The Factory

"Alex! Alex! It's attacking me!"

I sighed and pulled myself out of the fantasy world of the book I was reading in. My idiot brother was running around in circles, screaming like a little baby as a snake chased him around. I leaned over the edge of my porch chair to get a better look at the snake.

The snake was black, and almost as long as my arm. Running down its back were two yellow stripes that told me instantly that it wasn't poisonous. It kept striking at my brother's bare feet, trying to destroy the unknown pink menace.

That poor snake.

I sat back down and picked my book back up. "Yup. It's attacking you."

"MAKE IT STOP!"

"Why? You're not going to die if it bites you. What does Dad always say…it'll build character? That snake's making you a better person, Doug."

Doug's not really his name, his real name is Michael, but when we were kids I started to call him Doug in honor of a new movie that had come out and after a little while it just stuck. My brother is younger than me by three years, but he still stands several inches taller than me. His black hair is clumped and wet today because he's so smart that he thinks his little squirt gun can beat our crazy neighbor's, Mr. Hondell's, hose. For a second, he glared at me and his green eyes flashed with anger, but then he jumped away from another of the snake's strikes and suddenly smiled.

He jumped at the snake as it attacked him again, pinning its head under his foot. I shook my head at him and went back to my book, content that he'd built enough character for the day. Doug stuck his tongue out at me and picked up the snake by its tail.

I screamed as he threw the snake into my lap. It hissed at me and coiled in preparation to attack me. On reflex, I slammed my book closed and the snake's head was squished into a flat, bloody pulp inside the crisp white pages.

Doug wisely took off, but I was already two steps behind him intent on giving him another lesson on character. And also wiping the smug grin off his face. We raced down two blocks before my friends Ricki and Abe saw me in my bloodlust and pelted after us, yelling at me that whatever the twerp did it's not worth going to jail over.

Screw that. He threw a snake in my lap! And he still owes me 20 bucks!

We were in front of the old hospital now, its brick form in better shape than I would expect from a building that's been abandoned for a century. Years ago, this hospital was used by all of the surrounding towns, but one day the hospital lost all of its money in a huge scandal with the employees. The hospital was closed down, and with it the town seemed to die as well. Now it was the city's property and the day the mayor decided to destroy the hospital to build some new profitless attraction was beginning to draw near.

Not caring about the no trespassing signs, Doug turned sharply, nearly fell because of it, and jumped halfway up the chain link fence of the old factory. I watched him bolt into the factory and began to climb the fence to follow him.

Ricki and Abe stopped me. "Stop! Alexia, heel!" Ricki said.

"Holy cow, Alex, what'd he do?"

I held up my book, the dead snake's tail hanging out of it like a bookmark. The tail was still wiggling despite the fact that there was no way that snake had survived. They stared at it with open mouths. Ricki frowned and let go of my arm. "Destroy him."

"With pleasure." Abe caught me again.

"He put a dead snake in your book?"

"Well, no. He threw a live snake in it and then I squished its head."

"Then why don't you show your parents instead of murdering him?"

"Because they won't make him eat the snake."

"I have a better idea." Ricki said. "Let's lock you in a room together until you make up."

"Do I still get to beat him up?"

"Just don't kill him."

"OK." I relented. "But I still have to drag his butt out of the factory."

They nodded and I scaled the fence quickly, the whole fence shaking as my friends followed me. We hopped down on the other side and ran across the cement to the factory. Our faces burned as we pictured how much trouble we'd be in if someone saw us.

Ricki and I ducked behind the broken down trucks, peered out nervously, and then made a mad dash for the door like ninjas. We rolled the last few feet and popped up beside Abe.

"You can't just walk?" Abe asked as he waited impatiently for us by the door.

"Ch. No." Ricki said.

Abe shook his head and tried the door. It was locked. "I thought your brother could pick locks."

"He can. Dad taught us. He probably blocked the door so I couldn't get in."

Ricki shoved Abe out of her way. "Your dad never taught you the unfailing way to open a door." She took a deep breath and karate kicked the door. It swung open, slammed into the wall and bounced back into Ricki's hand as she held the door open for us.

Abe and I bowed to her. "Master." We said before entering the hospital. The lights were already on, a sign that my bro had indeed been through here. He'd placed a chair under the door's handle to keep us out, but Ricki's kick had sent it flying across the room and into the wall, where it had broken in two. The rest of the place was empty and dust covered; everything in a state of rot. This was the old lounge, but now it was starting to look more like the beginning of a haunted house.

"Doug, get your butt out here now and I'll accept your allowance in place of revenge!"

Doug's reply was muffled. "I don't care anymore! Come here, you've got to see this!"

"Oh, you can bet I'll come, but there's no guarantee of your survival!"

We followed Doug's footprints through the dust. They led us out of the rundown room and through several doorways, weaving and twisting through the building until I began to wonder how Doug had managed to get this far in the first place. The rooms we entered suddenly became much less rundown, the walls and floors became crisp and white and the appliances we saw became more modern than anything in my house. There were metal tubes filled with blue fluid, vials and tubes, and touch screen computers in every room. The trail of dust stopped and we were stuck in an examination room.

"Doug, where are you?" I yelled.

He didn't answer.

"MICHAEL!"

"Guys, look," Abe said. He'd turned on the touch computer, opening it onto a page with a list of numbers accompanied by strange names. The numbers were ordered from least to greatest, but there were huge gaps in between the numbers as if someone had only half done their job. He was skimming through the numbers, reading briefly the names that appeared with them.

"It looks like they forgot some numbers." Ricki said.

I shrugged and glanced at one of the names beside the numbers. My mouth fell open and I told Abe to stop, forgetting instantly about my brother.

"Those are Pokémon!"

Abe and Ricki gave me an annoyed look. They didn't like it when I talked nerd in front of them. They preferred to forget that I was a nerd that still played Pokémon. I'd been playing Pokemon since I was 8, and my brother since he was 5. It scared them to the point that they both refused to go out in public with me if I was going to speak nerd.

"Alexia, this factory was closed before Pokémon even came out." Abe said.

"Then why are there touch computers here? It's a Pokédex." I pointed to number 302, Sableye. "Why are these things even here?"

My finger touched the screen, and a new window opened. This one showed a picture of Sableye beside a bunch of numbers and figures I didn't understand. I touched the picture of Sableye and a popup window appeared saying, 'Sableye has been released.'

Was that list just somebody's PC then? A list of the Pokémon they'd caught? Well, now they didn't have a Sableye.

The door blew open suddenly and a chilling wind crawled up our spine. Miniature sand dunes appeared on my arms and I shivered. The light above us flickered and exploded.

Ricki gave a small squeal and jumped more than 2 feet in the air. The light from the computer was the only thing left to see by, and it was a pitiful light that cast more shadow skeletons than anything else. A hand touched my shoulder and I screamed. I elbowed the person and twisted around, locking their head under my arm.

"Ow! Alexia, let go!"

I dropped my brother and he scurried quickly behind Abe. "Where've you been?" I demanded. "Why didn't you answer when we called for you?"

"Seriously? I was in the next room is all! It's soundproof!"

"Prove it." Ricki growled. "Go in there and scream "I'm gay!" at the top of your lungs."

"We don't have time for that. Mom will have a heart attack if we're not home for supper."

"But Alex," he whined, "you saw the computer! It gets even better! Just come with me for a sec!"

"Are you kidding me? Do you know how much self control I'm using right now to stop myself from making you swallow your own tongue after your little stunt?"

"A lot?" Abe suggested. He turned to Doug. "Show me."

Doug grinned and held the door open for Abe. We heard him shout something before the door slammed closed. I bristled, but eventually we followed them.

The room we entered was small, containing only a small table and various bits of machinery shoved against the wall. Abe was fiddling with some advanced looking equipment on the back wall and Doug was shoving several huge piles of Pokemon cards that were on the table into one of 5 brown book bags that was on the table.

I stomped towards him and smacked him in the head. "Are you stealing? We don't steal!"

"But all these cards could sell for a hundred bucks!"

I blinked.

"You're putting them in wrong! You won't be able to fit them all in there like that! No, don't put them in that way; you'll bend them!"

There was a loud crash as Abe hit a button on one of the machines. Several objects dropped off the machine.

"Way to go. You broke it." Ricki picked up the items. They looked like the scanners they use at the grocery store to check prices, only these ones had tiny screens on the front of them and were a lot nicer looking. Plus, they were red and white like a Pokéball.

I took one from her and pointed it at Doug like a gun. When I pulled its switch a red light beam shot out, blinding Doug when it hit his eyes. Definitely a grocery scanner.

"Ow! Get that out of my eyes!"

The door suddenly swung open. Once again, the cool wind blew on us, but this time it came with a thick wall of smoke. The light exploded again, but not before I got a good look at the creature that stepped through the doorway.

It was purple and shaped like a jagged piece of ice or crystal in the shape of a tiny person. Its eyes were huge diamonds that held no feeling or soul. It had long claws that it raised threateningly above its head.

I felt like the coldness had seeped its way right into my very being.

I hadn't released somebody's Sableye on their game. I'd released it in real life.

Thanks for reading everybody! Please read and review! Tell me what you think of Alexia, she's crazy right? I mean, who does that kind of stuff? Well, if you were honestly thinking nobody and that I'm completely stretching the truth too far about that kind of stuff, think again because I literally do that kind of stuff to my brother on a daily basis.

Hope you all liked it, I'll try to get another chapter up by next week if not sooner!