When you hear too loud of a noise you might hear a ringing in your ears, Whittle's words weren't loud at all, he was formal and serious, maybe even a bit quiet. So why is the word ringing in my ears on an endless loop?
Lockdown.
Lockdown.
Lockdown.
This. is. a. Lockdown.
Again and again, all I hear, the faint echo that never ceases to send a shiver down my spine.
Someone's chair squeaks and they shoot out of their chair, "Are you sure?"
"Yes, we caught the two on our cameras outside. We don't know where they are now, but most likely In this sector of the base."
If I didn't still have to be dead silent, I'd be giving myself a good, hard facepalm. God, how could we be so stupid not to look for cameras? Sneak into a sci-fi base 101 right there.
"Do you know who they are?"
"Not yet, but security technicians will have it figured out soon enough."
The timid voice speaks again, "If we left them here in the first place--Well, are we just going to put them back outside?"
My ears perk more than ever for Whittle's answer.
"We don't need anyone to get any ideas, rebellious activity needs to be suppressed before anything starts," He pauses for effect, as if he knew we were standing right here waiting, "By any means necessary."
Nobody speaks, are they as shook as us?
Whittle leaves the room with an entourage trailing behind and the last one shuts the door, leaving us exposed to the motionless room. We wait a noiseless minute, we don't look at each other, just stare straight ahead taking in everything we heard.
A shiver passes through me, and a fearful breath hitches in my throat.
How could they do this to us? And once they get just three more people, the portal closes for good. Don't they see the life they will have doomed us to if they leave us here? In just a couple of short months we could be stuck here forever, never see home ever again.
Stop Cassie, don't think like that, It won't do you any good.
"You heard what that guy said, right?" I breathe to Nayan, still in a bit of shock.
"I did," He nods to the ground sadly, "We'll be here forever."
I bite the inside of my cheek knowing how bad the situation is, and just how much I'd love to discuss it, but I know we can't.
"Don't think about that right now, we need to get out of here."
He takes in a deep breath and lifts his head as if bringing himself back into the real world, a tiny window near the ceiling casting a beautiful orange light of sunrise across his cheek.
I walk to the door, "Back to the garage?"
He darts his eyes around the room looking for cameras, I follow his gaze around the room, We're clear.
"If they caught us by cameras, they'll know where we came in and expect us to come out the same way."
"So does that mean we have to-"
He sighs, "Yes, it does mean we have to wander in a base full of people looking for us."
"How lovely," While my sarcasm lightens the mood slightly, it's as if our conversation is bundled in a blanket of shock.
I look to the nearby table, this room feels too normal, I wish there was something in here that proved how crazy of things happen in this room. Like a magical rock or something so normal, it would be abnormal, like a sock.
"What do you think he means by--Hostile measures?"
I kick the toe of my worn sneakers into the tile, "Nothing good."
A shrill alarm pierces my ears from an overhead speaker, far louder than the fire alarm from school and it makes us both press the palms of our hands against our ears.
"We should probably go now!" He yells so I can hear him somewhat from over the alarm. I wonder if the alarm is more for them, or to make it difficult for us to communicate with each other.
"Yeah, I'll agree to that!"
We exit the room to an empty hallway, a part of me really wants to go back the way we came, its quick and a certain exit, but unfortunately also a certain trap.
After a moment of hesitation from both of us, I start running down the hall, "This way!" I shout over the alarm, but the blaring is so loud my words sound more like whispers.
After just a few seconds at a sprint the siren comes to a halt, and so do we. Unlike Whittle's lockdown announcement from a few minutes ago, my ears are really ringing now.
The intercom crackles with Whittle's voice, "Nayan Vintari and Cassidy Dexter, Please escort yourselves to a nearby-" He pauses as if to find a friendlier term, "-Staff member. You have five minutes to do so or we will resort to more Hostile measures," While I've never seen his face, I can imagine him smirking with his sickly final words.
With a final crackle and an additional few seconds of peace, the alarm begins screaming again, slightly quieter but still the loudest thing I've ever heard.
"What do you think he means by Hostile measures?" Nayan asks with a masked fear.
I let myself think a moment considering what they've already done to us and knowing just how bad this could be, I force down my emotions.
"I don't think worrying about that will do us much good right about now."
He nods, "Right."
Without another word, we take off into another sprint, my short brown hair dances in a drift behind me, barely touching my back.
When faced with which way to go with just a few short words we agree to turn instead of continuing to go straight. In the adrenaline of it, we don't peek first and listening is pointless with the alarm. We don't see the crowd of rifle bearing agents before we turn the corner.
They spot us before we do them and the crowd takes off, not bothering to speak into walkie talkies or to even to each other. Obvious training, how nice.
Nayan turns to me, "Run."
I follow in Nayan's footsteps in the opposite direction and run faster than I ever have before. In gym classes, I used to love running races, but running from gun bearing soldier figures is different. Running for your life in a place where the alarm sounding for you is too loud to hear your own footsteps is different from a game of tag on the jungle gym.
If only I knew the real secret then, life or death.
We must run for full minutes when my lungs begin to ache vividly, Nayan and I are both panting like dogs, the aching begins to hurt more and more, the lung damage from living here proving itself. I glance back, and they are no longer behind us, but the crowd's footsteps are still there distantly. Did they give us time?
Feeling as if I'm about to pass out from running, my legs begin to slow down against my will, and I formally stop to prop my hands up on my knees and try to steady my breaths.
Through bated puffs of breath, I say to my equally exhausted best friend, "Look, we can't," I stop to breathe, "Run anymore-"
"Then what should we do?" He stops to take rapid breathes between each word and looks as if he's about to collapse. It's only been a few minutes of running, but breathing in the fog for years must be making this far more difficult for him than it is for me.
We're left in the center of a hall with just one door, while it's difficult to hear anything over the alarm, the pounding feet of an army is audible around the corner, "Hide."
He glances around as if considering our options and not wanting to commit to this one, the fighter in him looks like he wants to keep running.
"Okay," He says, speeding to the only door in sight.
Nayan glances back out a final time as we hurry inside the janitorial closet, the two of us huddle together in the room barely big enough for the cleaning supplies, let alone people.
"Behind the door?" I whisper.
"No better place to hide," He sounds serious but with just a hint of sarcasm hurried beneath his pursed lips.
We squeeze together arm to arm in a pitful quiet of the closet that reeks of mold, something that doesn't fit the standard for a neat and tidy place like this. All we can do now is try to listen to the constant ringing enveloping the world around us, something I've unfortunately begun to get used to.
We look at each other and he gives a small reassuring nod, the light brown skin of his face under a small spotlight from the sunrise peeking through a window. While he closes his eyes to steady his breaths I watch him a moment longer with a faint smile.
Something unfamiliar tugs deep inside me, crawling its way around and making me weirdly warm. But the feeling isn't necessarily uncomfortable. It's like home, it feels real, like an adrenaline high, but not the same one you feel from running for your life. A lustful adrenaline that doesn't seem to make very much sense.
My eyes fall from his peacefully closed eyelids to where our hands are, my fingertips, as if under a spell, inch toward his. As soon as I see it I take in a sharp gust of air and flinch back, making an effort to create a small gap of space between us that didn't exist before.
And just like that, the feeling is gone, and I'm left clueless to myself.
He opens his eyes and looks at me as if he's about to say something, but the door shoots open without warning, smacking us in the nose painfully.
The wood bounces off my face, and I bite my tongue to force down a pained yelp. A warm liquid dribbles onto my lip and I peek open my eyes just enough to see fluorescent lights flooding into the room.
"Clear!" A voice shouts from the other side of the door.
"Damnit," Someone else quietly grumbles nearby.
"Tell bossman it's time for plan B."
"Think he knew where they went and wanted it this way?"
The other voice pauses a moment as if considering his words, "Likely."
"So happy not to be where they're about to be."
"Damn right."
The door slams shut with the same ferocity it opened with.
"Are they gone" I mumble, feeling around my nose for damage.
His nose and the corners of his eyes are already growing a threatening purple, "I think so."
"Are you okay?"
I suddenly begin to grow thankful for the white noise surely dulling everyone else's ability to hear our conversation.
"Think so, you?"
I rip a sheet off a roll of paper towels and pass it to Nayan, keeping one for myself as well.
"It feels like I was punched in the face," I dab the blood off my lips, each brush against my nose feels like a stabbing little devil, "Other than that I'm fine."
He does the same and flinches with each touch, a blotch of maroon growing on the paper towel.
"-What do you think plan B is."
I pinch my nose as if I could use it to avoid answering.
"I don't know, but we seriously need to leave before we figure it out."
"Right."
With a final blowing of my nose I toss the bloodied sheet into a large trashcan.
We approach the door, "Are you re-" Nayan is cut off by the alarm stopping.
We know what this means, I anxiously await the bad news.
A static flares from the intercom on the ceiling and is interupted by Whittle's voice.
"Nayan Vintari and Cassidy Dexter," He breathes in a sinister way, "I see you have chosen to stay in hiding, well... Please know that our staff members will be circulating the building when you are ready to find them."
And with a final unsettling crackle his voice is gone and the alarm doesn't go back on this time.
I back away from the door, "That was... weird."
"Cass, I think this is going to go south real quick."
The use of my shortened name catches me off guard. It's not like I'm against it or anything, he's just never called me that before.
He must notice my surprise, "I'm sorry-"
"Shush, you're more than welcome to call me that."
He nods with a subtle blush only noticeable on his ears, "Okay, um, great-What do you think will happen if we stay here?"
If it wasn't for the mess we're caught in and the fear draped over us, I think I'd laugh at his blushing, but I couldn't force myself to if I wanted.
"He is assuming eventually we will go to one of those agents swarming around, right?" I say.
"Yes, Maybe he's going to make the base really cold or hot," He sounds desperately hopeful.
"That seems too low key for people like this."
"I don't know what el-" I violent coughing fit cracks through him and I feel the scratchiness beginning in my throat.
"Oh my God!" I wheeze.
Based on his expression I can see that the meaning of his coughing fit has dawned on him.
This is bad. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
"Don't cough!" He says with staggered breath.
"What? Why? I can't hold back a cough like this!"
"They'll be able to hear us now that the alarm is gone!"
I don't know where it's coming from but the air in the room is undeniably growing thicker and the other end of the small room is becoming blurry like the streets are. It's happening so fast! How are they doing this?
I frantically begin looking around for some way out that won't end with us in cuffs, my breathing quickens and my chest starts to hurt, the world swirling around.
I fight the urge to cough as much as I can, my eyes begin watering from the scratchiness in my windpipe, "We can't stay here, we'll die!"
He looks more frantic than me, both of our faces are dampened with blood, sweat, and tears. The air grows suffocatingly thicker. So fast! What has it been, thirty seconds? A minute?
"If we go out there, we get captured," Before he is able to shut his mouth a small gasp escapes him and he clasps a hand over his mouth to muffle it.
"What else can we do?"
I force myself to stop breathing and watch the door hysterically. What do we do?
My legs quake and my lungs feel as if they're about to rip apart. Growing weaker we dart around for something new, I know we can't leave, but staying here means death. Leaving here might mean that too.
But I won't let them kill me. Not like this. I hate to think like this, but they'll need a signal for our bodies to be revived.
It skips past my mind that the fog might be making me crazy, I let my hand fall and let a world of coughs envelop me. I'm unaware of anything happening around me other than the relief and pain caused by letting some kind of air inside me, even if it's not real.
I can't tell if I'm breathing anymore with how suffocated I feel.
Before I can cough more than a couple times, a weak, cold hand Is quickly pressed against my mouth. It plugs my bruised nose, and with it, I regain some awareness that I had formerly lost.
Nayan's lips are pursed together with a pained excitement, with one hand over my mouth and another beating the bright window with a flimsy broom.
Window! How didn't I think of that!
The broom looks as weak as Nayan does, but Nayan has a fighting spirit. The glass is heavily frosted but I can still see something on the outside.
I push his weak hand away from my mouth effortlessly and scramble with a hope igniting inside to find something stronger than a broom, but I'm stopped by myself.
The glass shatters around my best friend, who is already collapsed on the floor, morning sunlight floods the room over him.
With one final glance at the blurry figure that I barely register in this weird haze, I crumble to the ground lifelessly.