KATIE'S POV

My eye's slowly open but I can't move, I start to panic thinking I have sleep paralysis but soon end up feeling the rope tied around my wrists. I turn and see Ariza. I look down to look at my bound hands as my short fringe starts to fall on the left side of my face. God, sometimes I wish I buzzed off more than just the right side. I hope to god Ariza wakes up soon. "H-hello?" I call out. What the hell was that Katie? Stuttering? Jesus F*king christ. I can't let them think that I'm scared...But you are…. UGH! Shut up self! Let this guy know you're not going to back down without a fight! "Hello?! Is anyone there?!" I shout like I mean business. Holding a prideful smirk on my face and looking out into the rest of the room.

ARIZA'S POV

I wake up to hear Katie shouting, "Hello?! Is anyone there?!"

It's a good thing she woke me up, actually- I was having nightmares about this… entity called 'Dead Silence' knocking me out and tying me up before filming us both and oh, wait, that wasn't a dream, was it? Darn it.

Actually, considering I'm an Author, I'm not all that bugged about getting out of this place. That sounds kinda weird, but I'm rather hard to panic.

No, what I AM bugged by is why 'Dead Silence' decided to let my limbs fall asleep, Notch… great, so sneaking out of this place just became incredibly… ah… what's the word? Oh, yes, I remember the word now, difficult. For me, anyway. I don't know about Katie.

"Hey, Katie," I say as casually as I can; considering that I'm tied up in a chair and being held hostage by some weird entity. Actually, now that I think of it, that is pretty normal, so I guess my being casual is pretty appropriate for the situation.

Katie's head snaps around to look at me. "Oh, hey, Ariza. You're awake, I see." Her voice is faintly shaky but, you know, nothing too bad.

"Ye-ep," I reply cheerfully. Well, you know, as cheerfully as I can while being tied up with my arms and legs completely asleep. The longer side of my hair is starting to tickle my shoulder rather uncomfortably, and the red streak must be starting to fade out. That one clumped bang is also starting to drip into my green eyes, making seeing a bit more difficult than I'd like it to be. "Did I miss anything good?"

"No, not really."

"Good, then it's about time we get out of here. Just give me a second while I-" I wriggle around in the chair for a moment, peering around at the surroundings. Mostly it's barren, but I spot this old, rusty pipe that's slightly torn open, leaving a jagged, metal edge. Perfect.

Shoving the chair backwards in a series of scooting actions that must look supremely ridiculous but are effective in both getting the blood flowing and getting me across the room, I manage to hook one thread of the rope onto the jagged metal edge, and then I start to squirm some more. The metal rips through my sleeve and unleashes a small bit of blood, but I just grit my teeth and keep going.

Although, I must say, I really hope I don't get tetanus or something from all that rust.

"Ahh, finally free," I sigh, standing up and stretching a bit, feeling the blood slowly start to circulate back to my arms. I go over to Katie's chair and drag her chair over to the metal as well- it's the only thing I can do with my still-numb arms, although they are starting to tingle a bit now that there's blood flowing to them.

After a minute, Katie's free, too. "Ahh, there we go," she says lightly, dusting herself off.

"Good, then let's go. There has to be some… I dunno. Clue or something to indicate how this 'Dead Silence' guy was able to capture us." I test the doorknob and find that it's unlocked.

Well, I mean, I was all prepared to pick the lock or bust out of here with some cool ninja moves, but this works too.

The door opens smoothly, without creaking. Very carefully, I stick my head around the corner, being extremely careful not to get the both of us caught.

No one seems to be in sight, so I beckon to Katie without looking back at her. "C'mon, let's hurry," I whisper to her, before starting to walk down the hallway, completely normally but ready to duck out of sight at a moment's notice.

Good thing that's the case, too- not even a full minute later, I hear footsteps. I dart back and press my back to the wall, grabbing my pen from behind my ear and giving it a good twirl, fishing into the pocket of my flannel- Dead Silence may have gotten my lucky notebook, but he obviously didn't take my emergency one- and pull it out, flipping it open to the first blank page as Katie skids to a halt next to me.

The beings patrolling the hallway walked past both Katie and Ariza, simply ignoring them as if they were flies on a wall. However, the two of them did have to remain quiet in order to avoid breaking the illusion.

You have a question, you say? Why not just write it so that they won't notice us, period? Well, I could, but then the 'enchantment' wouldn't be complete, so they'd end up spotting us anyway. If you're going to make a magical prison, you cannot make one without a key or a way of opening it, and that's the same process for making these sorts of enchantments.

I showed the notebook to Katie, and she nodded mutely at me after reading the thing. With that, the two of us started tiptoeing down the hallway, being careful to not click our heels on the floor or anything that would make too much noise.

Several of the guard… beings… whatever they were, strolled right past us without even noticing. Good thing I had my Author abilities, otherwise we'd be up a creek without a paddle.

Hmm, a paddle would be a rather useful thing to keep in a bag or something. Too bad I wouldn't use it much… and too bad that it's so big.

Finally, after one incident where I accidentally knocked over a vase and gave the both of us a heart attack (thank goodness Katie managed to catch it in time), and after another one where Katie literally ran straight into one of the robots (I quickly read a magic bag called Manbarondena out of a book I had and sucked it inside the bag), we reached a set of metal doors that had the words 'CONTROL CENTER' emblazoned across them.

Subtle. Veeeery subtle.

I tried the handle. Locked… of course, not for long.

Carefully, I pulled out the notebook again, glancing over my shoulder to make sure none of the guard beings were actually looking at us.

"I'll keep watch- you just do your weird magic writing thing," Katie whispered, giving me a thumbs' up.

I thought about correcting her but then decided that would just be rude, so I gave her a nod and returned the thumbs' up, before carefully taking my pen and jotting down-

The guard beings both in the locked room ahead and in the hallway that contained the locked room all sensed a disturbance in the hallway where the two prisoners had been being kept, so they all left the hallway and headed in that direction. The guard beings inside the locked room, however, did not leave the door unlocked.

I was taking a bit of a risk here, assuming that there were, in fact, guard beings inside, but hey, you don't win a game if you don't take risks.

The doors slid open, and both Katie and I barely managed to dart to one side before all of the guard beings were thundering down the hallway in the direction of the room where we were imprisoned. Quickly, the two of us dodged inside the 'CONTROL CENTER', whereupon we slammed the doors shut and quickly locked it again.

Happily, my brown leather bag happened to be in there as well, so I snatched it up and rummaged around in it before pulling out a… uh, 'borrowed' padlock and chain from my aunt's house. (She's super paranoid about everything.) We fastened it around the door handles and clicked the padlock into place, before Katie also grabbed a small length of rope and we bound it around the door handles again as well.

Slinging my bag back over my shoulder, I took a deep breath and looked around the room we'd just ducked into.

The room was appropriately dim, a large wooden desk shoved against one side of the room. On that desk were two laptops and a large tablet. One of the laptops showed a map of the whole place, and one of the security cameras in the roms. The other laptop had part of something that said 'CHAPTER 3' on it on a Google Doc. (Not one of my stories, though.) On the tablet, Fanfiction- one of the main websites that I write on- was open. Wires hung from the ceiling like vines, making one have to stoop to avoid getting electrocuted or beaned in the face with a fire.

On the other side of the room, there was a control panel with many buttons that simply weren't layered. There was also a single poster on the wall that had every single one of the Minecraft: Story Mode characters on there.

I put my hands on my hips in an authoritative way.

"Alright, let's see what we've got here."

+_()_+

Unbeknownst to Ariza and Katie, a shadowy figure lurked just beyond the padlocked door, able to see and hear everything that went on inside.

Said shadowy figure closed her notebook, sliding it in her uniform's shoulder pocket.

Pulling off her mask, she brought out a small walkie talkie. "Rebekah to Toni. Toni, do you read?"

"Loud and clear," the voice on the other side replied.

"Good," Rebekah whispered. "Let everyone know we have visuals on the escapees."

"Will do." The walkie talkie went silent.

Rebekah pulled on her mask, and listened to the girls inside.