- Nov 12, 2018
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Ooh that story was nice.
Chapter I
Floating in a sea of darkness, unable to move, speak, feel, or see. There was nothing. All I had was the basest of thought. I knew I was there. I knew that I existed. But other than that...
Nothing.
Bttz.
A jolt of energy pierced my body, and my eyes snapped open, meeting a different darkness.
I didn’t move, my brain’s gears furiously turning to figure out my predicament.
Am I blind?
As my eyes adjusted, however, and I could see a faint light shining through whatever was around me. I groped about with my hands, and I hit a cold, smooth wall of an unknown substance in every direction.
Nausea built up in my stomach as I tried to remember how I had gotten there.
Nothing.
I breathed in quickly. What had I done? I placed my hands in front of me, feeling the surface of the wall that separated me from the unknown.
My blood pounded in my ears as I searched for a weak spot, a crevice, something.
I found nothing. I was trapped.
Forcing down the bile that was rising in my throat, I tried to stay calm.
I failed.
Panting, I kicked at the wall in front of me, clawing at it. I felt my fingernails bend painfully as they screeched on the translucent, metal-like substance. All thoughts in my panic-stricken mind were smothered as one raging thought took hold.
I have to get OUT!
The walls around me seemed to be closing in, getting tighter around me. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to die. I was--.
A jingling of technical beeps and sounds reverberated through the box, and I stiffened in surprise.
*Sshhfhhhdhhhhh….. Hello, Skylar. Would you like to exit container 6711-5?*
I froze at the mention of my name. Skylar. Yes, I recognized it. My name was Skylar.
The shape of a face appeared a few inches in front of me, the wall somehow becoming a screen.
I yelped, backing up only to find that the immobile wall behind me kept me from doing so.
The face was generic, having no distinguishable features. The voice was robotic and also very androgidous.
*I repeat, would you like to exit container 6711-5?*
“Um, yes?” I said uncertainly. I froze, realizing I was hearing my voice for the first time in my memory. It was low, and my “s” had a sort of whistling lispy noise to it. The feeling of not having heard my voice before made me want to break down.
But no, I couldn’t. Maybe this voice could give me a way out.
*How do you ask?*
“What?” I bit my lip, my anxiety rising. Was this supposed to be a riddle? “How do I ask?”
*How do you ask?*
“What do you mean, ‘How do you ask?’” I snapped, continuing my attempts to escape by shoving my shoulder against the wall to my right.
*Please ask politely to be removed from your container.*
I looked at my feet. That seemed ridiculous. Was it really that easy?
“Please let me out.”
At first nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the back wall that was supporting me from behind gave way, and I tumbled a few feet to the floor and into the light.
I landed on my back. The air felt like it had been yanked from my lungs with a whoosh. Squeaky noises escaped from my lips as I struggled to get the precious oxygen back into my lungs.
“Oh, are you okay?”
Hands pulled me out from underneath the container from which I had just exited. I somehow raised myself to a sitting position, and my eyes met that of a girl in her mid-teens. She was pretty, with brown beachy waves and deep set dark blue eyes. Her face was slightly rounded in a cute way, with freckles dotting across her slightly upturned nose.
She smiled, repeating her question. “Are you okay? You landed pretty hard.”
As if I didn’t know. “Where am I?” I demanded hoarsely, choking on my words. Nausea churned in my stomach, and I had to force myself to breathe. Who was this girl? Did she know anything?
“I… don’t know.” She said softly, looking at the ground. “I was actually wondering if you knew where we are.”
I sucked in a deep breath, my anxiety beginning to recede. I was free. It was going to be okay.
“What’s your name?” The girl asked me.
I narrowed my eyes, studying her. Her smile was genuine, and she seemed like the kind of person that could be trusted. I… couldn’t just lie to her, so I told her my name.
“I’m Skylar. You?”
“Camaryn.”
There was an awkward silence, where I thought I heard some noises in the background. Unfortunately, my exhaustion overpowered my curiosity. I glanced at her. “So, you came out of a box too?”
“Yeah…”
I closed my eyes, my nausea from earlier subsiding.
“There are other boxes. I think they might have people in them too.”
“What?” I scrambled to my feet, and what met my eyes made me gasp. There were thirty black identical boxes arranged in the white room I now found myself, five across and six down. The room had no doors or windows or any openings for me to escape, for that matter.
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire, eh?” Camaryn’s voice became slightly hollow, her smile becoming sad.
It was then that I really heard the sounds. The muffled screams and thuds. I groaned, sinking to the floor again. Those poor people. What must they be thinking?
“Do you think they’ll make it?” I asked.
“If their escape route was as easy as mine, then yes.”
“What?” I asked dryly. “Did you have to say please too?”
“Actually, yes, I did.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but then the same robotic voice sounded from all around us, making us both jump in surprise.
*All test members now have one minute to escape.*
“Or what?” Camaryn yelled, the ferocity marking her face a stark contrast to the gentle expression she wore while talking to me.
Or death.
WOAH. THAT WAS COOL!!!
