#10, Fading or… Eleven Boxes
Angela and I where both standing next to each other inside a small blue room that was probably around a few meters in diameter from wall to wall. The men that had brought us into the room had just left and we were standing there unsure of what to do next.
It hadn't really been that interesting the past few days in the place. Most of the time was spent in the room that had been given to me and only three times had I seen Angela and Kite. It had to at least have been a week since we had first arrived in the place as I'd fallen asleep more than enough times to accommodate the fact. Sleeping was the main thing I'd done in my room and that being about the only place I'd been in since getting to the place that was about all I'd been doing. The annoying thing with sleeping though was that I was having more of those weird dreams, they weren't exactly like the first one but were always similar. Usually ending with me seeing the white thing then feeling the sharp sting below my ear and whiting out. Then me waking up to stare at the same spot on the roof for a couple of hours. It was rather creepy.
But now I was standing with Angela and I was able to speak to her. She didn't exactly look all that much like she wanted to talk. I took a step towards her and she cringed back a little before just standing there looking at me. "Are you ok Angela?" She just looked at me with what seemed to me like a dead stare. I moved my arm out to touch her shoulder and as my fingers made contact she flinched a little. "Angela, are you ok?" I repeated myself, I was getting worried as she just kept giving me that dead stare.
Suddenly there was a sound that shattered the still air and Angela jumped back away from me and into the far corner. "Angela." I looked at her then around me as another sound come echoing into the room and seemed to bounce off each of the walls and become louder and louder. With each round of the sound Angela moved back further into the corner quickly gaining on the floor as she slid her back down against the wall. She held her head and was whimpering though that was barely audible above the sound that was growing around our heads. I cringed down a little myself and was about to put my hands to my own head when the sound suddenly stopped. I stood up straight again and looked around the small room in confusion before stopping on Angela again. I quickly went to go over to her but as I got closer she just cringed back further and further into the corner of the wall. "Angie… what's wrong?"
She continued to not pay attention to me and just whimper and hold herself as she kept her eyes tightly shut. I don't really know if she had heard me at all, I don't know if she was hearing much of anything around us at the time. Even the last few times I had seen her she hadn't really seemed all there and it had seemed to be getting worse. I looked at her in concern, she'd had problems at school when we used to go kind of like this. For some reason she could feel peoples feelings really easily, better than most and it used to get her in trouble as she'd take offence to anything in the least bit harming from anyone, including teachers. Though she didn't let it show too much, I don't know if it was like that for her all the time or if it only came sometimes to her, but I'd hardly ever seen it. I'd been told about it from others though. Sometimes she'd even burst out into tears in the middle of a class for no apparent reason. Lots of the kids laughed at her for that while others just took pity on her, she still managed to keep a large circle of friends though. She'd gone to see someone once about it but nothing really happened with that so I don't know. I thought she'd actually grown out of it or something because I hadn't seen her act like this in the last few months of our 'pokemon journey' or in the few months before then. Guess I had been wrong.
I was still concerned about her as a voice came out over some sort of loudspeaker that was hidden within the walls. You'd think they would of realised we didn't understand the main language of the place by then and that they'd get someone who actually spoke English to talk to us. But no, they had to continue to just talk to us in the ever-confusing language that I know at least I didn't understand.
Angela didn't move more than she had been since that sound and I just stood there blankly as the voice repeated itself. Neither of us continued to move as the voice once again repeated itself. Sighing I decided to point out their flaw to them, "Hey mister, or whatever, still can't understand you. Try some En-Glish!" So what that I wasn't exactly very polite? It didn't really make much of a difference in this place if you were or weren't anyway and there wasn't anybody nearby at the moment.
A slight crackle over whatever sort of sound system they were using and the more silence except for the continuous murmur coming from Angela. I turned around and moved closer to her, ignoring the fact she was trying to get further away from me I slid down on the ground next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Angie, listen to me. Angie," I didn't let my voice go over a whisper as I tried to get her out of whatever trance type of thing she had gotten herself into. "Angie, come on speak to me. It's Dew. It's ok." She continued not to move and I sighed a little but I wasn't willing to give up just yet. "Angie, come on, snap out of it already. Nothings happening to you and we're safe in here." That was true as far as I knew so I wasn't really lying or anything. I still wasn't getting a reaction from her though. So I took the next step and shook her shoulder a little as I talked to her, "Angie, come out of it already, it's me Dew. Speak to me." All that made her do was cringe back more into the corner and start up some sort of chant that was below a sound volume that I could hear. With that I gave up and looked at the room we were sitting in.
Nothing special and nothing else was really more notable than what I had originally seen, a small blue room with blue walls, roof and floor and except for one section there wasn't a single marking upon any of the surfaces aside from the door we had come in from. On the wall on my left was a dozen or so small slits in the flat surface in vertical lines that rode up and down for a foot or so for each line. They were all in a line in the center of the walls surface and nothing around them gave an indication of what exactly they were for.
I glanced to Angela again as a clear as crystal English voice entered into the room, "Stand up and move to the wall on your left and stand two feet from the two center markings upon the walls surface."
Not a voice I could remember a face to but it nagged a little at the back of my mind as I'd heard it before. It was male though and so far I hadn't seen a man that had spoken English. I shrugged it off and got myself up. Looking back at Angela I knew she wasn't getting up anytime soon on her own so set myself the wonderful task of getting her up. I took a step closer to her and tried to grab her under her arms so I could hoist her up or something like that but her arms were held in way too close for me to squeeze my fingers between them. I looked at her and tried another way, "Angela you have to get up now. It's no use in talking to yourself it's not going to help you." For some reason she snapped out of it and looked at me with clear eyes that actually held some expression. I think she was actually surprised as she stammered a little then pulled herself up from the ground to stand in front of me. She poked my shoulder as if to make sure I was really there but continued to stay silent. Taking advantage of the silence I grabbed her and pulled her over to the slits in the wall with little protest from Angela, "They said to stand here so I say we do." She didn't say anything but did stand there so there wasn't any problems.
We both just stood there for a few minutes not saying anything as we waited for something to happen, Angela was about to say something when the same male voice of before said something else. "Both of you stand between the two end lines at the end of the row on the right." That wasn't hard and there wasn't any reason so far not to do it so we did. There wasn't exactly the right amount of room for both of us to fit between the two lines so we stood as close to each other as we could to the center of it with half of both of us going over the edges. I hoped there wasn't a really good reason why you had to be between the lines.
As I found out there wasn't, so it wasn't such a big deal.
"One of you stand forwards and place your hand in between the two lines. Wait until I say so before removing your hand. Then the other repeat the procedure."
The voice had about as much feeling in it as Angela's eyes had previously and sounded almost mechanical. Not a real nice voice really. Both Angela and me looked at each other, she wasn't making a move to step forwards so I did. Holding my breath for the moment as I took my hand up and hoping that nothing was going to try and eat it off or anything moved it forwards between the two said lines in the wall. There was a slight buzzing like sensation to my fingers as they passed through the wall and came out into cold air. I looked behind me at Angela as my breath was released and her chest heaved as she released hers. I looked back to the wall and started to move my hand around inside the space. It wasn't much in the way of space inside the area where my hand was, about enough to just fit both my hands uncomfortably and that'd be about it. All the surfaces inside the box were smooth with the bottom one being the smoothest. It was also a little cold and felt like some sort of metal where as the other faces were made of plastic or something similar to it. The male voice was heard again and I removed my hands and stepped back to let Angela put her hand inside the box. She was a little slow in moving as she gingerly picked her hand up from her side and ever so slowly moved it forwards and inside the wall. She made a sort of squeaky noise as she moved her hand inside the lines and moved it around but did little else. The male voice didn't take long to tell her to remove her hand and we both just stood there looking at each other wondering why exactly we just did that.
About to open my mouth and the voice started up again. "Explain what happened." I blinked once to Angela as she stood unmoving in surprise.
"You told us what to do. You should know already," there was just a long pause and no response.
I sighed and answered anyway, "I stepped forwards and placed my hand between the two lines when there was a kind of buzzing feeling to my hand as it passed through the wall." It didn't seem to be the full answer as far as the voice was concerned as it said, "And?" "And, inside where I put my hand there was a small box or something with the bottom being some sort of cold metal and the other sides something plasticish. Then you said for me to remove my hand and I did." I looked at Angela and she nodded her head in agreement as that had been the same with her. There was another long pause then the voice spoke again, "Explain what happened." I looked up as that was the only thing I could think of to where the voice was coming from as it wasn't really coming from any direction in particular. "I-," I never do like being cut off and I was, as the voice said, "Not you. The other one." Rolling my eyes I was about to open my mouth again when Angela repeated me almost word for word in explaining what she had done. Looking at her I muttered something under my breath and shook my head but she didn't pay any attention to it as the voice spoke again once more.
"Step to the next set of lines and repeat the previous process."
Angela did nearly automatically and before I could stand next to her properly she had stepped forwards and put her hand inside the space between the two lines in the wall. She jumped a little and made another squeaky noise in surprise as she touched something that seemed to give her a shock. As soon as the voice spoke she immediately removed her hand from inside the lines and stepped back to give me room. Looking at her a little weirdly I stepped forwards and slowly started putting my hand forwards into the box. There was that same buzzing feeling as my fingers passed through the wall and into the box. Moving my hand around inside the same box like thing with caution I turned to look at Angela a moment as my fingers moved to the bottom of the box shape. Within a second I had draw my hand out from inside the box with a loud yelp as a severe shock ran from the tips of my fingers and right up through the center of my arm. Shaking my arm at my side to try and get rid of the numb feeling I looked at Angela through squinted eyes, "Didn't that hurt you or something Angela?" She looked at me a little blankly and shook her head a little and mouthed a 'no'. Shaking my head I looked back to the spot in the wall where I had gotten the shock from with distaste. The voice started again and prompted me to place my hand back inside the two lines again that got an automatic response of, "NO!" I wasn't one that enjoyed much in the way of pain for no reason and that I didn't need.
There was noise inside the room for a while before the voice spoke again, "Explain what happened." I guess it didn't really matter after all that I'd moved my hand so quickly. Angela answered almost automatically in response to the voice, "I stepped forwards and placed my hand inside the two lines marked on the wall. I felt a slight buzzing sensation to my hand as it passed through the wall then nothing as my hand sat inside the space inside the wall. Then as I moved my hand down to the bottom of the space I felt a slight shock to my hand from a sort of electrical charge. Then you told me to remove my hand and I did."
I looked at Angela in surprise, she was really acting weird, even for her and how come she hadn't felt such a shock like me were the main thoughts going through my mind then. They voice spoke up again and asked me the same question oh which I replied to a little differently to than Angela. "I stepped forward and put my hand in between the two lines, felt a buzzing feeling to my hand as it passed through the wall. Went to look at Angela then felt a shock through my arm and removed my arm from inside the stupid hole as it hurt."
It obviously wasn't all that impressed with my answer as it told us to move to the next space between two lines. Angela moved first like the last time and stood forwards the moment I had stepped across and placed her hand inside the two lines. She squeaked again a little at something that she touched inside the two lines and I decided in my mind I wasn't looking forwards to it. As she stepped back she placed two fingers into her mouth for a moment then took them out again as I stepped forward a little edgily. I looked at her once before taking my other hand and moving it slowly through the buzzing feeling of the wall. It was almost immediately warm inside the small box and I call feel sweat start to build up from my fingertips. Not really wanting to I moved my hand down closer to the bottom of the box where the heat was coming from to try and find what it was and promptly removed my hand with another yelp as something burnt the tips of my fingers. Placing the burnt digits in my mouth I was tempted to glare at Angela but decided against as I didn't want her really changing any more weirder than she already had.
The voice spoke the same words it had previously after we had both put our hands inside the box and Angela basically repeated the same thing she had said before in response except she said 'warm sensation' and 'warm source'. Looking at her in disbelief as the voice asked me I replied as politely as last time, "I put my hand in the wall between the lines, felt a buzz as my hand passed through the wall and then heat inside the space. Moved my hand down closer to the bottom of the box and something burnt my hand, where upon I moved my hand out of the stupid thing. Is there a point to this aside from hurting me?!" The question was as expectably ignored and after a short amount of time we were both told to step between the next two lines.
Sighing and stepping after Angela we repeated the process once more. Luckily this time it was actually water inside the box and when my turn came up I got to cool my burnt fingers a little. As we gave our answers to the voice it said something else to me, "did you feel anything else?" A little startled at the question I thought for a moment and shook my head, "no." There was nothing again and then we were once more told to step to the next lines in the wall.
As Angela stepped forwards I looked down the line to try and guess how many more of these we had. Counting in my mind I got a total of eleven lines altogether, we were in between the fifth and sixth. "Five more to go…" I mumbled to myself which Angela didn't get to hear as the voice told me to step forth at the near exact moment. There was a sound as if the voice was going to say something else and I paused to wait but nothing else was said so I continued. As I moved my hand inside the box I felt a little cold after the initial buzz and moving my hand to the bottom of the box the temperature decreased a little more. Placing my fingertips and then the whole of my hand against the cold surface a feeling of sheer coldness washed over me, yet not a hair on my skin raised. Startled I stood there for a moment even after the voice had told me to remove my hand. Angela spoke quietly behind me and without even realising it as it was an automatic reaction I stepped back taking my hand out of the wall.
The voice echoed around me and Angela's drone like response quickly snapped me out of the sensation and as the voice asked me to answer I had thoughts about not telling it what had just happened. "Stepped forwards, put hand through the wall, buzz feeling, cold feeling, moved hand out of the wall after touching the cold of the bottom surface," Angela's responses were really coming out differently to mine. It was starting to bug me in the back of my mind. I blinked once and snapped to again as I started to answer, "Stepped forwards and put my hand into the wall after Angela had stepped back. Felt the same buzzing feeling as before as my hand passed through the wall then felt a little cold but not really much. Moved my hand down to the bottom of the box where it got colder and put my hand flat against the bottom of the box thing-" and I paused. I didn't really know if I should continue but the voice crackled and before it could say something else I continued, "It felt cold for a moment then like this cold feeling washed over me and I was kinda stunned. Then Angela said something and I took my hand out of the wall." There was some sort of noise that I can't really put a name to and then we were told to move onto the next space in the wall.
Nothing much happened for this one as we both put our hands into the wall in turn and neither of us gave any real reaction. As far as I could tell it was some sort of plant like thing inside the wall and as I touched it with my hand the edges of a leaf become a little more brittle than they had been as it seemed to kind of harden. But I didn't bother to note it to the voice as I didn't really pick up on it myself.
We moved once more onto the next two lines and the space between. As Angela put her hand in she swallowed and gulped again two more times before the hand told her to remove her hand. Looking at her out of the corner of my eyes as I put my hand in as I expected something to happen to me, but nothing did. It just felt like nothing and as my hand moved down to the bottom I felt a slick surface to the surface and a slight tingle to my tongue but nothing else. As I removed my hand I looked at Angela again but she expressed nothing. Shaking it off as nothing until she answered I didn't think much of it. Her answer was a little weird as she said that she felt like something was in the back of her throat that tasted bad. I didn't find anything so my answer was the normal, "put hand in wall, felt buzz to my hand, felt nothing, removed my hand on prompt," just in a few more words than that.
The next two were nearly the same where my answers were that it was a hard surface. It also seemed to become a tiny bit softer as I pressed my fingers harder to the surface but not so much that I actually voiced the fact. Angela said that she just came against two hard surfaces and to a slight prompting like I had had before she also said that in her mind she seemed to also come up to a similar blunt surface.
Moving to the last box we put our hands in again and feeling around inside there seemed to be a hard surface but it also felt that with decent enough hit it'd probably be easy to break through. Angela came up with a similar wall in her head again in response to that one but nothing really happened for me.
For a while the two of us just stood there not really looking at each other as for me looking at Angela was kind of freaking me out and her because, well I don't know why, she just didn't seem all that willing to look at me. The voice hadn't said anything else after asking as what had happened so we were left with nothing to really do. A thought came to mind and stepping away from Angela a little and to the second last space we had put our hands through I pressed my hand to the area between the two lines. Nothing happened and I just came against a normal wall with my hand. Sighing I turned my back on the wall and walked over to the opposite one and sat myself down. "You can sit as well Angela if you want. Not exactly a warm floor but its better than standing." She didn't say anything in response but after a minute she sat down against the same wall as me a meter or so off. I didn't know what to say and she wasn't really making much of an effort to say anything. The atmosphere around us was uncomfortable and Angela's blatant ignorance of me was rather much irritating.
About to open my mouth a sound stopped me as a hiss came from the direction of the door and we both stood up to see what was happening. I don't know what it was about that place but they always seemed to start doing something like speak or do something to catch everyone's attention that almost always made it feel like they didn't want me to say anything. I never really thought about the matter until afterwards as my attention as well was usually caught up as well.
As the doors hissed once more then opened fully some people were standing outside. We both looked to them and waited where we were to see what happened next. It wasn't really that surprising when one of the men came in and herded us outside into the corridor outside the room. Looking around to all the people standing there I counted three men in black and two people in white, a man and a woman. As we stood there the woman said something and one of the men dressed in black walked over to the wall a little down from where we had come from and another door opened up. I still hadn't exactly gotten used to the fact that along all the empty walls inside this place there were actually doors and rooms inside them. It was kind of creepy and really easy to forget about. The man in black stepped inside the room and pulled out someone that he pulled over towards us.
I looked at Kite in surprise as he lifted his head up and pulled himself away from the man in black, removing the grip on his torn shirt. He saw me and smiled a little then saw Angela and kept the face for a second later before dropping it as the man in black shoved him hard in the back. Obviously not impressed with the fact Kite had pulled away from him when he shouldn't of. I ignored everyone else a moment as I looked at kite, his clothes were even messier looking than the last time I saw him and there seemed to be a few red stains at various points. There were a nice selection of cuts on the skin that was visible on his face and arms with a mottling of purples tossed in as well. He really didn't look in the best of health and didn't seem to be taking so well to the place, or the place wasn't taking well to him, most likely a mixture of both. Shaking my head a little I looked forwards a moment to the people in white as I heard a mutter of English.
I didn't catch anymore words as the man and woman went into a heated argument about something in the same language that I could never understand. The rest of us, including me, my friends and the men in black stood uneasily as the two people in white's voices quickly escalated in volume. It broke off with a last shout from the man and the woman obviously cursed at him as he gave her a dirty look before hissing something to the men in black.
A rushed, "Hi Kite," and "bye," to both of them was all I managed to say before being shoved away from them following after the woman in white with a man shoving from behind.
Angela and I where both standing next to each other inside a small blue room that was probably around a few meters in diameter from wall to wall. The men that had brought us into the room had just left and we were standing there unsure of what to do next.
It hadn't really been that interesting the past few days in the place. Most of the time was spent in the room that had been given to me and only three times had I seen Angela and Kite. It had to at least have been a week since we had first arrived in the place as I'd fallen asleep more than enough times to accommodate the fact. Sleeping was the main thing I'd done in my room and that being about the only place I'd been in since getting to the place that was about all I'd been doing. The annoying thing with sleeping though was that I was having more of those weird dreams, they weren't exactly like the first one but were always similar. Usually ending with me seeing the white thing then feeling the sharp sting below my ear and whiting out. Then me waking up to stare at the same spot on the roof for a couple of hours. It was rather creepy.
But now I was standing with Angela and I was able to speak to her. She didn't exactly look all that much like she wanted to talk. I took a step towards her and she cringed back a little before just standing there looking at me. "Are you ok Angela?" She just looked at me with what seemed to me like a dead stare. I moved my arm out to touch her shoulder and as my fingers made contact she flinched a little. "Angela, are you ok?" I repeated myself, I was getting worried as she just kept giving me that dead stare.
Suddenly there was a sound that shattered the still air and Angela jumped back away from me and into the far corner. "Angela." I looked at her then around me as another sound come echoing into the room and seemed to bounce off each of the walls and become louder and louder. With each round of the sound Angela moved back further into the corner quickly gaining on the floor as she slid her back down against the wall. She held her head and was whimpering though that was barely audible above the sound that was growing around our heads. I cringed down a little myself and was about to put my hands to my own head when the sound suddenly stopped. I stood up straight again and looked around the small room in confusion before stopping on Angela again. I quickly went to go over to her but as I got closer she just cringed back further and further into the corner of the wall. "Angie… what's wrong?"
She continued to not pay attention to me and just whimper and hold herself as she kept her eyes tightly shut. I don't really know if she had heard me at all, I don't know if she was hearing much of anything around us at the time. Even the last few times I had seen her she hadn't really seemed all there and it had seemed to be getting worse. I looked at her in concern, she'd had problems at school when we used to go kind of like this. For some reason she could feel peoples feelings really easily, better than most and it used to get her in trouble as she'd take offence to anything in the least bit harming from anyone, including teachers. Though she didn't let it show too much, I don't know if it was like that for her all the time or if it only came sometimes to her, but I'd hardly ever seen it. I'd been told about it from others though. Sometimes she'd even burst out into tears in the middle of a class for no apparent reason. Lots of the kids laughed at her for that while others just took pity on her, she still managed to keep a large circle of friends though. She'd gone to see someone once about it but nothing really happened with that so I don't know. I thought she'd actually grown out of it or something because I hadn't seen her act like this in the last few months of our 'pokemon journey' or in the few months before then. Guess I had been wrong.
I was still concerned about her as a voice came out over some sort of loudspeaker that was hidden within the walls. You'd think they would of realised we didn't understand the main language of the place by then and that they'd get someone who actually spoke English to talk to us. But no, they had to continue to just talk to us in the ever-confusing language that I know at least I didn't understand.
Angela didn't move more than she had been since that sound and I just stood there blankly as the voice repeated itself. Neither of us continued to move as the voice once again repeated itself. Sighing I decided to point out their flaw to them, "Hey mister, or whatever, still can't understand you. Try some En-Glish!" So what that I wasn't exactly very polite? It didn't really make much of a difference in this place if you were or weren't anyway and there wasn't anybody nearby at the moment.
A slight crackle over whatever sort of sound system they were using and the more silence except for the continuous murmur coming from Angela. I turned around and moved closer to her, ignoring the fact she was trying to get further away from me I slid down on the ground next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Angie, listen to me. Angie," I didn't let my voice go over a whisper as I tried to get her out of whatever trance type of thing she had gotten herself into. "Angie, come on speak to me. It's Dew. It's ok." She continued not to move and I sighed a little but I wasn't willing to give up just yet. "Angie, come on, snap out of it already. Nothings happening to you and we're safe in here." That was true as far as I knew so I wasn't really lying or anything. I still wasn't getting a reaction from her though. So I took the next step and shook her shoulder a little as I talked to her, "Angie, come out of it already, it's me Dew. Speak to me." All that made her do was cringe back more into the corner and start up some sort of chant that was below a sound volume that I could hear. With that I gave up and looked at the room we were sitting in.
Nothing special and nothing else was really more notable than what I had originally seen, a small blue room with blue walls, roof and floor and except for one section there wasn't a single marking upon any of the surfaces aside from the door we had come in from. On the wall on my left was a dozen or so small slits in the flat surface in vertical lines that rode up and down for a foot or so for each line. They were all in a line in the center of the walls surface and nothing around them gave an indication of what exactly they were for.
I glanced to Angela again as a clear as crystal English voice entered into the room, "Stand up and move to the wall on your left and stand two feet from the two center markings upon the walls surface."
Not a voice I could remember a face to but it nagged a little at the back of my mind as I'd heard it before. It was male though and so far I hadn't seen a man that had spoken English. I shrugged it off and got myself up. Looking back at Angela I knew she wasn't getting up anytime soon on her own so set myself the wonderful task of getting her up. I took a step closer to her and tried to grab her under her arms so I could hoist her up or something like that but her arms were held in way too close for me to squeeze my fingers between them. I looked at her and tried another way, "Angela you have to get up now. It's no use in talking to yourself it's not going to help you." For some reason she snapped out of it and looked at me with clear eyes that actually held some expression. I think she was actually surprised as she stammered a little then pulled herself up from the ground to stand in front of me. She poked my shoulder as if to make sure I was really there but continued to stay silent. Taking advantage of the silence I grabbed her and pulled her over to the slits in the wall with little protest from Angela, "They said to stand here so I say we do." She didn't say anything but did stand there so there wasn't any problems.
We both just stood there for a few minutes not saying anything as we waited for something to happen, Angela was about to say something when the same male voice of before said something else. "Both of you stand between the two end lines at the end of the row on the right." That wasn't hard and there wasn't any reason so far not to do it so we did. There wasn't exactly the right amount of room for both of us to fit between the two lines so we stood as close to each other as we could to the center of it with half of both of us going over the edges. I hoped there wasn't a really good reason why you had to be between the lines.
As I found out there wasn't, so it wasn't such a big deal.
"One of you stand forwards and place your hand in between the two lines. Wait until I say so before removing your hand. Then the other repeat the procedure."
The voice had about as much feeling in it as Angela's eyes had previously and sounded almost mechanical. Not a real nice voice really. Both Angela and me looked at each other, she wasn't making a move to step forwards so I did. Holding my breath for the moment as I took my hand up and hoping that nothing was going to try and eat it off or anything moved it forwards between the two said lines in the wall. There was a slight buzzing like sensation to my fingers as they passed through the wall and came out into cold air. I looked behind me at Angela as my breath was released and her chest heaved as she released hers. I looked back to the wall and started to move my hand around inside the space. It wasn't much in the way of space inside the area where my hand was, about enough to just fit both my hands uncomfortably and that'd be about it. All the surfaces inside the box were smooth with the bottom one being the smoothest. It was also a little cold and felt like some sort of metal where as the other faces were made of plastic or something similar to it. The male voice was heard again and I removed my hands and stepped back to let Angela put her hand inside the box. She was a little slow in moving as she gingerly picked her hand up from her side and ever so slowly moved it forwards and inside the wall. She made a sort of squeaky noise as she moved her hand inside the lines and moved it around but did little else. The male voice didn't take long to tell her to remove her hand and we both just stood there looking at each other wondering why exactly we just did that.
About to open my mouth and the voice started up again. "Explain what happened." I blinked once to Angela as she stood unmoving in surprise.
"You told us what to do. You should know already," there was just a long pause and no response.
I sighed and answered anyway, "I stepped forwards and placed my hand between the two lines when there was a kind of buzzing feeling to my hand as it passed through the wall." It didn't seem to be the full answer as far as the voice was concerned as it said, "And?" "And, inside where I put my hand there was a small box or something with the bottom being some sort of cold metal and the other sides something plasticish. Then you said for me to remove my hand and I did." I looked at Angela and she nodded her head in agreement as that had been the same with her. There was another long pause then the voice spoke again, "Explain what happened." I looked up as that was the only thing I could think of to where the voice was coming from as it wasn't really coming from any direction in particular. "I-," I never do like being cut off and I was, as the voice said, "Not you. The other one." Rolling my eyes I was about to open my mouth again when Angela repeated me almost word for word in explaining what she had done. Looking at her I muttered something under my breath and shook my head but she didn't pay any attention to it as the voice spoke again once more.
"Step to the next set of lines and repeat the previous process."
Angela did nearly automatically and before I could stand next to her properly she had stepped forwards and put her hand inside the space between the two lines in the wall. She jumped a little and made another squeaky noise in surprise as she touched something that seemed to give her a shock. As soon as the voice spoke she immediately removed her hand from inside the lines and stepped back to give me room. Looking at her a little weirdly I stepped forwards and slowly started putting my hand forwards into the box. There was that same buzzing feeling as my fingers passed through the wall and into the box. Moving my hand around inside the same box like thing with caution I turned to look at Angela a moment as my fingers moved to the bottom of the box shape. Within a second I had draw my hand out from inside the box with a loud yelp as a severe shock ran from the tips of my fingers and right up through the center of my arm. Shaking my arm at my side to try and get rid of the numb feeling I looked at Angela through squinted eyes, "Didn't that hurt you or something Angela?" She looked at me a little blankly and shook her head a little and mouthed a 'no'. Shaking my head I looked back to the spot in the wall where I had gotten the shock from with distaste. The voice started again and prompted me to place my hand back inside the two lines again that got an automatic response of, "NO!" I wasn't one that enjoyed much in the way of pain for no reason and that I didn't need.
There was noise inside the room for a while before the voice spoke again, "Explain what happened." I guess it didn't really matter after all that I'd moved my hand so quickly. Angela answered almost automatically in response to the voice, "I stepped forwards and placed my hand inside the two lines marked on the wall. I felt a slight buzzing sensation to my hand as it passed through the wall then nothing as my hand sat inside the space inside the wall. Then as I moved my hand down to the bottom of the space I felt a slight shock to my hand from a sort of electrical charge. Then you told me to remove my hand and I did."
I looked at Angela in surprise, she was really acting weird, even for her and how come she hadn't felt such a shock like me were the main thoughts going through my mind then. They voice spoke up again and asked me the same question oh which I replied to a little differently to than Angela. "I stepped forward and put my hand in between the two lines, felt a buzzing feeling to my hand as it passed through the wall. Went to look at Angela then felt a shock through my arm and removed my arm from inside the stupid hole as it hurt."
It obviously wasn't all that impressed with my answer as it told us to move to the next space between two lines. Angela moved first like the last time and stood forwards the moment I had stepped across and placed her hand inside the two lines. She squeaked again a little at something that she touched inside the two lines and I decided in my mind I wasn't looking forwards to it. As she stepped back she placed two fingers into her mouth for a moment then took them out again as I stepped forward a little edgily. I looked at her once before taking my other hand and moving it slowly through the buzzing feeling of the wall. It was almost immediately warm inside the small box and I call feel sweat start to build up from my fingertips. Not really wanting to I moved my hand down closer to the bottom of the box where the heat was coming from to try and find what it was and promptly removed my hand with another yelp as something burnt the tips of my fingers. Placing the burnt digits in my mouth I was tempted to glare at Angela but decided against as I didn't want her really changing any more weirder than she already had.
The voice spoke the same words it had previously after we had both put our hands inside the box and Angela basically repeated the same thing she had said before in response except she said 'warm sensation' and 'warm source'. Looking at her in disbelief as the voice asked me I replied as politely as last time, "I put my hand in the wall between the lines, felt a buzz as my hand passed through the wall and then heat inside the space. Moved my hand down closer to the bottom of the box and something burnt my hand, where upon I moved my hand out of the stupid thing. Is there a point to this aside from hurting me?!" The question was as expectably ignored and after a short amount of time we were both told to step between the next two lines.
Sighing and stepping after Angela we repeated the process once more. Luckily this time it was actually water inside the box and when my turn came up I got to cool my burnt fingers a little. As we gave our answers to the voice it said something else to me, "did you feel anything else?" A little startled at the question I thought for a moment and shook my head, "no." There was nothing again and then we were once more told to step to the next lines in the wall.
As Angela stepped forwards I looked down the line to try and guess how many more of these we had. Counting in my mind I got a total of eleven lines altogether, we were in between the fifth and sixth. "Five more to go…" I mumbled to myself which Angela didn't get to hear as the voice told me to step forth at the near exact moment. There was a sound as if the voice was going to say something else and I paused to wait but nothing else was said so I continued. As I moved my hand inside the box I felt a little cold after the initial buzz and moving my hand to the bottom of the box the temperature decreased a little more. Placing my fingertips and then the whole of my hand against the cold surface a feeling of sheer coldness washed over me, yet not a hair on my skin raised. Startled I stood there for a moment even after the voice had told me to remove my hand. Angela spoke quietly behind me and without even realising it as it was an automatic reaction I stepped back taking my hand out of the wall.
The voice echoed around me and Angela's drone like response quickly snapped me out of the sensation and as the voice asked me to answer I had thoughts about not telling it what had just happened. "Stepped forwards, put hand through the wall, buzz feeling, cold feeling, moved hand out of the wall after touching the cold of the bottom surface," Angela's responses were really coming out differently to mine. It was starting to bug me in the back of my mind. I blinked once and snapped to again as I started to answer, "Stepped forwards and put my hand into the wall after Angela had stepped back. Felt the same buzzing feeling as before as my hand passed through the wall then felt a little cold but not really much. Moved my hand down to the bottom of the box where it got colder and put my hand flat against the bottom of the box thing-" and I paused. I didn't really know if I should continue but the voice crackled and before it could say something else I continued, "It felt cold for a moment then like this cold feeling washed over me and I was kinda stunned. Then Angela said something and I took my hand out of the wall." There was some sort of noise that I can't really put a name to and then we were told to move onto the next space in the wall.
Nothing much happened for this one as we both put our hands into the wall in turn and neither of us gave any real reaction. As far as I could tell it was some sort of plant like thing inside the wall and as I touched it with my hand the edges of a leaf become a little more brittle than they had been as it seemed to kind of harden. But I didn't bother to note it to the voice as I didn't really pick up on it myself.
We moved once more onto the next two lines and the space between. As Angela put her hand in she swallowed and gulped again two more times before the hand told her to remove her hand. Looking at her out of the corner of my eyes as I put my hand in as I expected something to happen to me, but nothing did. It just felt like nothing and as my hand moved down to the bottom I felt a slick surface to the surface and a slight tingle to my tongue but nothing else. As I removed my hand I looked at Angela again but she expressed nothing. Shaking it off as nothing until she answered I didn't think much of it. Her answer was a little weird as she said that she felt like something was in the back of her throat that tasted bad. I didn't find anything so my answer was the normal, "put hand in wall, felt buzz to my hand, felt nothing, removed my hand on prompt," just in a few more words than that.
The next two were nearly the same where my answers were that it was a hard surface. It also seemed to become a tiny bit softer as I pressed my fingers harder to the surface but not so much that I actually voiced the fact. Angela said that she just came against two hard surfaces and to a slight prompting like I had had before she also said that in her mind she seemed to also come up to a similar blunt surface.
Moving to the last box we put our hands in again and feeling around inside there seemed to be a hard surface but it also felt that with decent enough hit it'd probably be easy to break through. Angela came up with a similar wall in her head again in response to that one but nothing really happened for me.
For a while the two of us just stood there not really looking at each other as for me looking at Angela was kind of freaking me out and her because, well I don't know why, she just didn't seem all that willing to look at me. The voice hadn't said anything else after asking as what had happened so we were left with nothing to really do. A thought came to mind and stepping away from Angela a little and to the second last space we had put our hands through I pressed my hand to the area between the two lines. Nothing happened and I just came against a normal wall with my hand. Sighing I turned my back on the wall and walked over to the opposite one and sat myself down. "You can sit as well Angela if you want. Not exactly a warm floor but its better than standing." She didn't say anything in response but after a minute she sat down against the same wall as me a meter or so off. I didn't know what to say and she wasn't really making much of an effort to say anything. The atmosphere around us was uncomfortable and Angela's blatant ignorance of me was rather much irritating.
About to open my mouth a sound stopped me as a hiss came from the direction of the door and we both stood up to see what was happening. I don't know what it was about that place but they always seemed to start doing something like speak or do something to catch everyone's attention that almost always made it feel like they didn't want me to say anything. I never really thought about the matter until afterwards as my attention as well was usually caught up as well.
As the doors hissed once more then opened fully some people were standing outside. We both looked to them and waited where we were to see what happened next. It wasn't really that surprising when one of the men came in and herded us outside into the corridor outside the room. Looking around to all the people standing there I counted three men in black and two people in white, a man and a woman. As we stood there the woman said something and one of the men dressed in black walked over to the wall a little down from where we had come from and another door opened up. I still hadn't exactly gotten used to the fact that along all the empty walls inside this place there were actually doors and rooms inside them. It was kind of creepy and really easy to forget about. The man in black stepped inside the room and pulled out someone that he pulled over towards us.
I looked at Kite in surprise as he lifted his head up and pulled himself away from the man in black, removing the grip on his torn shirt. He saw me and smiled a little then saw Angela and kept the face for a second later before dropping it as the man in black shoved him hard in the back. Obviously not impressed with the fact Kite had pulled away from him when he shouldn't of. I ignored everyone else a moment as I looked at kite, his clothes were even messier looking than the last time I saw him and there seemed to be a few red stains at various points. There were a nice selection of cuts on the skin that was visible on his face and arms with a mottling of purples tossed in as well. He really didn't look in the best of health and didn't seem to be taking so well to the place, or the place wasn't taking well to him, most likely a mixture of both. Shaking my head a little I looked forwards a moment to the people in white as I heard a mutter of English.
I didn't catch anymore words as the man and woman went into a heated argument about something in the same language that I could never understand. The rest of us, including me, my friends and the men in black stood uneasily as the two people in white's voices quickly escalated in volume. It broke off with a last shout from the man and the woman obviously cursed at him as he gave her a dirty look before hissing something to the men in black.
A rushed, "Hi Kite," and "bye," to both of them was all I managed to say before being shoved away from them following after the woman in white with a man shoving from behind.