I start school tomorrow, but I hope you enjoy this chapter a lot!
Chapter 14: Lahla Bye
The party was just starting as Lahla entered into the Rio Hotel, getting ready for her unknown, volunteer work. Her main job was too work security and switch the lights for the Masquerade Show in the Sky, but when she was one of the first staff volunteers to arrive on time, the director made her one of the three workers to control the hovering balloons, using a lever and various buttons while enjoying he view from a glass, upper floor. Excited and anxious, she waited for the party to start as she sat down on a table and ate from a bowl of potato chips.
Drew couldn't help but realize the disappointed expression on Goombella's face at 6:00 in the afternoon. They were looking down at the ground from their outside balcony from their apartment, staring down at the police and firefighters.
Two things were going on: There was a highly believed rumor that a foreign Snifit had hid a bomb in the main lobby of the hotel, and that nobody was allowed to enter or exit the hotel. This caused a big uproar in the guests, some of which were missing appointments and plane flights that were scheduled in the past few hours, but in Goombella and Drew's case, could not exit and be able to help Lahla, whom they knew was going to the Rio Hotel.
The other situation was a bit worse for the two of them. A detective was to make sure they were to not leave their room and/or hotel, knowing that at least Goombella had been near or present at every death so far, thus having a premonition of the initial disaster made the police department exceedingly suspicious.
"Is something wrong Goombella?" he asked.
She just stayed there, looking down t the ground, before answering. "What happened to Jill?" she said, still not lifting her head. "She worked so hard to find the solution to Death's design, but she failed. It's as if Death killed her at the last second. We were so close to working together."
"She didn't fail," reminded Drew, scooting over to stand besides Goombella. "Remember, she did all that work to find that crystal. And it's lucky it had fallen out the window during the big explosion. Can you imagine what would have happened if I didn't catch the crystal?"
"But is the crystal worth anything?" realized Goombella, lifting up her head. "Maybe the whole thing was a trick."
Drew pulled out the white crystal from his jacket pocket. "Let's take a look," he decided. He placed it on the lawn table and looked at it, as Goombella did the same. But they found nothing special or peculiar with it.
"I'll be back in a second," he said, rushing back into the room and into the bathroom, cupped his hands to collect water, ran back into the balcony, and splashed water all over the rock, as it made an eerie glow.
"I knew water was the solution." He and Goombella both found little scratch marks on one of the faces, and soon discovered that they weren't white scratches, but words of a hidden message.
Yoshi was the closest to succeed
"Yoshi?" repeated Drew, "He was the closest to succeed? Succeed in what?"
"It means that Yoshi was closest to cheating Death," said Goombella, still trying to recall who Yoshi was exactly. "But we can't solve this right now. Lahla is still in lethal danger, and I can't let her go away."
"But we've been in this room for over seven hours," Drew said with a sigh. Goombella looked over the balcony and stared at the policemen over eighty feet below, who seemed to be bringing out a person in handcuffs. She closed her eyes, feeling a scent of wind flying over her.
"I feel like jumping off," she whispered, still closing her eyes with a calm expression on her face/
"Say what?" said Drew in a startled voice. Without believing his eyes, he saw Goombella's body lean forwards, and as he got up from his chair to run over to her, she fell forwards and off the balcony. Drew grabbed her by her shirt at the very last second.
"Goombella, get up!" cried Drew in alarm, using all his might to lift her back onto safety. She opened her eyes and looked around, just as Drew pulled her back onto the balcony, falling backwards onto the ground. Goombella opened her eyes, looked around, and shot back to her feet.
"What happened?" She saw Drew, exhausted on the ground.
"You just tried to jump of the balcony," retort Drew. "What were you thinking?" But by the look of her confused face, Drew knew that she had no idea.
"I keep having these weird feelings of falling of a building."
"I know that," said Drew. "The morning of Tom's death, you said the same thing in the swimming pool. But this time, you actually were on the edge of falling to your death. Literally."
"Lahla is in lethal danger; I can't let her go away. Can we sneak somehow out of this room?" said Goombella.
"Well, we could sneak over to the other balcony right next to us." Drew pointed over to the balcony of the room besides them, and they both knew that climbing there and out of the hotel was the quickest way to reach their only friend, whom was still breathing.
Within the time of Goombella's and Drew's escape, the room of the Rio Hotel was already partying and fully active, and Lahla sat back further on the eating table. Knowing that she would soon have to be controlling the machines in a few minutes, she got up with her hands, but crashed her hand into a fallen lava lamp right besides her. The lava lamp was destroyed, with wax and glass spilled all over a section of the table. But Lahla instead rushed into the back room with a throbbing hand towards the faculty sink.
Within seconds after, an announcement was heard on the speakers.
"All volunteers please report immediately to the area you were directed and assigned to arrive for your assignment. Thank you once again. To our guests and celebrators, our masquerade ball has begun!" A loud ripple of cheer fell across the audiences as performers on the stage came down the numerous stair cases, and as the hovering machines started to come out, displaying people and dancers upon them. Several jugglers and trick entertainers were brought into the middle of the audience, as the people in the flying machines were throwing beads into the eager crowds.
"Hurry up!" yelled Drew at the taxi driver, looking uncomfortably at the police cars chasing right behind them. As Drew kept on handing over money to the worried and frightened taxi man, Goombella had been studying Lahla's photograph.
She was lying on the floor in the arcade, posing awkwardly yet in a fashionable way. In her right hand was a miniature flag she had won at a crane game, and was holding it up in the air. Peeka was right behind her holding a smoothie, and behind them on the wall was a ski ball game. Right next to the ski ball arcade machine was an advertisement for the Insanity ride, which Goombella knew was used to predict Peeka's fate.
Something weird had struck her mind. How did Death know that some of his victims would cheat death by putting other clues in her friends' photos? How did she know that Goombario and Lahla would be the only true victims, and by proving this, he put the Insanity ride clues in their pictures only? She knew the answer: Death puts possibilities in any way.
But she saw something else in Lahla's photo, a clue which she knew would involve in her death, and this clue made Goombella even more alarmed and in a hurry to reach the Rio Hotel as it approached seven at night. On her face was a face painting she had received at one of their friend's birthday party that fateful day, depicting rose thorns on a prickly vine, the tips of the spikes glistening from the light above her.
"Ouch ouch ouch!" whispered Lahla in pain as she held her hand under the rushing water of this sink. She looked at her hand and noticed that it was covered in red blisters, and as she tried to shake it, the pain grew harshly in an unusual way. She simply just stood there, and looked at herself in the mirror.
She was reminded of Peeka, her sister who had passed away at the Insanity ride. "Was Goombella right," she said to herself, yet partially out loud, "That everyone has a design by Death? That Peeka's and mine's design was to die on the ride, and so was Goombella's and Drew's, and Poochy's, and Koopie's, and everyone else's design was for all of us to die that night? And being alive after we're supposed to die…" A little song had entered into her head, a tune which Peeka used to sing to her when she was just a small kid.
We represent the Lullaby League, The Lullaby League, The Lullaby League
And in the name of the Lullaby League,
We wish to welcome you to Munchkinland.
Lahla, bye, leave, just Lahla, bye, leave…
She suddenly remembered her new assigned job of controlling the hanging mechanisms, just as a shadow appeared in the mirror directly in front of her, a horrifying skull visible in the person's black, disturbing hood. The person grinned, its face melting as chemicals devoured the boney expression. All of this had occurred in a single second.
As she stepped backwards in shock, she tripped on a broom below her and fell onto the floor, but not before banging into the shelf right in front of her. High above in the shelf was a tool box of doctor supplies which was near the edge of falling, and as Lahla saw it at the very last second, she picked up the broom by her right side with her injured hand, and held the bristles up to the container, just as the box was about to plummet. The plastic container was being supported only by the frail broom, as Lahla held it up in weakly.
"You're driving of the road!" cried Drew to the taxi man. "What are you doing?" The confused taxi driver was terrified, realizing that the breaks on his car had suddenly become disabled. Goombella gasped as they were heading straight into the hotel entry doors. There were no people in the way on danger, but all were backing away from the berserk taxi as it made its final turn
"Noooo!" shouted Goombella and Drew simultaneously, just as the taxi driver took a turn into the glass entrance doors of the hotel. Drew grabbed Goombella's shirt, and at the nick of time, he opened the door and pulled the two of them out, just like they had did in another taxi situation. As they fell and scratched themselves against the hard ground, the taxi shattered into the glass doors and was literally crushed like an accordion, and an eerie alarm broke out from within the trunk. The place was dead silence, when all of a sudden a police car came into view. People at the scene were shocked and bewildered, except for the taxi man, whom was decapitated by a large piece of glass.
"Our luggage and cell phones are in the trunk," remembered Goombella. But Drew looked up to see their detective, the one who was supposed to guard them from exiting their hotel room who had walked over to them on the floor. Another police car came into view, and then another, as policemen covered up the deadly scene.
"Detective Conan; you're under arrest," he said gruffly to Drew, and as they both got up to their feet, he immediately put handcuffs on the hands of Drew in a harsh way. Drew winced as the detective pushed the handcuffs too tight, and as everyone around them watched Drew be taken to a back part of the hotel, Goombella jut stood there, dumbfounded as Drew gave her a look, meaning that she had to do the rest by herself, just as the policeman kicked him to look foward. Why hadn't the detective brought her along with Drew? She then realized that nobody was looking at her, but only at the fatal car crash merely a few feet behind her. They seemed to be looking right through her as if she didn't exist.
Lahla let out a small whimper as she held the broom up. Her hand was aching, and as she tried to move away just the tiniest bit, a pocketknife with the prickly blade sticking out suddenly fell from the plastic, large container, and sliced into the ground right besides Lahla's ear. She let out a muffled shriek, and knew that switching hands with the brooms would only make the entire box collapse onto her.
As her hand started to weaken, a metal pipe fell from the box fell and hit the ground with a loud CLANG, then a syringe which pierced into Lahla's right, raised arm. She let out a scream of pain and started to whimper softly as her injured hand was getting even more fatigue, but she still wouldn't give up as she held the broom upraised firmly, as blood started to drip down her failing, collapsing arm.
Goombella entered the room of the Masquerade party, but then realized one, troubling problem as she looked around frantically at the cheerful chaos that was all around her: Where was her friend?
Which fates will come in the next chapter? I will update when I get the next chance. Please review! My goal is to reach at least 68.
