Louie
"Scrooge!"
The family ran forward to the hole that Scrooge had fell through, his surprised yelp carrying up through the stonework chute. Before they could get close enough, the bricks that had parted way levitated back into place, re-forming into a solid, immovable stone floor.
Everyone gathered around the space where the hole had briefly formed, alarm and horror on everyone's faces. The cold fear that had been building up in Louie since they'd gotten in here started to escalate into panic.
"No!" Webby started to slam her foot against the space, terrified fury written across her face. "Stupid temple! Give me back my dad!"
A loud, animalistic grunt from behind made everyone freeze.
Slowly, the party turned to look down the corridor they'd came from.
Stepping out from the shadows were two shapes. The first one took the shape of a large boar, made from wood, with large, deadly tusks jutting from its jaw and dark, empty spaces where its eyes should have been. It snorted as it moved, each of its massive hoof-falls causing dirt and dust to fall from the ceiling. The other shape was coiling around the boar – a giant snake, covered in thick, golden scales. Its eyes were blood-red, and it hissed a hateful warning towards the party as the two of them advanced.
"Uh… plan?" Louie asked shakily. "What's the plan here?"
"I have one!" Dewey said quickly, dropping his rucksack and stepping up. He pulled something out of his pocket and aimed at the two monsters.
Della's eyes widened. "Is that a-?"
BANG!
Louie's hands flew up to the sides of his head as the gunshot reverberated through the chamber. Blinking a couple times from shock, he saw that Dewey had been knocked to the ground by the force of the shot and was staring dumbfounded at the monsters down the chamber.
The wooden boar leered back towards the party, a hole within its head exposing a deep, violet light. Both it and the snake screeched a furious challenge at them, approaching faster now.
"Okay, I don't think that worked!" Dewey spluttered, scrambling to his feet. "Run!"
The family immediately darted down the corridor, passing by the blood trail as they fled. Behind them, they could hear the pounding of the beasts as they pursued the party, their wooden and metal bodies scraping against the walls as they charged. Louie was operating on pure adrenaline and fear, following the rest of the family as they ran. They rounded a corner, and Louie heard one of the monsters slam into the wall behind them. The ground shook and he stumbled for a moment. He felt someone grab his arm and help him back up, and they kept running as fast as they could.
They ran down different corners and corridors, Louie not registering the directions in his panic. Up ahead, he could see Huey throw open a door and call for everyone to get inside. Louie obeyed quickly, darting through the door and into the chamber beyond.
The chamber they'd found themselves in appeared to be some kind of storage room, an ancient wooden table near the end and a pile of rotting parchment scrolls upon it. Unlike the other chambers they'd been in so far, the walls in this room were featureless, and the door they'd come in from was made from iron.
Once everyone was inside, Webby, Huey and Della immediately slammed the door shut and held it, bracing themselves. A loud crashing sound almost sent them flying, but they steadied themselves, holding the entrance as the monsters outside smashed themselves against it again and again.
"What are those things?" Huey cried, pressing his back to the door.
Webby yelped as another crash from the opposite side threatened to send them flying. "Uh… golems, maybe? Guardians of this place?"
"Guardians that weren't stationed at the entrance?" Huey replied, clutching his head as he tried to figure it out. "How did they even sneak up on us?"
Louie threw off his rucksack and backed up into the wall, breathing heavily. His eyes very quickly scanned around this room, nearly featureless in its design. No other exits or entrances. They were trapped in here.
"Louie!" Della called out to him. Louie's gaze flicked over to his mother, forced bravery on her face. "Louie, everything's going to be fine, okay?"
He nodded dumbly.
"Sorry, guys, I… I really thought that would work." Dewey spoke up, leaning against the other side of the wall. He held up the revolver in his hand, frowning. "Man, these things are a lot louder than they are in-"
Quick as a viper, Della jumped from the door and ripped the gun out of Dewey's hands.
"Hey- no, mom!" Dewey cried, reaching for the weapon that was now being held out of his reach. "Give that back!"
"No, I'm not giving it back!" Della shouted furiously, snapping out the revolver's barrel and emptying the bullets within onto the ground. "Where did you even get this thing?"
"I… found it in the garage, under some junk."
"And you just took it?" Huey said in disbelief from his place holding the door.
Webby looked over her shoulder at Dewey. "You said you were going to ask Scrooge if you could have that!" She said accusingly.
The voices of his arguing family started to fade out to Louie. He pressed himself against the wall, his breathing rapid and terror gripping his heart.
They were trapped here. They were going to die here.
What happened in Mexico will never happen again.
Escuchen de cerca, niño. No quiero tener que hacerte daño-
-This reckless behaviour, putting yourselves in constant danger-
-Pero si te mueves o gritas-
-It was our fault, Louie. Not yours. We should've-
-Entonces estás-
"Louie?"
He blinked. Della was in front of him, her hands on his shoulders. She was staring at him, a fearful expression on her face.
"Talk to me." She told him. "Where are you at right now?"
"Uh…" He stammered, looking all about. "Dunno right now… um…" He looked back at her, trying to gulp down his fear. "Somewhere between blind panic and hyperventilation."
She looked at him, breathing deep, then she seemed to steady herself. "We're going to get out of here, Louie. We've gotten out of worse situations than this."
The room shook as the monsters slammed themselves against the door again, Huey and Webby doing all they could to hold it shut.
"We have?" Louie asked doubtfully.
"Well, places that were at least as bad as this." Della corrected herself. "We're going to be fine. Trust me."
"…Alright."
Della stayed with him for a few more seconds as Louie's breathing slowed down. Then, she moved back to the door, taking Huey's place. "Okay, Webby and I will hold the door shut. You three, search for secret doors! There might be another way out of here that we haven't spotted."
Secret doors. Louie turned to face the wall he had pressed himself against, his brothers doing the same to the other walls of this room. Trying his best to remain calm, Louie put all of his focus into scanning the wall, looking for any kind of door-like outline, or bricks that could be pushed inward, or any other sign that there was a way out of here that didn't involve getting pulverised by zealous guardians.
The room shook again, the beasts on the other side unrelenting. Louie did his best to ignore it, trying to focus on his investigation. His eyes swept over the wall in front of him, and his hands patted against the stonework, trying to find something – anything – that felt like it could be pushed or pulled aside.
As he made his way toward the furthest end of his side of the room, he noticed something.
A faint, hairline gap in the wall.
Quickly, his eyes traced the path in the gap, finding that it formed the outline of a rectangle. Excitedly, he pushed against the area contained within the outline, and found it giving way, ever so slightly.
"There's a way out!" He called to the others, a breathless grin on his beak. "Holy shit, there's a way out!"
"Language."
"Do not 'language' me right now!" Louie snapped, whirling around to face the other side of the room.
"I'm sorry, it was reflex!" Huey cried in anguish.
The room shook again, and the door actually bent inwards, knocking Della and Webby back with a yelp.
"Move!" Della shouted, rushing back to her feet.
Louie didn't need to be told twice. He spun around and shoved with all his might against the wall. Like a revolving door, the wall section spun around on an unseen axis, revealing a dark corridor beyond. He darted through, the rest of his family following, running as fast as he could.
He heard the door slam shut behind him, and suddenly he was bathed in darkness.
He froze.
He waited.
"…Guys?" He asked shakily.
There was silence.
His hand scrambled into his pocket and quickly pulled out his phone, previously shoved away during the chase. Turning on the flashlight again, he turned back to the secret door and shone his light upon it. The device illuminated only a dead end, his family nowhere to be seen.
Slowly, Louie approached the end of the corridor, pressing his hand against the wall. Then, he pushed against it.
The wall did not budge.
He tried again, and again, but to no avail.
Louie backed up again, starting to panic once more. Was this a one-way door? He supposed so, but that wouldn't explain why his family hadn't followed through. Had the door sealed itself behind him? Had he left them in that room with those monsters?
He considered these thoughts for a moment.
"…Fuck." He whispered.
He remembered the first room that they'd explored, and it occurred to him that even if his family hadn't been trampled to death, that secret door could've led them anywhere, and there was little to no way that Louie could find them again.
"…Fuck." He said again, louder this time.
He was frozen in place for a minute or two, his thinking scrambled with fear. He was alone now – there was no-one who could bail him out if things went wrong. Who knew what awaited him if he went forward?
…At the same time, if he stayed here and those things found him, then he was as good as dead.
He gulped, turned around, and started to slowly press forward.
The corridor stretched on for about forty feet, after which it split off into two paths, one leading right, and the other leading left. Louie looked between the two, then headed right. The passage was illuminated brightly by his phone light, and he could see now that the walls were once again decorated with runes, or hieroglyphs, or… whatever the word for these symbols was.
The silence was awful. He couldn't hear anything except for his own terrified breathing. No wind, no crumbling stone… nothing.
"Fuck this." He muttered to himself, looking all around anxiously. "Fuck this. This was a terrible idea. Why did I want to do this? Why did I think that this would be anything other than-?"
He heard the sound of metal slicing through the air above him.
He didn't move. He didn't even dare to breathe.
When nothing happened, he slowly turned his head, wide-eyed, to stare at the object above him.
The keen edge of a blade hovered just two inches above him, attached to a long wooden pole that jutted out of the wall. It was held in place, unmoving, as if daring him to do something about it.
Louie stared at the weapon, his heart pounding in his chest. Not knowing what else to do, he slowly inched away from the trap, moving slowly onward.
The second he stepped away, the glaive swung down into the stone with a loud impact that caused Louie to jump. He stepped away quickly, staring at the trap as it slowly reset, the weapon pulling itself back into the gap into the wall where it had fell from.
"…the hell…?" Louie muttered fearfully, backing away. Was this trap broken?
He heard another scraping sound, looking up just in time to see another glaive coming towards him. He yelled and ducked, shutting his eyes as he braced himself.
Yet, he felt nothing.
His eyes opened by a crack, and he saw that the glaive of this trap had also halted in its downward swing, a breath away from carving through his body. Louie stared up at the blade, not quite knowing what to do. Gingerly, he reached up to try and take the blade by the haft, hoping of perhaps holding it in place should it decide to fall.
As his hands reached up, the glaive rose.
As he quickly retracted his hand at the sudden movement, it fell and stopped in place. Almost exactly two inches above him.
Louie's eyes flicked between the blade and the wall. His fear started to shift into confusion, and then from that into wary suspicion. Slowly, he stood up, holding out his arm just in case, and as he did, the blade rose with him. He stood at his full height, staring up at the sword, and it hovered just in front of his vision.
"…You're kidding." He said in disbelief.
He started to walk towards the slot in the wall where the glaive extended from, the trap retracting as he got closer until it had retreated fully into the wall. Louie looked at the trap up and down, peering into the trap and trying to decipher its inner workings. He could see something behind the slot, behind the brickwork, but the glaive's wooden pole obscured it.
Louie stepped to the side of the trap. Like before, the glaive swung downward the second he'd stepped out of its direct line of effect, smashing into the paved floor. Quickly, Louie took out his phone and shone the flashlight into the gap in the wall to see what was inside.
Greeting him was a familiar glass bulb, embedded into a steel device attached to the end of the polearm.
Louie backed off to the side as the glaive rose and reset. His gaze numbly swept over the brickwork beside the trap, and now that he was properly looking, he could see that there were some slight, almost imperceptible, traces of something in between the bricks. Something not too dissimilar to sealing foam.
He leant against the wall, slowly sinking down until he was sitting against the stonework, staring ahead vacantly.
It was a scam. It was all a scam.
Put aside yer videographical games and yer needlessly loud parties, because we're back!
Think of the challenge! The thrill!
His hands began to clench around his phone, anger building up as he begun to realise the extent to which he'd been lied to. The whole week getting psyched for this, the whole week of preparation and excitement… all for what was essentially a theme park ghost train ride.
He thought back to the plane, to how Dewey had been acting. Was he in on it as well? How many of them knew this whole adventure was scripted, that it was absolutely nothing? He didn't even know why he was surprised. Why wouldn't his family take every opportunity they had to handhold him? Why wouldn't they just assume that he'd break down into a sobbing mess just because he'd had one little scare?
…Well. If tonight had been anything to go by, maybe they were right.
In a fit of frustration and conflict, Louie took his phone and threw it as hard as he could against the wall. He heard it crack once, then he heard it crack again as it landed on the floor, face-down. The flashlight remained on, illuminating the stretch of corridor that he was sitting in. Louie didn't move, leaning against the wall and staring at the floor. He'd just wait, he decided. Wait for someone to find him, rather than go out on his own.
After all, it wasn't as if he was actually in any danger.