The Road to Pripyat IV
Jupiter
September 13th, 2012
01:14
The container warehouses had been left behind without delay, and the group had quickly come to find that neither Kirche nor Mitay in their current states were going to make it back to Yanov Station in a single trip. Mitay could barely walk under his own power, and Kirche absolutely needed support to even move, which was still an agonizing task for the Germanian. Kirche had grown rather pale. They needed to stop and rest. The only place around was the small station along the train tracks.
Thus, the group had found themselves camping out in the small stationhouse. Everyone had decided to start taking naps, which was just as well. It was the middle of the night, after all. Siesta and Montmorency had drawn the short straws, putting them on first watch.
The stationhouse felt cramped. There was an entry way, the empty room they were in, and a back room with a disused bathroom. In the back there was a doorway that had been boarded up only halfway. It looked like it led to some underground passages. Everybody opted to keep away from that.
Kirche couldn't find it in herself to drift off. Her leg was downright killing her. Tabitha seemed to have no problem passing out, however. She was against the wall like Kirche, firmly snuggled right up next to her. Louise was nearby in a corner, sleeping soundly with her head hanging forward. She had dozed off sitting up.
Siesta broke the silence from nearby. "How are you holding up?"
Kirche knew that Siesta could only be talking to her. The former maid was sitting by the adjacent wall, staring out the window. "It hurts," Kirche stated obviously. "I suppose I know how you felt now."
"Yeah, you do," Siesta snorted. She glanced around the room, and then leaned her head against the wall with a sigh. "Get some sleep, Kirche."
"I can't," Kirche said. "It hurts too much. Besides... what if I don't wake up again?"
Siesta almost wanted to laugh. "The bleeding stopped. You're not going to die."
Kirche felt Tabitha draw closer. She relented. "Fine, I'll at least try. But if I do die, it's on your conscience."
As Kirche closed her eyes, she could hear Siesta grumbling. "Hey, I wasn't the one who shot you."
Siesta went back to her watch. She didn't dare light a cigarette, even though the urge made itself known. It would be just her luck for somebody passing by to see the light. After a few minutes, Siesta remembered that Montmorency should also be awake, sitting at the other end of the room.
Turning her head, Siesta found that Montmorency was indeed awake. "Monty," Siesta said. "You can get some sleep if you want. I don't mind."
Montmorency stared blankly at the wall. Her voice was barely above a croak. "I don't think I can."
"Are you alright?"
Montmorency looked down at her hands. "I'm still shaking... God. What was all of that? I still can't make sense of it all. It all just happened so fast..." She looked up, to Siesta. "How many times have you done something like that in your life?"
Siesta looked away, back out the window. Kirche's breathing had slowed, deepening. The Germanian had managed to drift off. "Enough."
Montmorency buried her face in her knees. "I just want this all to end..."
"Yeah, well, me too. I –" Siesta fell short, her breath loudly hitching.
Montmorency froze. "What... what is it?" She hissed quietly.
Siesta slowly adjusted her rifle into a ready grip. "There's something outside," she whispered.
Grabbing her own rifle, Montmorency made to silently crawl over. "You... you're just joking, right?"
Siesta glared. "No, I'm not joking!" She hissed sharply. "There's something fucking outside!"
Montmorency frantically crawled to the windows as quietly as possible. She looked outside. "I-I don't see anything. What do you think it is?"
Siesta shushed the blonde. "Just listen."
Montmorency crept closer. After a few solid seconds of silence, Siesta cocked her bottom against the wooden floor, and let out a loud fart.
Completely filled with disbelief, Montmorency gaped as Siesta was taken over by uncontrollable giggles. "You..." When she took in a breath, Montmorency smelled it. She promptly covered her nose. "Oh, Founder! What is wrong with you? There just has to be something wrong inside of your head, I know it!"
That only served to make Siesta laugh harder. She seemed to be having a hard time keeping her giggles stifled. "You... you should have just seen your face! Priceless!"
All of the commotion roused another occupant of the room. Louise cracked her eyes open, half asleep. She looked between the two girls, the disgruntled Montmorency, and the hooting Siesta. "Wha... what are you..." Then, she caught the smell. Louise's little face immediately curdled, turning sour. She was wide awake now. "Siesta! Did you just die or something?" She hissed. "Or did you just crap your pants? For the love of God!"
Siesta wiped her eyes. "Monty, you and Louise are the best people to torment. Seriously."
Montmorency just huffed and crossed her arms, while Louise opted to flop onto the floor and use her backpack as a makeshift pillow.
A very uncomfortable makeshift pillow.
"Honestly," Louise grumbled. "You would swear something was dead in here."
Siesta's quiet laughter took a few minutes to taper off. By then, Montmorency had grown less irate and Louise had settled back into slumber. Siesta, with a look at her watch, noted with disdain that her watch would still be another hour.
"So, Siesta," Montmorency spoke up.
Siesta looked. Montmorency was staring down at her own feet more than anything. "What's up?"
"What year are you from?"
Siesta furrowed her brow. "What?"
Montmorency looked up. "You know. What year was it in Halkeginia when you disappeared?"
"Oh," Siesta said, still finding the question a little weird. "Uh, 6242, why?"
Montmorency's heart stopped. She didn't dare look Siesta in the eye now. "I... I don't know. I was just wondering."
Siesta was wholly unconvinced. Nevertheless, she shrugged it off. "Oh, alright."
Leaning her head back, Montmorency sighed. "I think I'm going to try and get some sleep now."
"G'night sugar plum."
"Please don't ever call me that."
Louise felt herself being shaken awake. She felt like striking out with a swat, but settled on forcing her eyelids open. She took in the blurry shape of Siesta's face staring down in the dark. "Hey," she whispered. "Your watch. Get up."
Groaning, Louise nodded and waved the formed maid away. She had noticed on several occasions that when Siesta would wake up she'd sometimes breathe out something vulgar under her breath. Louise certainly felt like doing that now.
Getting on her feet, Louise shuffled over towards the windows. Siesta had sat down against the wall, and the moonlight coming through the window made her face glow. "Who else is on watch with me?" Louise mumbled, sitting near the other window.
"I am," Siesta said.
Louise furrowed her brow. "You did first watch though."
Siesta grunted. "I can't freakin' sleep."
"Have you tried?"
"No, I haven't," Siesta said. "But I know I won't be able to."
Louise stared. "Is something wrong?"
Siesta sighed. "I feel bad about Kirche getting shot."
"I... well, I feel bad for her too," Louise said, a confused edge to her voice. "But it isn't like you shot her."
"I might as well have," Siesta grumbled. "It wouldn't have happened if it weren't for me."
"She'll be fine, I'm sure."
"Oh I know she will," Siesta said confidently. "Bonesetter will fix her right up, and we've got Monty too. It's just... like, what if it wasn't her leg? What if it was her face or something?"
Louise winced. "But it wasn't."
Siesta rested her head on the wall, intent on not continuing that conversation. She decided on a change in subject. Talking would surely help keep Louise awake anyway. "So what would you do if you somehow found yourself back in Tristain?"
That took Louise by surprise. "I would go home."
Siesta scoffed. "Oh, come on," she whined. "At least tell me something interesting."
Louise leaned her head back. "I would finally sleep in my own bed, probably for an entire day. I wouldn't even move." She could hear Siesta snort. "And then I would get my hands on as much wine as I could, and get drunk for about a week straight." She looked to Siesta. "What about you?"
"I guess I'd do something like that," Siesta replied. "I don't know about wine, though. That's a little too prissy for me."
Louise could agree with that. If Siesta weren't a stalker, Louise could definitely imagine her being a farm girl through and through.
"I miss my dog," Siesta commented.
Louise looked. "You had a dog?"
"Yeah," Siesta nodded. "Well, he was a family dog."
"What kind of dog?" Louise asked.
Siesta snorted. "I don't know. He was just a mutt, but I loved him." She laughed quietly. "He used to crap in the house all the time." Louise rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. "He'd always have the same look on his face when he did it. My little sister Claire would ask him, 'where's the poop?'"
Louise laughed. "She would?"
Siesta nodded, chuckling. "Yeah."
Louise found herself smiling at a memory. "My sister Cattleya used to have lots of animals." Her smile turned sad.
"She's been sick her entire life and I think they're one of the only things keeping her from giving up completely."
"Oh yeah? What kind of animals did she have?" Siesta asked.
Louise snorted. "Probably anything you could think of."
Siesta decided to think of an animal that she thought would be impossible to have as a pet. "A bear."
"Cattleya had a bear."
Siesta did not believe that for a second. "Come on. Yeah right."
"I'm serious," Louise assured her. "He was a brown bear."
"What was his name?"
"Percival," Louise answered.
Siesta suddenly laughed. "Percival! That's such a bear name!"
Louise laughed too. "I know! He loved hugs."
"Bear hugs," Siesta said, grinning.
Louise giggled at that. "If you waved at him," she added. "He'd wave back at you."
"Oh come on," Siesta said, shaking her head. She still smiled. "Now I know you're lying."
"No, I'm telling the truth," Louise insisted, leaning forward. "I would sometimes see him outside in the gardens during breakfast and I'd wave. All of our servants were so scared of him."
"Well I would imagine, since he was, you know, a freaking bear," Siesta pointed out.
Louise was about to add something, but a noise echoing from the back room gave her pause, the scratching of claws against the floor. She froze. The M4A1 had found its way into Louise's hands.
Siesta got up and switched on her flashlight. "Stay here."
Louise balked. "What? Where are you going?" She hissed.
"I'm going to check that out."
"No! Just wait a second!"
"Just wait here," Siesta pressed. She moved into the darkness of the next room.
That exchange seemed to have roused Torba nearby. He propped himself up on an elbow, blinking the sleep away. "What the heck is going on?"
"I don't know," Louise groaned. "We heard a noise, and Siesta ran off on her own like an idiot!"
Siesta had ducked underneath the boards in the back room, and had found herself in concrete walled passageways. Creeping ahead, she was all too aware that the section of tunnel around her seemed primed to collapse. The hallway intersected ahead, and past that through a doorway she could see that the floor in the next room was grated.
And on that floor she could see the dozens of rodents scurrying around. Their beady red eyes turned on her.
Siesta opened fire.
Louise heard the long automatic burst loud and clear, much like everybody in the room. She was on her feet and running before anybody could get any answers out of her. She ducked underneath the boards and sprinted into the tunnel. Siesta wasn't very far away.
Coming up beside the former maid, Louise called out. "Siesta!"
Siesta jumped, and dropped something in the process. Louise and Siesta both watched in horror as the live grenade hit the floor.
Louise couldn't remember what it was specifically, but Siesta had let out a very long and very loud swear. Siesta grabbed her by the arm, pulling her ahead and into the intersecting hallway. They huddled against the wall in cover.
The grenade detonated, and Louise found herself deaf to the world around her. The dust kicked up was a choking cloud that rushed out around them. Louise could feel the passage shaking all around, even though the explosion had obviously ended.
Louise was grabbed by her shoulders. Looking up in a daze, she could see that Siesta was saying something, but all she could hear was ringing. Siesta didn't look very pleased, however.
"What!?" Louise shouted. She could barely hear her own voice. "I can't hear you!"
Siesta pulled Louise back to where they had been moments before, and then pointed. When she looked, Louise's jaw fell open. The tunnel had completely collapsed behind them.
Louise could feel the ringing fading. "How... the tunnel!"
"Yeah, the tunnel," Siesta ground out, pissed. "You just had to come up and scare me didn't you? I told you to stay put! Look at this!"
Louise glared. "Don't put this on me! You shouldn't have run in here on your own!" She countered.
From beyond the rubble, they two girls could plainly hear Montmorency's voice call out. There seemed to be a small opening next to the wall, although it was far too small to squeeze through. Through it they could see flashlights moving around.
"Monty!" Siesta called, moving up on the rubble. She could see the blonde's face through the hole.
"What happened?" Montmorency asked desperately.
Louise, deciding to keep watch with her rifle, answered. "We just messed up a little!"
Siesta glared darkly. "We messed up? It was your fault!"
"I didn't drop the grenade!"
"I wouldn't have dropped it if it weren't for you!"
"A grenade!?" Montmorency shrieked. "What were you doing with a grenade!?"
Siesta sighed, and decided to just explain the situation. "Alright. So we heard this sound, and I went to check it out. I got in here and there were a ton of those damn rodents coming at me, so I started shooting. I guess Louise came running then, and while I was getting ready to lob a grenade into those bastards she came up behind me and scared me, so I ended up dropping it. I think the explosion collapsed the tunnel."
"What was in that grenade?" Siesta heard Leva remark from somewhere behind Montmorency. "A freaking nuke?"
"Well... the tunnel was weak here!" Siesta pointed out. "Is everybody with you right now?" She asked Montmorency.
"It's just Leva and Grizzly right here with me," Montmorency explained. "Everybody else is in the other room."
"Alright. Let me talk to Grizzly." Montmorency switched places with Grizzly, not unlike somebody would hand off a telephone to the next person.
"Are you guys alright?" Was the first thing Grizzly said.
"We're not guys!" Louise pointed out.
Siesta and Grizzly both ignored that. "We're fine," Siesta reassured him. "Listen, you guys should get out of here. Take everybody and get back to the station."
"What?" Grizzly said in disbelief. "Wait – we can't just leave you in there. We gotta get you out."
"No, it'll take forever." Siesta eyed over the rubble. Large chunks of concrete, bent rebar, and even a few boulders. There was no getting through this. "There has to be another way out of here. We'll find something."
While Grizzly had been considered the leader of the mission, he wasn't going to stay and argue with his senior stalker. "Listen, don't worry about your friend, alright? We'll get her to bonesetter."
Siesta nodded. "Thanks. We'll meet you back at the station."
Grizzly didn't remain long after that. Siesta could hear him gathering everybody. Soon enough, Siesta and Louise were alone.
"So... rodents." Louise continued to keep watch with her rifle and flashlight. "What are those?"
"Oh man," Siesta breathed. "They're these nasty little bastards. They've got these freaking sharp as hell claws. Don't let them get on you. They'll tear the crap right out of you."
"You said there were a lot of them, didn't you?" Louise asked nervously. "Where did they go?"
"I think the grenade scared them off," Siesta reasoned. "Hopefully we won't see them again. Come on, let's get moving."
"Wait, wait," Louise turned towards Siesta. "You've still got that sword wand, right? Just give it to me. I'll try and blow a hole through this rubble."
Siesta looked sheepish. "Yeah... about that sword wand."
Louise stared. "What happened to the sword wand?" She looked, noticing something missing other than Siesta's helmet. "You don't have your backpack..."
Wincing, Siesta scratched the back of her neck. "No. I don't have my backpack."
Louise groaned and threw her head back. "That's just perfect, you know." She really couldn't say much, having left her own backpack behind as well.
Siesta huffed, and glared. "Well sorry. I didn't exactly expect this to happen. Let's just try to find a way out before those rodents decide to come back."
There was no reason to disagree, so Louise followed Siesta as they moved ahead to the intersecting hallways. To the right there were stairs leading upward, and left, downward. Straight ahead was a small room full of drainage pipes.
"Which way?" Louise asked.
"Up," Siesta replied. "Always up."
That sounded reasonable to Louise. Going deeper when you were trapped underground seemed a little counterproductive. There was a landing in the middle of the straight stairwell, with a single door to the left. It led to another room full of pipes and electrical panels. The girls moved on.
There was a similar room at the top of the stairs, although there was a door at the far end of it leading to more concrete passageways. The two girls advanced through the room with flashlights lighting the way. The grated metal flooring rattled underfoot.
The next area was a short twisting passage. On the other end, the girls found themselves in a remarkably large area. Stairs descended to an uneven dirt floor in a wide room filled with rows of concrete pillars. Heavy pipes spanned across the ceiling against supports, there was a door at the far end of the room, and surprisingly, sections of the ceiling were grated, allowing them a view of the night sky.
"What is this place?" Louise asked distantly.
Siesta shrugged. "Don't know. Don't wanna know."
They moved into the room, finding the silt damp underfoot. Partway through, Louise noted with interest that a crooked tree was growing next to a pillar. She supposed enough sunlight and rain ended up down here to keep it sustained. The door at the end of the room led to another twisting passage, at the end of which was another large room full of pillars like the last.
Oddly, there was a crooked little tree growing next to a pillar, just like in the last room. Louise thought that was pretty strange, but she put it out of mind.
That is, until she noticed the exact same tree was in the next room, in the exact same spot.
"Siesta," Louise called, wary. "I... think we're going in circles."
Siesta stopped and looked at Louise like she was an idiot. "In circles? We've been going straight, Louise."
"But look." Louise pointed to the tree. "I've seen this tree three times now."
Siesta gave the tree a stare. "You're imagining it. Let's keep moving."
The girls continued on into the next room, and as Louise expected, it was exactly the same as the last. Right down to the pipes, grated ceiling, and the little crooked tree.
Siesta stopped next to the tree. "You're kidding me..."
"See?" Louise said haughtily. "We're going in circle."
"No, no." Siesta shook her head in disbelief. She pointed at Louise's feet. "Stay here. Just stay right here."
Louise, dumbfounded, stared at Siesta's back. "Wha... Siesta! Wait!" Her grip tightened on her rifle once she found herself alone. Just what was Siesta planning?
When Louise heard footsteps coming up from behind, she whirled around with her rifle ready.
And narrowly avoided plugging Siesta full of holes in full-automatic.
She lowered the rifle. "...Siesta?"
Siesta's face was ghostly pale. She looked scared out of her mind. That didn't give Louise a good feeling. "Oh. Shit."
Yanov Station
Leva threw open the door to Bonesetter's clinic. "Bonesetter!" He hollered into the dark room. "Get your ass up! We got wounded!"
When Leva flicked on the light, he found that Bonesetter had been sleeping on the scavenged hospital bed himself. Bonesetter jolted bolt upright, eyeing his late night visitors with a bleary face. "Wha...?"
Torba helped Kirche through the door. "Come on, man. Get up! Somebody's hurt here!"
"Shit!" Bonesetter swore. He jumped off the bed, wiping his eyes. "What have you got?"
As Torba settled Kirche on the bed, Grizzly spoke up. "Gunshot wound, lower leg. It's not that bad."
"It's not that bad?" Bonesetter parroted, annoyed. "Then why did you burst in here freaking out?"
"Sorry man," Leva apologized. "But... I mean, that's what they do in movies, right?"
Bonesetter fixed Leva with one very unimpressed stare. He moved over to Kirche, where Tabitha and Montmorency weren't far away. It wasn't hard to figure out where Kirche had taken the hit. Her blood-soaked trouser leg had been torn to pieces.
"You're gonna need new pants," Bonesetter commented.
Kirche snorted weakly. "I think that's the least of my worries."
Bonesetter got to unwinding the reddened bandages, a task took only a short time. He observed the wound. "It's still in there."
Kirche nodded. "I know."
"It's not very deep though," Bonesetter said. "I can probably just pluck it right out." He left Kirche to get the things he was going to need, and a stool to sit on.
"But... that's going to hurt a lot, isn't it?" Montmorency asked.
Bonesetter eyed the blonde and nodded. He turned his gaze onto the rest of the stalkers. "You guys can go now if you want. I'll take it from here."
Grizzly nodded, departing with Torba, Leva, Mitay, and Mishka after bidding their farewells. Bonesetter sat down in front of Kirche's leg with a menagerie of antiseptics, scalpels, and tweezers. Kirche looked on warily.
"I... I thought you were supposed to leave bullets in," Kirche said.
Bonesetter looked up. "Most of the time, yeah. Since this one's so shallow, I'll get it out for you." His mouth drew into a thin line. "This is, uh, really gonna suck, by the way."
"Louise, it's no use. Just stop, alright?"
Louise stopped in her tracks, and glared. "No! There has to be a way out of here. I'm not going to just sit around and mope."
Siesta watched Louise disappear for what had to be the hundredth time. She was sitting in the small junction that somehow connected the infinite amount of rooms, her back against a wall. They had tried going back and forward, but no matter which way they went it always led back to the same room full of pillars.
It was probably a space anomaly, Siesta thought. She'd heard of them before. The stories were all the same, no matter what direction you went, you always ended up back where you started.
It just went to show how messed up the Zone truly was.
Stalkers had gotten out of anomalies like this, but Siesta had no idea how, and neither did the stalkers who had escaped. She was beginning to believe that they were truly screwed this time. They'd run out of water soon, and they didn't have anything to eat since Siesta had left her backpack behind.
While Siesta opted to save her energy and brood for the time being, Louise was constantly walking straight through the rooms. Every minute or so Louise would pass through the junction, always going in the same direction.
It was certainly a surreal sight.
It didn't take long for Louise to appear again.
"Can you seriously stop, Louise?"
Sighing, Louise seemed like she was finally going to relent. "Fine." She moved over to where Siesta was and sat against the wall a few feet away. "I'm getting tired anyway."
There were a few moments of tense silence that passed. Louise couldn't really wrap her head around why Siesta was acting this way.
"Siesta," Louise spoke up. "What is the matter with you all of a sudden? This is backwards. I'm the one who's supposed to brood and you're supposed to be the one who keeps me going."
Siesta scoffed. "I've heard about these things before."
"These things? You mean what's happening to us now?"
Siesta nodded. "There's plenty of stories going around. People call them space anomalies, because I guess they just mess with... I dunno, space."
Louise leaned her head back against the wall. "How do we get out?"
"I don't know."
Louise felt a little baffled. "People have gotten out of them before, haven't they? Or else there wouldn't be any stories."
"Yeah, obviously," Siesta muttered. "But there's no actual cut and dry way to do it. Just blind luck."
"That's great," Louise moaned. "Our luck has always been at an abysmal low."
Siesta got out a cigarette. "Well if we didn't have bad luck we'd have no luck at all."
"So what?" Louise asked as Siesta got to smoking. "We're just going to sit here while you smoke?"
"I'm taking a break," Siesta groaned. "I'm freaking tired as hell, Louise. We'll keep trying soon, I guess."
Louise huffed and crossed her arms. She took to eyeing Siesta as she smoked. Louise sighed. "Could I try one?"
"Try what?" Siesta asked. She eyed her own cigarette. "One of these? Why?"
"Well if I'm going to die down in this hole like you're insinuating then I at least want to try something new first," Louise snapped loudly.
Siesta shrugged. "Up to you." She pulled a single cigarette from her flattened pack and handed it off to the pink-haired girl. Siesta gave her the lighter, and instructed her on how to light the white rod.
A few seconds later Louise spat out a cloud of smoke, hacking. "God! That's disgusting! Why do you even do this?"
Siesta found it in herself to laugh. "What did you expect?"
"Not this!"
Nevertheless, Louise kept at it, coughing and twisting her face. Siesta could tell the pink-haired girl was eager to get back at finding a way out, but the muffled clap of thunder put that on hold. An emission was beginning, and the main room didn't offer much in the way of cover because of the grated ceiling. They would have to stay in here until it passed.
When Louise had finished the cigarette she threw the butt carelessly across the room and rested her head against the wall. "Siesta."
"What?"
Louise shifted. "Um... what year are you from?"
Siesta slowly turned her head to meet Louise's eyes. Louise looked away uncomfortably at the sight of the suspicion etched on Siesta's face. "You want to know what year I'm from?"
Clearing her throat, Louise nodded. "Yes."
"Why? What's going on? What are you all planning on doing?"
Louise stared incredulously. "Planning? Nobody's planning anything!"
"Bullshit," Siesta called out. "Monty asked me the same freaking thing earlier. Don't even think about telling me you're just curious."
"Just tell me what year!"
Siesta narrowed her eyes. "6242."
It looked like Louise's heart had stopped. She stared distantly. "...Oh."
"Alright, spill it," Siesta grunted. "What's going on?"
Louise sighed, relenting. She supposed she might as well get on with it. She had a feeling Siesta was going to be a little upset with her in a few moments. "It's... we've been talking, about, you know, everything. About what's probably been happening in our world... because of me."
"Louise..."
"You've been here for almost five years now," Louise cut in, refusing to meet Siesta's eyes. "But... you're from the same year as I am."
Siesta stared. "What?" She sputtered in disbelief. "That's not even..."
"I think that if it wasn't for me, none of this would have ever happened. None of this would have happened to you. It's my fault."
The silence that followed was suffocating. Louise chanced it and took a glance towards Siesta, finding that the former maid was resting her face in a hand.
"Siesta I –" Siesta promptly bolted to her feet and made her leave. Louise got up and chased after her into the next room. Luckily, the rumbling emission had ended a few minutes ago. "Siesta!" Louise called. "Siesta I know you're upset but I didn't –"
Siesta whirled around, the darkest of glares on her face. "Upset? You think I'm upset?" She began advancing on the pink-haired girl, forcing her to backpedal. "If I was driving a wagon and the wheel broke, I would be upset. If my dog was trampled by a horse, I would be upset. I am not fucking upset, Louise! I don't even know what the fuck I am right now!"
Louise felt her stomach twist. "Siesta, please, I –"
"No! Shut the fuck up!" Siesta roared, turning away. She stomped towards the other end of the room. "Just leave me alone! You ruined my fucking life!"
Louise just watched her go, ashamed. She had ruined Siesta's life; she knew that in her heart. There probably couldn't have been a worst time to bring something like this up, when they were here, stuck in a hole together. Siesta couldn't go far. Louise supposed that if Siesta would stay in the junction between the infinite rooms, then she would just have to stay out here.
Perhaps she could even find a way out while Siesta cooled off.
That is, if Siesta cooled off. Louise somehow doubted that would come easy.
Louise looked around the room for anything she could use. The grated ceiling caught her attention again. One of the large pipes ran underneath it. Maybe if she could get up there...
She sighed deeply. She'd certainly done it this time.
A/N: I updated this while I was at work, which is where I actually do most of my writing. One of the many reasons why I love my job.
So anyway, nothing much happened here. I'll pick up Louise and Siesta's predicament in the next chapter. I was originally going to include it in this chapter, but I wanted to get some content out. Besides, the opening I have planned next would function good as the beginning of the next chapter.
