CH11: Looped and Loaded

"Any last requests?"

He closed his eyes so the light wouldn't blind him and Ashelin noticed this, so she pointed it to the wall instead. Big mistake; the wall was metallic and the light reflected off of it and back at Ashelin and the man anyways, partly illuminating them both. The man opened his eyes in relief, but then closed them again.

"Just kill me now, I'm a loony." He said. "Ha ha ha! I'm crazy! Wheeeeeee!"

Ashelin raised her eyebrow and agreed that yes, he was a loony. For entertainment, she just kept letting him talk and grin with happiness.

"Ha ha ha! I feel dead already! I'm seeing monsters with flashlights! Ha ha ha he ha ha ha ha ha!"

"You are crazy. Ha ha." Ashelin went along with his laughing until she made a suggestion.

"How 'bout we go toss you in the sewer because you're a nutcase. Ha ha ha ha."

"OKAY! Let's go!" He said gleefully. Ashelin knew something was seriously wrong with him. She lifted the flashlight off her face and pointed it towards the ground infront of her.

"Follow me!" She said, failing to mock his delusional happiness. They got to a well-lit area where the man could obviously see better. He was still walking behind her, but then gasped when he saw her.

"Alright, now I'll get something to wrap your limbs to your body so you'll drown slowly and suffocate painfully. Is that okay with you?" She said with her back facing the guy, barely glancing over her shoulder to look at him.

"Of course." He replied much more seriously than before. Ashelin heard a small metallic clicking noise.

"Ladies first." He said gesturing as Ashelin turned around and saw him pointing a gun at her head.

"Fine. Shoot me. I know you'll miss. You're too afraid of me right now to care about your aim." She said calmly.

"I'm a gold rank sharpshooter. Don't tell me I'll miss." He fired the pistol and, expectedly, missed. The laser hit the wall missing Ashelin's head by about a foot. She stood there patiently as she saw him load the pistol again furiously.

He shot the pistol again, and this time it was aimed for her heart; a much easier target. The laser headed directly for her, but by the time it got to where Ashelin was, she wasn't there anyways. She dodged the shot as fast as lightning, leapt to the wall on her right and held grip on it.

"What?!?" He yelled and reloaded his gun again. "Die already, eco-freak!" He kept shooting at her, but kept missing as she jumped from wall to wall effortlessly.

She climbed up the wall she was currently on to a sheltered area where she couldn't get hit by bullets. She heard him yell at her again.

"Cowardly? Come down and fight like a- a- whatever… forget it, you win; I have no more bullets. You can come down now, and we'll negotiate."

Ashelin thought about this for a second, then noticed a power switch not too far from her on her left. She crawled over to the switch and held it with her hand.

"Negotiate my boot." And she pulled the switch down. The lights went out. Then she heard a ticking sound, and saw that the only thing that was on was a little power generator timer. She jumped down from her spot and stood infront of the guy without him noticing. He was still holding his gun up in the air, pointing it around purposelessly, not knowing where she was. Ashelin seized his arm and took the gun from him.

"Give it back or I'll-" He started angrily.

"-You'll what? Hurt me? It's time to say goodbye… right now."

WSHT! BAM!

The sound of the gun shooting, followed by a thump, then splash of water echoed through the pipes. The power came back on. Ashelin was holding the man's gun, so she twirled it like in a country-western movie, and stuck it in her holster. Then she heard Jinx's voice.

"All of them dead now?" He said.

"Probably. Lets get out of here. And good news, I have a gun now. Bad news: we can't get the statue back, and there's a whooshing noise coming from down there." She pointed to the pipe adjacent to the one Mog took.

"I can't hear anything. Sound like water?" Jinx asked.

"Yes. It's coming closer. Now it's fading a lot… a whole lot."

Jinx sighed with relief and displeasure as he watched her change back. Her light blue skin faded and her hair went from a frizzy dark gray to its natural silky bright red. Ashelin shot him a dirty look.

"Get used to it." She said dryly with clenched fists as her fingernails shortened rapidly and restored their original color.

Jinx nodded his head vigorously with agreement, and nausea. "Well, now I can start to hear it. If I can hear it, that means it is getting closer, and that we better get moving, right? Do you think it's raining outside?" He said as the faintness grew louder rapidly. Too rapidly.

"Most likely with the weather this week…RUN!" Ashelin yelled as she suddenly saw water gushing rapidly along the corridor then making a splashing wave against the wall as it turned the corner. They started running and made a sharp turn on the corner- where Ashelin slipped and fell.

"Go! I'll be fine!" She said. But in her head she was really thinking she was going to die.

Jinx ran to the elevator door as it opened and got inside quickly, looking at Ashelin as she tried to get up. The door closed and Ashelin watched it until the last sliver of light from the elevator disappeared.

The water rushed to her and swept her off the floor down the pipe drain; who knows where it leads to. Ashelin smashed into the side of the pipe from the strong current and everything went black.