Chapter 2
*Alexis*
"I'll kill her." I said
angrily. "After playing Riven for, like, three years, and five hours
straight today! DAMN IT KATRINA!" Without thinking, I grabbed my backpack
and picked up the book.
"Well here I come to save
your ass again!" I pressed my fingers resolutely to the page.
Chapter 3
*Katrina*
It must have been a long time before I
woke up. It was pitch black. I had a terrible headache, and my left arm was
sore.
I tried looking around once my eyes
had somewhat adjusted, but couldn't see much. I could just barely make out the
shape of a lever on the wall, and the outline of Alexis. She was still lying on
the floor, looking half-dead. I got up, and tried pushing the lever up,
figuring it was some kind of light switch. Pain shot through my arm, so I had
to use my right arm to pry up the lever.
As soon as I pushed the lever, the
ground started to shake, making me fall over again. The room we were in started
to lift up like an elevator.
"Ugh…what's going on?" The shaking and
rising movement had woken Alexis up.
"I don't know…I pushed that lever and we started going…up." My voice was shaking from nervousness. I couldn't see Alexis' facial expression, but I could sense that she was giving me a look that said my blond highlights were kicking in. And she hated those highlights
As the room rose up, it got lighter inside, and I could see
that there were metal bars on one side of the room, which had no keyhole or
even a handle to open. Eventually, we came to a stop at the surface, and were
blinded by daylight.
Alexis was still glaring
at me. "You moron."
"Yeah." I said simply,
ducking my head.
"After playing Riven as
much as we have-"
"What?"
"Duh! Didn't you notice
how similar the pictures were to the ones in the linking books?"
"What are you talking
about? That's a game! That book was probably from a catalog!"
"Oh, shut-up and listen.
The necklaces, the book, the moving picture in the book?! Didn't seeing a frickin' movie in a
frickin' book indicate that something was a little quirky?" Every
time she emphasized a word she looked at me with what our friends and I had
deemed the Death Look.
As unbelievable as what
she was saying was, it was slowly becoming more and more believable. As I was
contemplating what she was saying, she was 'surveying the scene,' as she called
it. She hated doing something or being somewhere when she didn't understand it.
"Ugh, at least we got
tunes," she said after finally deciding it was impossible to get out. She
rummaged through her backpack.
"You brought that?"
"Well, yeah! I don't rush
into things without being prepared! Unlike some people." She muttered.
"Fine! I get it! Your
angry!" I threw my hands into the air.
"Good job," she said
simply, placing the headphones on her ears and leaning against the wall, obviously
tuning me out.
I rolled my eyes and
looked around again…a room has to have a door…and a door has to have a
handle…right? Wrong. I looked outside to see that stupid handle just out of our
reach. We'd already tried.
"Wait! Duh!" Alexis
exclaimed. She picked up her backpack and shoved me aside. Dumping her stuff
out of her bag she slid it through the bars and started swinging it toward the
handle.
"Ha!" she cried
triumphantly. Giving it a hard jerk she jumped away just in time as the bars
flew down much quicker than they did in the game.
Shoving her stuff back
into the bag we walked out slowly. We both remembered what happened to Gehn's
guard in the beginning sequence of Riven.
"Fabulous! Just great!
How exactly are we getting out of here?" she cried, turning on me. I just
stared at her for a second.
"WAIT!" I yelled, making
her jump about three feet. "I can get us out of this!" I took my cell phone out
of my back pocket and presented it with flourish.
"Oh, great," she said
sarcastically, "What are you gonna say, "Mom, could you come pick us up? We
fell into a book and we're in Riven."
I ignored her and dialed
our number…and area code, just in case. After waiting a few seconds, I looked
at it and saw "Roaming" on the screen. Alexis sighed in disgust. I tried again
with the same results.
"One more time," I said
desperately. She snatched it away.
"IT'S NOT GONNA WORK!"
she screamed at me. I watched as she hurled it over the cliff into the swirling
sea below.
BRRRRRRRRRRINNNGGGGG
It
screeched as it flew with incredible speed.
We stared at it, jaws
hanging around our knees. Suddenly, I turned and lunged at Alexis.
"WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!!"
I screeched. She easily stepped aside and grabbed one of my wrists, pulling it
behind me and pinning me to the wall. I wasn't necessarily weak, but with
Alexis's weight training and Karate had definitely given her an extreme
advantage over me.
"Knock it off," she
hissed. She let me go, but I still whirled and glared at her.
"We can't get out of here
now!! That phone sure would have helped!"
"Well not touching
the book would have been a good start at us not having to be here!" she
yelled back.
"Shut-up!" I yelled,
covering my ears, "Shut-up, shut-up, shut-UP!"
"Stop being so childish!
You are NOT helping us get out of here!" she snapped.
"FINE! You OBVIOUSLY know
how to do this, so, YOU figure it out!" I stalked away.
"Don't be ridiculous!"
she called after me, "KATRINA!"
But I ignored her and
kept going, with no clue as to where I was headed.
Chapter 4
*Alexis*
This is absolutely fabulous isn't it?
I thought. Now I'm in a computer game, (that alone is enough to genuinely piss
me off) I'm alone and God knows where Katrina is!
I had stayed put, hoping
Katrina would finish her fit and come back. But I knew it wouldn't happen. As
childish as she seemed, she was about as stubborn as I was.
After thinking, rummaging
through my stuff, and just generally pouting, which I hate doing anyways, I
heard a little scuffling of the gravel behind me.
I smiled, "Finally," I
said, feeling victorious. She had obviously realized how stupid splitting up
would be at this point.
I stood and turned around
ready to forgive and forget.
"Hola chica!" I said
grinning. My smile quickly faded as my eyes focused to the bright sun.
"Holy sh-" that was as
far as I got before sinking into darkness.
