Captured
Prompt: Bag Over Head
Louie ran through the dimly lit halls. His heart pounded in his ears in time with his feet slapping against the carpeted stone floor. Nowhere was safe. The enemy lurked behind every corner. They'd already gotten Huey and Dewey. Louie had to get away so he could figure out a way to rescue them.
Or he could just cut and run. Huey was smart enough to get them out of there, right? Right. And besides, Louie would be more of a liability than anything else. Sure, he could lie his face off if need be, but somehow he didn't think that particular skill would be very helpful with the people they were working with.
Louie felt something whoosh by his ear. He skidded to a stop and looked around frantically for the source. Suddenly, a bag was pulled over his head and the world went dark.
"Hey! Let me out!" Louie said, squirming. But some sort of rope was being tied around his wrists and ankles, holding him fast. "Let me-whoa!" Louie lost his balance and, unable to catch himself, he fell flat on his face. That was going to leave a bruise.
He heard some whispering outside the sack.
"You'll pay for this!" he yelled, struggling to right himself.
Two sets of hands grabbed him by the ankles and the head and hoisted him up. Panic started to rise in his throat. The world felt awfully small when you had a dark, itchy bag over your head.
"Seriously, let me out!" Louie yelped, twisting and wriggling in a frantic attempt to get free. He could feel his captors starting to move, taking him to who knew where.
"Hey, quit it!" a voice said, muffled by the fabric surrounding his head. "You're going to make us drop you!"
"Make you drop me?" Louie said, voice cracking. "Nobody's making you pick me up in the first place!"
After a few more minutes of bumpy running, Louie's captors stopped. They gently lowered him down amid cries of "Watch it, watch it!" before dropping him the last inch or two with an abrupt thud.
Louie started to squirm again, trying to worm his way out of his kidnappers' grasp.
"Oh, no, you don't." A set of hands grabbed his ankles and dragged him back.
"Ow, ow, hey! You're giving me rug burn!" Louie complained.
"Sorry," the owner of those hands said. The kidnappers sat him up and untied his wrists, holding tightly as they re-tied them around some sort of a pillar or post. After testing the strength of the knots, they whipped the bag off of his head, leaving him blinking in the bright light.
"They got you, too, huh?" Dewey asked next to him.
"Yep."
"I can't figure out where we went wrong…" Huey muttered from Louie's other side.
"I'm sorry, guys. I really blew it, didn't I?"
"Nah, it's fine. Besides, Huey still needs to earn his escape room badge. This'll give him some practice."
"For the last time, there is no escape room badge," Huey said.
"There is no escape room badge yet," Dewey said. "Anyway, I think if I just…"
"Ow, hey! That's my tail!" Louie said.
"Are you sure? 'Cuz I'm pretty sure that's the knot…"
"No, that is definitely my tail!"
"Quit it! Help me get my Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook out of my hat," Huey said.
"What, you're going to read our way out?"
"How are we supposed to help you, anyway? We can't exactly give you a hand."
"Got it!" Huey said triumphantly. "Now if I can just…"
"I think escaping is on page 392," Louie said.
"No, no, no, you want escape rooms, page 1094," Dewey said.
"There's no way the Guidebook has a thousand pages," Louie said.
"3,280," Huey said absently.
Louie heard a thud. The three ducklings were silent.
"I dropped it," Huey finally said.
"Oh, boo hoo. It's not like it would have helped," Louie said.
"Page 479 has a serrated blade that can be used to cut rope, leather, small sticks, and submarine sandwiches," Huey recited despondently.
"Wait, really?" Louie said at the same time that Dewey said, "Oh, cool!"
"Ready to give up, boys?" Webby asked from the doorway.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Sure."
"Yep."
Lena smirked next to her. "I told you we'd win."
"Best two out of three?" Huey said.
Louie groaned. "Nope. I'm out."
"Aw, come on!"
"No fair!"
"How is it not fair? It's not like I was any help anyway!"
"You were the last one of us to get captured," Huey pointed out while Webby started to untie their ropes.
"Probably because they knew I was the least threatening of us," Louie said.
"Yeah, if it doesn't involve money or treasure, he's pretty much useless," Lena said.
"Sounds about right," Louie said with a shrug.
"Not helping!" Huey said.
"Anyway, I'm going to go watch some Ottoman Empire and see if we have any Pep." Louie gave sort of a mock salute. "See ya." And with that, he left the room and headed toward the giant TV and the refrigerator.
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