Author's Notes: I apologize, but I cannot commit to notifying people when I have posted a new chapter. I usually get one out every week, on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. I again apologize, but there will not be a new chapter next weekend, as I will be studying for finals…what fun. No elevator research this week…but if you want to install one, just type in "elevator information" on Google.
Chapter Five: Survivor: Elevator
The sound of Joey's whimper was about the same as the screeching whistle from the air conditioner earlier. However, this annoying noise was accompanied by Joey shaking around his rear in an attempt to…do something, I suppose. Tears were streaming down his scrunched up face and he occasionally muttered, "I gotta go!" or "Gotta peeeeeee!" and similar phrases. Everyone's face was turned away from him, but he continued to bounce up and down harder.
Kaiba broke first— or maybe just needed an excuse to explode on Joey— but since when did he need an excuse to do so? "Stop shaking the elevator, you @*&)$%!" he snarled furiously. "I have had FAR too much of you already, you stupid mutt!"
Joey barely even blinked at being called a mutt (or the first lovely insult), just continued to rock around on his behind and whimper that he needed to use the restroom.
"Look, there's nothing we can do about you having to piss, so just SHUT UP, will you?!" shrieked Tea, who was stuck sitting closest to Joey. Her niceness only lasted to an extent that had been passed over an hour ago.
Joey continued to whine. "But I really, really, REALLY GOTTA GO!" he complained, whimpering some more.
"Keep it up, mortal, and you'll join with your friends' destinies of being banished to the Shadow Realm!" barked Bakura, scowling at the boy.
"I can't help it!" insisted Joey, nearly moving the elevator with his "gotta-pee dance."
"MAYBE THIS'LL HELP!" suggested Mai, snatching Kaiba's briefcase and attempting to chuck it at Joey. Unfortunately, she didn't give it much of a thrust, due to the way she was sitting on the floor due to the rip in the back of her skirt that, ironically, Joey had caused earlier.
Ryou was still unconscious from the beating he had received after insisting that Mai's jacket was blue and calling everyone bloody idiots and nearly frustrating them to death.
The briefcase "landed" (it didn't really qualify as a throw) on Yami and it hit Yugi's back slightly. Yami hefted it up. "No, no, like this," he instructed, successfully heaving the briefcase in the air with some good, solid thrust…
…but no aim.
The briefcase slammed into Tea's head with a loud, audible crunch as her nose broke. Everyone winced.
Tea picked up the briefcase from her lap, where it had (obviously) fallen after smashing into her face. Her eyes were filled with tears, for she was obviously about to cry. She gingerly touched her nose, and winced when her fingers made contact. It really was a terrible sight, flat and bloody, and with the signs of a huge bruise.
Yugi spoke first. "Um…guess we're even now, huh, Tea?" he asked, indicating his mashed hair with a pained expression on his face.
Tea began to bawl, and everyone sighed. Yami was really embarrassed, and apologized continuously with no response from Tea, who covered her nose with her hands as she sobbed in a loud, obnoxious way. Everyone sighed.
"Good going, you great idiot," muttered Bakura from his corner. "Now we have two blabbering fools to listen to!" Despite the Tea incident, Joey was still "dancing" and complaining about how he had to go.
"Oh, just shut up. You threatened to send him to the Shadow Realm!" growled Yami, letting go of Yugi and turning to face the spirit of the Ring.
"And you weren't thinking of it?" Bakura demanded, actually turning his whole body around to face the ancient pharaoh.
"How dare you assume what I think!" exclaimed Yami, eyes glowing in anger.
"Calm down, Yami," Yugi soothed, trying to pacify the spirit of his Millennium Puzzle. He caught his jacket, trying to make his friend turn back around away from Bakura, whose eyes were locked on Yami's in a deadly glare.
"No, Yugi. Let go," ordered Yami, pulling his jacket away.
"I'll assume anything I wish," spat Bakura.
"Not of myself!" shouted Yami, eyes looking like they would literally burst on fire with his anger. He started to get up. Yugi grabbed his arm again.
"Don't fight! Just sit down and work this out like civilized beings!" he begged.
Silence, and all eyes widened on Yugi.
"Uh…okay…you shouldn't fight! Why can't you be friends, Yami?" Yugi asked, grabbing Yami's other arm.
"Leave me alone! Jeez, it's always, 'do this, Yami,' or 'be friends, Yami,' or 'play nice, Yami!' I am so sick of your annoying whining and hanging around!" snapped Yami, snatching his arm away from Yugi. "I am SO TIRED OF YOU GRABBING ONTO ME! DON'T YOU HAVE ANY FRIENDS!?"
Yugi's mouth opened slightly and the look in his eyes would have caused Tea to be extremely concerned and ask what was wrong if she hadn't been stuck in an elevator with a broken nose caused by someone throwing a briefcase at Joey but hitting her with it— in other words, extremely hurt eyes. Yami immediately felt like something extremely unpleasant— a rat carcass, for example, or perhaps dog poop, and regretted his words. "#&)$^! Yugi, why do you have to make me feel so bad!?! I HATE YOU!" he screamed, then sat down facing away from Yugi and hid his head in his lap.
Ryou came to for a second and drowsily tapped Bakura. "You don't hate me, do you?" he asked sleepily.
"I loathe you, miserable worm of a human," growled Bakura, pushing away Ryou's hand.
"Love you too," replied Ryou, and promptly passed out again.
Yugi said nothing, just curled into a miserable little ball. Joey continued to whimper, and Tea to bawl. It wasn't just some little crying, like Kaiba earlier, but whole shebang, along with a loud, high-pitched wail. It drowned out Joey completely. It drowned out all thought, and it had to be stopped.
"SHUT UP!" roared Mai from across the elevator. "I AM SO FREAKIN' SICK OF EVERYTHING IN THIS ELEVATOR, INCLUDING YOU, AND I SWEAR THAT IF I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THAT TERRIBLE SOUND FOR ONE MORE MINUTE, I WILL PERSONALLY RIP OUT ALL YOUR HAIR WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS!!"
Tea momentarily stopped crying to look up at Mai, who had risen in rage. "Oh, you're sick of me? I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO STAND YOU SINCE I FIRST HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF LAYING EYES ON YOU!" she screamed back, rising herself.
"WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I'VE ALWAYS HATED YOU TOO!" returned Mai, stepping over the curled-up Yugi to confront Tea.
"CAREFUL, MAI, YOUR SKIRT MIGHT SPLIT SOME MORE!" yelled Tea, stepping forward herself. Mai's mouth dropped in unexpected shock.
"OH YEAH? C'MERE, I'LL GIVE YOU SOME MAKEUP TO COVER UP THAT UGLY, BLOODY NOSE OF YOURS, NOT THAT IT LOOKS MUCH UGLIER THAN BEFORE!!"
With a deep-throated growl, Tea lunged forward, shouting, "I'LL MAKE YOUR NOSE BLOODY, YOU @(#^@$!" Mai likewise threw herself at Tea, and the two angry girls made contact in mid-air, biting and scratching at each other.
[As you may remember from a previous chapter, Newton is a scientist who made many important laws during his lifetime. In said previous chapter, I described Newton's three laws of motion. I think it is now appropriate to review Newton's law of gravity, which can be summed up simply, as you have probably already heard, as "what goes up must come down."]
Mai and Tea: up. Mai and Tea: down.
Down on Yugi.
The fighting girls landed smack-dab on top of Yugi, who was still curled up in a little ball, the way he had remained since Yami had yelled at him. Instead of letting the fact that they had hurt Yugi stop them, the girls rolled off and continued to kick, scratch and punch each other, screaming and pulling each others' hair.
Tristan attempted to separate the fighters and almost ended up losing an arm. It finally took Tristan, Yami, Ryou (although he passed out again immediately after completion) and Joey (complaining that he had to go the whole time) to separate the girls. They sat, backs to opposite walls, glaring across the elevator at one another.
Kaiba snorted amusedly. "Cat fight."
UMPH! Kaiba gasped for air after his briefcase landed square in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him.
Ahh…glorious silence. Yugi, who felt as though his back were broken, gently rubbed his spine as pain shot through it. He felt like someone was holding a jackhammer to his head, but the silence was a welcome relief from the bawling and whimpering from earlier. Joey had FINALLY stopped—
"I gotta go, I really really need to pee!" cried Joey, beginning his full-blown whimpering again.
"I'm hungry," Tristan complained, rubbing his stomach just as it growled loudly.
"I'm hungry too!" added Joey. "Man, I can't remember the last time I ate…I'm going to starve to death! I can already feel my stomach eating itself! Everything's getting fuzzy…owww, my poor stomach, I'm so hungry…" Tristan joined in eagerly.
"Shut up," ordered Mai.
"Yeah, didn't you just have to go to the bathroom?" asked Yami.
"What? Huh?" asked Joey, shaken from his description of a roast beef sandwich that he should be eating.
"You mean if we just mentioned food, Joey would have shut up about having to piss?" demanded Mai.
Joey sniffed as if he had been gravely insulted, and whimpered again, this time in hunger, along with Tristan.
Actually, everyone was hungry. Except for Ryou, of course, who had eaten (beans for) lunch, and also, being hungry doesn't matter as much when you're unconscious.
Eventually (after what seemed like eons), Joey and Tristan's hunger whimperings subsided…and were replaced by a new noise. A noise feared by all who have suffered from listening to it in the dark. A noise so terrible, so horrible that it made everyone's blood run cold.
"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ," snored Joey loudly, snorting occasionally as he slept. He was leaning against the wall and his mouth was open slightly. A line of drool was hanging down from his mouth, which opened and closed periodically. Tristan joined him in an extremely unpleasant chorus, but he wasn't half as loud or obnoxious at it as Joey. Joey also mumbled a few words every now and then. "Hamburger….zzzzzzz….snorflat….stupid….ketchup…..zzzzzzzzzzz," he snored.
The twitch began above Kaiba's left eyebrow and traveled to affect his whole eye. "Wake him up already," Kaiba growled, his eye twitching strangely in extreme anger.
Tea sighed. "You can't wake Joey up. He can sleep through a hurricane," she said tiredly, rubbing her forehead.
"I don't care! Somebody just wake him up!" Kaiba commanded. Yami sighed and kicked Joey, but the sleeping boy just fell over onto Tea, snoring louder than ever. Tea quickly shoved him off of her onto Tristan.
And the snoring continued, for no one could wake Joey up. It was obviously affecting Kaiba the most; sweat ran down his face and his left eye twitched erratically. He was breathing in shallow gasps, trying to block out the sound and to keep himself from murdering Joey. Must— remain— calm, he told himself, trying to get in control. But it was no use.
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!" Kaiba screamed, getting to his feet and shouting to block out Joey's snoring. "I AM GOING INSANE! I AM GETTING OUT OF HERE!" With that, he stepped to the elevator doors and frantically tried to pull them apart.
Everyone watched Kaiba's breakdown in interest. This was the most exciting thing that had happened for nearly half an hour.
"You're wasting your energy, Kaiba. You can't open the door," Yami said wearily. He was still not facing Yugi.
"NO! I MUST ESCAPE! I WILL ESCAPE!" Using all his strength, Kaiba actually managed to push the elevator doors apart a few inches. Seeing his progress, a few people got up to try and help him. "NO! BACK AWAY! ONLY I WILL ESCAPE!" Kaiba shrieked, lashing out at people with his briefcase. "IF YOU TOUCH IT, I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"
"Kaiba's lost it," Mai stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah," Ryou, who had come to again, agreed.
Kaiba, breathing heavily and laughing occasionally like a maniac, pried the doors open a few more inches. Through the gap, he could see the dark elevator shaft. Once the opening was just big enough, he stuck his head through….
…and got it stuck.
Kaiba soon realized that he could not open the doors any more while his head was between the gap, so he tried to pull it back to open them wider…but he couldn't. His head got stuck between the slightly open doors, and he couldn't pull it back no matter how hard he tugged.
"Somehuhy hep me!" cried Kaiba, frantically trying to get his head back into the elevator.
"What did he say?" asked Tea curiously. The doors muffled Kaiba's sound.
"I think he said, 'somebody help me,'" suggested Yami.
"Yeh! Yeh I did! Hep me out!" Kaiba continued, thrashing his body wildly.
"But Kaiba said he'd kill us if we touched it!" pointed out Yugi. "We better leave him alone."
Everyone stared at Yugi for a second, for the first time seeing his evilness. Then everyone, including Yugi, laughed and sat down. Kaiba's head was still stuck between the elevator doors, no matter how hard he tried to pull it out, and no one tried to help him. Joey and Tristan still snored obnoxiously, and Ryou continued to pass out and come to randomly.
And the elevator…went to Vegas! [Ha ha, nice change of pace there, eh?] But it STILL didn't move!