Chapter 2

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.