Chapter 1
The sound of a girl's voice wakes me. She sounds scared. Am I dreaming? Wait, I can feel the hard floor beneath me so I guess not. Reality pounds against my skull as I slowly wake from a horrifying dream I had. As my blurry vision recedes, I realize I'm in a dark purple room with Madison, Zack and Jared. No doors. No windows. Nothing. Am I still dreaming? I should be. Last thing I saw was Madison snoring her lungs out and Jared on the couch with Zack, both asleep. We were at Zack's house anyway. I have to be dreaming.
"Claire! Are you awake yet?" that was Jared.
"Well her eyes are open so I think she's awake brainless" and Madison.
I stroke the dark purple floor with my fingers just to double check that I'm not dreaming. Where are we? How did we get here?
"Claire what's going on? You fell asleep at Zack's house like the rest of us right?" says Madison. I scrape my brown hair from my face as I try to figure out why we are here. "I think so," I'm still dreaming, "Zack did anything happen last night? Like anything weird?"
"All I remember was trying to make that video game work and then crashing on the couch after I saw that you, Madison, and Jared looked like you were asleep. Nothing else until I woke up here." Zack looks like he's telling the truth.
"Maybe somebody kidnapped us and put us in here" Jared says staring at the wall behind me.
"Maybe" I say.
I try to remember everything that happened yesterday, if it even happened yesterday.
"Bye mom, I'm going to meet with Madison, Zack and Jared now." I say happily as I'm already out the door. I run over to the local park and wait for the three to show up.
I sit under a tree and make a braid out of some long grass I found. The breeze blows through my hair as I stare up at the porcelain white clouds and watch a spider make its web in a nearby branch. Finally I am surprised by an energetic Jared as he runs around from behind the tree and swings me up over his shoulders, my face on his lower back.
"Jared!" I screech as he spins in circles obviously trying to make me dizzy. "Put me down!"
"No, I'm taking you to subway! Zack texted me that we are meeting there instead." He says with a huge grin on his face. "Here we go!"
I'm laughing the whole two blocks down to subway and trying to get Jared to put me down. My argument of people staring doesn't seem very convincing to him. When we get there, Jared finally puts me down and we eat with Madison while Zack tells a story of how he got out of gym class with a fake sprained ankle.
"So then, Mrs. Mason is like 'No go run, you'll be fine', and I'm like 'but it hurts!' and I even made it so there were tears in my eyes and I worked!" says Zack with a mouthful of sandwich.
After we eat, we walk outside in the warm summer heat and spend our time talking about what we should do next. Madison and Zack argue about whose house we are going too, but it looks like Zack wins when he scoops up Madison and jumps into a recycling dumpster. We are all laughing our heads off as Madison screams laughs and cries all in one hilarious sound.
"Eww Zack! What was that for!?" she says as she tries to climb out of the dumpster.
"Oh, you mean me winning the argument or throwing you in a dumpster?" Zack says.
"Throwing me in a dumpster! Wait what?!"
"Hahaha no particular reason, looks like we are going to my house."
Zack picks up Madison and helps her out of the dumpster. He whispers something in her ear I can't make out and she giggles. I have always wondered if there was something between them I don't know about. When we arrive at Zack's house, Madison and I immediately run to the couch and end up sitting on each other. She quietly whispers something about what Zack said to her. I couldn't understand what she said but I think it's something about Zack saying that she looked cute today. I guess I was right about there being something between them but I can't be too sure. She asks me about why Jared carried my on his back to subway but I'm interrupted by Zack and Jared flying into the living room fighting over a bag of popcorn and that's when it opens and popcorn goes everywhere. I laugh so hard that I fall off the couch next to Jared and Zack who are also laughing. After we clean the mess up, Madison, Jared and I get comfortable on the couch to watch a movie but Zack flops down on his computer chair and starts messing with a CD.
"Zack what are you doing? Come watch the movie with us." I say.
"Wait I'm trying to get this videogame to work!" He yells from across the room.
"Videogame? Get in here!" Madison yells back to him.
"Well I think it's a videogame. I found it in that dumpster and now it won't even work."
"Zack!" yells Madison.
"Fine..." he says.
We watch the Avengers together until about 9:00 at night. Madison fell asleep already on the floor next to me and it looks like Jared and Zack are asleep too. So I rest my head on Madison's shoulder and slowly drift off. I have a horrible dream about these mutant wolves chasing me, not able to escape the dark warped world I thought was my home. That's when I wake up in the purple room.
"Hey guys, I think that videogame I was trying to make work might have something to do with why we are here." says Zack.
"That's crazy, how could a videogame put us here?" Jared retorts back.
"Well Jared, after I saw that you and the others were asleep, I went back to my computer and tried to get the videogame to work. When the home screen finally came up, all it said was 'Game 101001 loading'. It took like half an hour for that piece of crap to load and finally when it did, it said 'Warning-the players cannot exit the game upon entering until completed.' I had no idea what that meant but I pressed start anyway. My computer crashed as soon as I pressed start so I just got a blanket and crashed on the floor. That's all I remember."
"The players cannot exit the game upon entering until completed…" I say to myself. What if Zack is right and the video game did put us in here? I'm still dreaming. No it's too real. My thoughts swirl around in my head and I'm reduced to sitting with my knees up to my chest and my head resting on them, my arms wrapped around my head. Madison hugs me and tells me that we will try to find a way out of here.
Suddenly, words appear on the wall behind Zack.
"The answer to your problems lies right beneath your nose," Madison reads, "what does that mean?"
I think hard to myself, what could that mean? I stare at the cold purple floor trying to look for the answer. Wait…
"What if the way out is 'beneath our noses'?" I say to everyone.
"Yeah let's check the floor" Jared replies.
As we check the floor for any way out, buttons, levers, cracks, anything, I become less hopeful that we will ever get out of here. I'm about to give up when Jared excitedly yells that he found something. There is a crack between one of the tiles on the floor. I dig my nails into the crack along with Madison and we try as hard as we can to lift up the excruciatingly heavy tile, desperate for freedom. Once we have the tile lifted about an inch off the ground, Zack and Jared help moving the tile from its place.
I look down into what looks like a never ending hole. Although there is a ladder, no one volunteers to go down. But Madison speaks up and starts climbing down.
"Well I kind of want to get out of here so bye guys!" chirps Madison.
We all watch her climb down the ladder. We can't even see her anymore because it is so dark. Suddenly Madison yells up from the never ending hole and tells us there is a door. The hole becomes darker and colder as Jared, Zack and I descend into it. Finally when we reach the bottom, Madison leads us to the end of the cold, damp concrete hall where there is a door. It's not a big hall but its dark enough that when I reach the bottom of the ladder I can't see my friends anymore. But Madison, Zack, and Jared's screams let me know they are not far in front of me. I run to the door to find out what's going on, but only to find complete terror. The last thing I see is Madison in the arms of a monster, Jared on the ground, and Zack screaming his head off before a giant fist knocks me out cold.