Chapter Twenty-Nine
Are you semi-dead with suspense yet? I am, and I know how it ends! At least, how I think it will end right now. You can never really tell as your characters get a mind of their own! Ah, so weird. Does that happen to any of you? You plan out the whole story and one of your characters does something strange and the whole story changes? Maybe I'm just weird…
Chapter twenty-nine! Unfortunately, we're heading to the end of this long story! But not yet! Nobody panic! And keep reviewing! At this very moment, I have 122 reviews. Some of those are me, so I probably have at least 115 reviews from my readers! Please keep reviewing!
This is a relatively short chapter. The next chapter will be longer, I promise!
Now, for your feature presentation: Chapter Twenty-Nine of Dripping Seconds!
P.S: I'm guessing quite a few of you will be able to guess who it is at the end. Oh what fun cliff-hanger endings are. For me, at east. It makes you a little annoyed, my friendly reviewers, but that's part of the fun!
Henry's point of view:
Apparently, I decided as I regained consciousness, this waking-up in random places is going to become a regular occurrence for all of us. Memories of the last time I had been awake flitted through my mind, making vibrant pictures in front of my closed eyelids that I didn't want to see. My arms ached, and I shifted them into a more comfortable position where I wasn't lying on top of them, finding, to my relief, that my hands weren't tied. I opened my eyes. For a second, I thought I had been blindfolded as everything was so dark. I rubbed my face against my shoulder and found that there was no cloth there; I was just simply in a very dark room. Not even a window? I pushed myself into a sitting position, ignoring lingering dizziness. I stood and fell back down as the darkness rotated sickeningly. There was definitely something weird in that smoke thing. "Anyone else here," I asked, praying for a response.
No words greeted my ears, but I heard a cough off to one side of me. I crawled desperately towards the sound, and realised the floor below me was cold stone. It had been wood the first time, when we found Maggie, signifying that I wasn't in the same place. I noted this fact mentally and continued to crawl, too afraid to attempt standing again. I bumped into the door, which I realised was also made of stone. This place must be soundproof. I bumped into someone, and noted that the foot was too big to be Maggie's or Whitney's. Jasper, I realised. I found his shoulder and shook him, trying not to be too rough. He mumbled something and sat up. "What," he said, noting the darkness with fear.
"It's me, Jasper," I told him. I felt his hand smack into me as he tried to find a handhold in life. I grabbed onto his wrist to give him something stable in this land of freezing shadows.
"Henry?" he asked, still sounding dazed from whatever it had been. "Where are we?"
"Yes. It's me, Jasper. I don't know where we are. We aren't where we were before though, the floor is different. Sit up, it'll help you wake up, but don't stand. I'm trying to find Whitney and Maggie."
"Someone's right behind me," he told me. There was a shifting of cloth. "I think its Whitney."
I crawled behind him and found the form. "Yeah, it's Whitney," I confirmed, brushing against her. No bandages. It had to be her. I shook her shoulder gently, but nothing happened.
"Maggie isn't waking up," Jasper hissed to me. I closed my eyes, trying to think of a reason.
"It's because they're smaller and lighter than us. It takes longer to wake up when you're small."
"That's why they went out first," he said. I smiled a little in the darkness. At least his brain was working, that's what we needed to figure things out. "It was…Maggie, Whitney, me, and then you."
"Yes," I confirmed, not wanting to think about it, but unable to push the memories off either. Images of the explosion overwhelmed me as memories released themselves; the feeling of metal slamming into me as we lay on the ground, the horrid, sickly-sweet smell of the smoke going over us, the sound of my friends, one by one collapsing. I shook my head. "Are you okay?" I asked Jasper.
"Yes, I'm fine," Jasper confirmed. "Dizzy. Is it just me, or is it cold in here?"
"It's not just you," I told him. "I'm cold too." It was true; it was freezing in our room. "Get Maggie and get over here. We can try to conserve body heat together just in case."
There was a shifting sound, and I felt Jasper's shoulder against my shoulder. There was another noise behind me that sounded sleepy and confused. "Whitney?" I asked hopefully, half-turning around.
"Where are we? Why's it dark?" she said, afraid. I grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of me so that she was right against me where it was warmer. "Henry?" she demanded, pulling away a little.
"It's okay, everyone's here," I said. She relaxed back against me and I rubbed her shoulder.
"Where are we?" she asked again, burying her face into my shoulder and shivering.
"We don't know yet. But we're working on it. We aren't where we were last time."
"The floors different," Maggie informed us groggily. "It was wood before." I heard Jasper gather her up in his arms, sighing with relief. I knew exactly how he felt.
"That it was. Nice to have you with us," I said, and she laughed quietly. It was an abnormally comforting sound in such a frightening place. It made everyone laugh a little and I pretended that I could see their smiles. I wish I could see everybody; the darkness was starting to get on my nerves a little bit. I was glad to have previously worked through my old fear of the dark. "Is everyone okay?" They confirmed that they were, though dizzy and cold as I was. "We need a plan. Where do we start?"
"What do we know?" Jasper asked to jog our thoughts.
"Well," I started. "We're in a room with stone floors. The walls are," I reached out to my side and felt the walls. "Stone as well. The door is also stone, making this place literally soundproof as well as being really cold. And we've been drugged for an unknown amount of time."
"And someone's coming," Maggie said. Sure enough, footsteps tapped outside our door. I pulled Whitney close against me, and felt her heart pound against my chest. I reached out and grabbed onto Maggie's wrist, knowing that she was holding onto Jasper. Maybe, I reasoned pathetically, if we all hold together, we could get through this together. I felt Maggie's bandage under my hand and carefully released some of the pressure on her wrist, afraid that I would hurt her. "It's okay, Henry…" she whispered near my ear, sounding amused underneath her obvious terror. "I don't mind, it doesn't hurt very much," she insisted, though I doubted the truthfulness of her statement.
The footsteps had stopped, but there was a grinding, grating sound near the door. All four of our breaths hitched in our chests, and we pressed closer together. "Close your eyes," I commanded, not wanting anybody to be blinded.
The door came swinging open silently, and light shined through our eyelids rather than blinding us. "Why, hello there," a voice called. We all stiffened, recognizing the voice. My eyelids slid open, and I begged my mind not to recognise who I saw.
"What are you doing here?" I demanded. I was answered only by a laugh.
