5. The Garbage disposal. I barely suppressed a scream of horror. Calm. Be calm.
Calm like a nice sunny beach in Hawaii, with the waves lapping the shore, the sun
beating down, a glass of cool lemonade, nice and calm… I breathed deeply. I looked
at a Mexican girl standing next to me. She had an expression of terror on her face.
"What do you see?" I asked. She looked at me incredulously, like "your about to face
the worst death possible and you ask me some idiotic question?" "No comprendo
Engleis." She said tightly. I mentally slapped myself on the forehead. Hard. Duh,
Senna. No comprendo Engleis. Okay, I told myself, you're going to have to think of
some other way to figure this place out, because no one else speaks English. Okay,
were going to think this through logically. Yeah. Logically. I breathed deeply again.
What are the chances that I was right, and there is a garbage disposal? Why not
some other method? Gas chambers or something. Maybe if I had been terrified of a
gas chamber, I would see a gas chamber. Maybe each of us is seeing a different
thing, based on what we are afraid of. I had an idea. I am going to die from a gas
chamber, like the six million Jews in Nazi Germany. I am never going to see my
family again. The image of the garbage disposal flickered. Maybe these people are
going to mail my parents my clothes, like in that movie, and they wont have any idea
what happened. The image flickered again. I'm going to die in a gas chamber! The
garbage disposal was no longer there. It was now, without a doubt, a gas chamber.
I heard a scream from the front of the line, and looked up.
6. A curtain I hadn't realized was there before, or maybe it wasn't there before, had
been drawn, and a throne similar to the one in the room I woke up in was revealed,
but without the big toad guy. It looked decidedly odd sitting in the middle of a Nazi
gas chamber. The first in line was being prodded into the chamber, though it almost
certainly wasn't a gas chamber to her. After about ten more seconds the guard-
slash-guide gave up and shoved her roughly to the side, where she was dragged away
by something. I realized that I could not turn my head again. I took a deep breath,
and shoved past the other girls, who seemed more than happy to let me by. I pushed
past the guard/guide and before I knew it, I was on the throne, and the guard/guide
and several other frog guys were kneeling to me. The frog guy from the first room
was there, and he placed his crown on my head, and handed me the scepter. They all
murmured what must have been a coronation ritual of some sort in frog guy-ese.
Then a Huge chair dropped out of the sky and landed across the gas chamber from
me. The Huge chair had an even Huger being in it. " Greetings…" he paused to
consult some sort of six-legged being standing next to him, but respectfully a few feet
behind the chair. It was holding a large ledger. "Senna. My name is Loki."
AFTER
"There are four kids. They all live in the town you lived in, in the old world. I want
them. You will bring them to me. I will notify you when I am ready. Use any method
that you choose, but bring them to the lake, to the place where you fell in. I will take
it from there. Their names are Jalil, April , David, and Christopher."
That was my first mission. There have been others. There will be more. But like I
said in the beginning, in each one, I screw things up.
Calm like a nice sunny beach in Hawaii, with the waves lapping the shore, the sun
beating down, a glass of cool lemonade, nice and calm… I breathed deeply. I looked
at a Mexican girl standing next to me. She had an expression of terror on her face.
"What do you see?" I asked. She looked at me incredulously, like "your about to face
the worst death possible and you ask me some idiotic question?" "No comprendo
Engleis." She said tightly. I mentally slapped myself on the forehead. Hard. Duh,
Senna. No comprendo Engleis. Okay, I told myself, you're going to have to think of
some other way to figure this place out, because no one else speaks English. Okay,
were going to think this through logically. Yeah. Logically. I breathed deeply again.
What are the chances that I was right, and there is a garbage disposal? Why not
some other method? Gas chambers or something. Maybe if I had been terrified of a
gas chamber, I would see a gas chamber. Maybe each of us is seeing a different
thing, based on what we are afraid of. I had an idea. I am going to die from a gas
chamber, like the six million Jews in Nazi Germany. I am never going to see my
family again. The image of the garbage disposal flickered. Maybe these people are
going to mail my parents my clothes, like in that movie, and they wont have any idea
what happened. The image flickered again. I'm going to die in a gas chamber! The
garbage disposal was no longer there. It was now, without a doubt, a gas chamber.
I heard a scream from the front of the line, and looked up.
6. A curtain I hadn't realized was there before, or maybe it wasn't there before, had
been drawn, and a throne similar to the one in the room I woke up in was revealed,
but without the big toad guy. It looked decidedly odd sitting in the middle of a Nazi
gas chamber. The first in line was being prodded into the chamber, though it almost
certainly wasn't a gas chamber to her. After about ten more seconds the guard-
slash-guide gave up and shoved her roughly to the side, where she was dragged away
by something. I realized that I could not turn my head again. I took a deep breath,
and shoved past the other girls, who seemed more than happy to let me by. I pushed
past the guard/guide and before I knew it, I was on the throne, and the guard/guide
and several other frog guys were kneeling to me. The frog guy from the first room
was there, and he placed his crown on my head, and handed me the scepter. They all
murmured what must have been a coronation ritual of some sort in frog guy-ese.
Then a Huge chair dropped out of the sky and landed across the gas chamber from
me. The Huge chair had an even Huger being in it. " Greetings…" he paused to
consult some sort of six-legged being standing next to him, but respectfully a few feet
behind the chair. It was holding a large ledger. "Senna. My name is Loki."
AFTER
"There are four kids. They all live in the town you lived in, in the old world. I want
them. You will bring them to me. I will notify you when I am ready. Use any method
that you choose, but bring them to the lake, to the place where you fell in. I will take
it from there. Their names are Jalil, April , David, and Christopher."
That was my first mission. There have been others. There will be more. But like I
said in the beginning, in each one, I screw things up.