. "What's she doing in our studio?"

Alex and I look at each other, completely frozen, before he puts me down gently and my feet bless the earth once more. I follow the boys toward the wide, open double doors of the garage and peer out to see if the girl would return.

"I don't know, man," Alex shrugs and sighs. "I don't think I can ever hear again, though."

I giggle and roam around, my eyes drifting up to see chairs hanging from the ceiling. I gaze in awe, wondering how that girl managed to get these chairs to float.

All of a sudden, my entire body tingles, and in a flash of white light, my butt is firmly planted in one of them. I scream, my heart having plummeted as the butterflies fly free. Absolute terror runs through my veins and my bones turn to mush as I flail my hands around, desperate to grab onto something. My hand hits the back of the chair and I hug it to death, closing my eyes as tightly as possible.

"Woah!" Reggie gawks up at me, his mouth wide, and points. "How'd you do that?"

I squeeze my entire body tighter to the chair, chanting in my head not to look down. "I don't know!" I yell to them. "But someone get me down!"

"Just do what you did to get up there," Luke says casually, as if it's the easiest thing in the world. "Unless you don't know... Then that sucks."

I mentally glare at him and gradually open my eyes to take a peek, instantly regretting it, accidentally loosening my grip on the chair, and falling to my death, screaming at the top of my lungs all the way down.

In another flash of blinding white light and endless tingles, I appear again behind Reggie, accidentally stumbling into him and tackling him, taking him down with me.

"See?" He smiles from beneath me, his hands holding either side of my waist. "That wasn't so hard was it?"

I huff and the three boys laugh, but soft footsteps quickly catch our attention. Reggie and I scramble up, and in comes the same girl in orange, this time holding a wooden cross in front of her, slowly turning around as if she's in an episode of a ghost hunting show.