The Life Of A Franz Ferdinand Reference

10

GLASIE:

I woke up suddenly.

In Baltimore, Maryland.

"Did I just dream up everything?" I whispered on the verge of tears.

I checked my phone.

STRAWBS: heeeey FF is on tour and I got tickets!

"Reality check, Glas. Reality check." I whispered.

I looked back at the text. The number of E's have changed from four to... A lot. I'm lazy, I admit it.

And then I woke up.

It was dark, and I didn't feel like waking anyone up. Whatever that strange dream was, it wasn't real. I think A&R wanted to try to convince me Deliria wasn't real... But luckily I am an expert at reality checks. I quickly looked at my hand and blinked. It stayed the same. I smiled and cuddled up against Nick, making sure not to accidentally crush any tubes or wires or whatever. I wanted some interaction with someone... I wanted to make sure everything was real. Because when you wake up from something so emotionally scarring...

"Nick. Wake up." I whispered.

"Hmm?" Nick said sleepily.

"I want to make sure you're real. I want to make sure I'm real."

"Glas... You okay?"

"I don't know. Punch me in the face or something."

"Calm down, I'm definitely real."

I smiled and fell back asleep.

I woke up when it was light out this time. Still in Deliria. Everything was okay.

"Why do you want to get out of here so badly?!" Nick asked Alex.

"We have a dimension to save!" Alex said cheerfully.

"I would want to help... But sadly I'm not allowed out of here for a while." Nick sighed.

"Then we illegally break out. I'm sure Rowan would help."

"Oh, would she?" Rowan laughed from the hallway. She quickly opened the door. "I'm in. Let's go."

"Thanks so much!" I smiled.

"Okay... Nick, put on Glasie's sweatshirt. Hood up." Rowan instructed.

I pulled off my thankfully oversized sweatshirt and handed it to Nick. I bet he'd look adorable in it. And he does look adorable in it. Oh my.

"Alex, take this backpack. You'll need it later." Rowan tossed Alex a black backpack.

"What do we do exactly?" I asked.

"You and Alex take the stairs down. No one will suspect a thing. Nick and I will take a different route."

"Nice. Let's go." Alex dragged me out of the room.

•••••••••

"Where are we?!" Alex asked a few minutes after we started sprinting down the winding concrete staircase.

"It says floor 6." I continued running down the stairs after Alex. Everything echoed in this hollow space.

Once we hit floor 3, there was nothing. No more stairs. I opened the door to a dark hallway. Some lights flickered and went out.

"Are you sure we should go in here? Let's go back." Alex suggested, stepping back and hitting the railing.

"No! We are finding a way out of here! We came down here for a reason and I will not go all the way back up to the 14th floor!" I hissed and dragged Alex into the hallway.

"There's a door." He pulled open the bright red door to see a wide staircase that lead to the basement.

"We shouldn't go that way." I opened a heavy gray door that led to a fluorescent lit and narrow hallway that had a staircase at the end.

"That's it, Glas. I'm going up. We can't do this."

"We are staying down here!" I angrily stepped through the door and ran down the hallway and down the stairs. Alex followed. Just as I knew he would.

"There's no way out. Admit it!" Alex glared at me in the light of the exit sign. Wait, exit sign?!

"Look up, idiot." I giggled and ran through another door. This one lead to another dark and mysterious floor like the the one we were on before. This was level 2, apparently.

"FREEDOM!" Alex pushed past me into the still dark hallway.

"It's not our full way out. There must be something..." I spotted another door that said "TO FIRST FLOOR" in bold letters. I opened it to find another concrete staircase like the one that lead us to the third floor.

I ran down those stairs and found a lobby looking place outside of the steps. I then tried not to laugh as I glanced over at the door to find Rowan and Nick trying to be cool wearing sweatshirts.

"Just run." Alex instructed me and swiftly bolted towards the rest of our escape group. After 20 minutes of problem solving with one person I wouldn't want to do exactly that with, I could breathe again.

"We gotta get out of here." Rowan whispered and led us out the awkward automatic doors. "Here's my jeep. Get in." She directed us to a beat up black jeep. As usual, Alex had shotgun, because of his fake "maturity" or whatever. That left Nick and I to the backseat. I could tell Nick was trying hard not to black out. He still looked adorable in my sweatshirt.

"So where are we headed?" Rowan asked.

"Arabelle's."

"Oh, I know where that is." Rowan made a sharp turn and headed in the other direction away from the hospital.

"Are those cop cars?!" I peeked through the back window to see flashing lights chasing us.

"About that. Nick wasn't legally allowed to leave because of A&R's stupid rules. We have to drive faster." Rowan turned through a small alleyway and through a dimly lit tunnel.

"You sure Nick is okay?" I asked Rowan.

"Yeah. Maybe." She shrugged. Nick was once again almost passed out in the backseat.

//ALEX//: why are we trusting Rowan???

//GLASIE//: relaaaaaaaaaax brotha

"Crap. They're right behind us. I guess we'll have to take a different route to Arabelle's." Rowan hissed, taking a sharp turn towards a steep and snowy mountain. The cop car lights and alarms slowly faded away into the morning light. We were now driving up a mountain, in hopes of losing anyone following us and also getting to Arabelle's place in Insetile City.

"Why are we even going this way?!" Alex asked.

"Can any of you snowboard on crappy sleds?" Rowan quickly changed the subject.

It was my time to shine. Well, in 3 hours.

"Are you kidding. ARE YOU KIDDING. DID MY CAR JUST FRICKIN BREAK DOWN." Rowan seemed to panic a little bit, but stayed calm.

"So, what about those snowboards?" Alex smirked, looking back at me. I glanced up at him quickly.

Anyway, 10 minutes later, Rowan had supplied Alex, Nick, and I each with a crappy snowboard.

"Have fun! I'll go call someone to bring the jeep down. Ya know." Rowan laughed, and started sliding down the mountain.

Nick looked at me nervously. I shrugged.

Did I mention I have terrible balance? No? Okay. But still, terrible balance. At least I could snowboard.

It was easy at first. I was actually pretty good at balancing. Alex soon caught up to me, and everything was still great. But then, Nick came sliding in, and it was a crash course.