Chapter Two: Trapped

January 15th, 7:12a.m.

Aeris slowly opened her eyes, her head thudding dully in her head. She forget about how much she had drank last night... well, she had forgotten most of the evening. She stretched her arms above her head, and the bitter cold reached her skin immediatly. She looked down at her clothes, they were torn, ripped and dirty.

'Oh, what did I get up to last night?' She wildly moved her arms about until they reached something: some cold heavy thing that was attached to the wall. She put her fingers around it and pulled herself up, only to fall back down again, the cold, heavy thing falling with her. She landed on her side painfully, the wind taken out of her. She groaned in pain as she held the side of her body and noticed she wasn't alone. The pain stopped for a bit when she saw Cloud sitting up, unconscious, against a windowed wall. Her eyes bulged as she crawled over to him, pushing the heavy, cold thing out of the way.

"Cloud!" she cried as she shook him by the shoulders. His right hand raised in front of him and shooed her away. "No, Cloud, wake up!" she shook him harder. His eyes opened slowly, the black rim around the right one showed horrifically in the morning's light. She automatically pressed her hand against his eye to comfort it, but he pushed it away when the pain set in with the pressure. As her hand was pushed away, she noticed blood on the end of the fingers. "Cloud, you're bleeding!" she shouted. Cloud opened his eyes fully now and looked Aeris in the face.

"Hey, where are we? It's blood cold.." he sighed, as he pulled out a cigarette. Aeris looked at her surroundings, worried, and all the memories last night shot back into her brain.

"It's locked!" Cloud shouted, he started to sober up now as Aeris staggered over to him.

"What do you mean it's locked?" she laughed. "Stop playing games, we should really be getting home now.." She attempted to push the door open after moving Cloud out of the way, only to realize in sheer panic that it really was locked. "Help me Cloud!" She pushed harder with Cloud's help, but it still wouldn't open.

"Why the hell is it locked!" he shouted angrily. They were both in a state of intoxication and extreme confusing. They had only been in there a short while, and no one had come up to the phonebox to lock it, and they were certain that it wasn't one of those ultra-modern self-locking telephone boxes. Aeris banged her fists on the door, the tears stinging her eyes as Cloud still attempted to push it. That is when she must of fallen asleep.. yes. She remembers closing her eyes in the freezing night and hearing Cloud bang his entire body against the door in an attempt to get it open. That's how he must of got that wound on the side of his face.

She looked up at the door, and noticed the blood stains and pieces of cloth from Cloud's clothes that stuck in between the glass and the metal door. A thought occured to her, 'why not just break the glass?'. She stood up, her body feeling incredibly heavy. She picked up the telephone off the ground that she had knocked off earlier (she finally realized it was a telephone after hearing the dialling tone play it's ceaseless droning..) and slammed it heavilly on the glass. It didn't break quite as easily as she had hoped; in fact, the glass hadn't broke at all. It remained in place, not even a movement as she hit it with the telephone receiver. She wiped the tears of panic out of her eyes and replaced the telephone receiver on the empty hook. Another thought occured to her, '999!'. She picked up the phone, almost dropping it in excitement and pushed on the numerical pad a 9, another 9 and one more 9. She put the receiver to her ear and awaited a response. Her luck wasn't going very well; as she waited for a response a voice came up on the other end, but nothing; the 'beep, beep, beep' sound that filled her ear-drums mocked her loudly. She hung up the telephone and sat down on the cold, concrete floor.

"Aeris... why are we in a telephone box?" Cloud whispered. He attempted to stand, only for the bolts of pain that caressed him up the side of his body to collapse him back down.

"We're locked in Cloud.." Aeris wept. "Don't you remember? You tried banging the door down, but it wouldn't work. Now we're shut up in this bloody... red coffin!" she cried, nearly in hysterics. Cloud crawled over to Aeris, who was sobbing uncontrollably now and gave her a firm slap on the face. She ceased her crying and held her face, wondering how weak and pathetic she must look in front of the man she loved. She tried to warm herself a little with her hands; it was very cold and she was only wearing light clothes. Cloud noticed this and took off his jacket, wrapping it around Aeris. She stifled a weak laugh.

"Have you tried ringing the police?" he sighed as he held his forehead. His headache, unfortunetly, was still there. She nodded quietly.

"Yeah, but the phones dead. All I get is the 'beep, beep' sound."

"Have you tried any other number?" he asked, biting his lip.

"Well.. no, I just assumed that--"

"I'll try then!" (You stupid cow.) He stood up against the wall, his body feeling like a bag of stones, and picked up the receiver again.

"No, wait Cloud, try the other phone, that's the one I tried." she whispered. She wasn't exactly in pain-free heaven either. He picked up the other one and replaced the one in his hand now. The dialling tone crept into his ears as he dialled his home telephone number. A small series of clicking noises vibrated in his ear from the telephone and then the dreadful 'beep, beep, beep' noise came flooding back in his ears. He slammed the receiver back down and shook his head. Aeris' heard thudded widly in her chest, she finally came to the horrible realization that they were both completly trapped.