WriterFreak001:
Wow! I am so pleased so many enjoyed the first chapter! Some of you guessed where I might be going with this story, and I'm excited to share it with you! :)
CHAPTER TWO
~ SCORPION ~
Paige groaned lowly as morning light bore through her eyelids and protested as she twisted around, hoping to sleep a little longer so that she could get rid of her god-awful headache. But just as she was beginning to drift off to sleep again, a strong, well-toned arm found its way around her stomach, pulling her closer to the source. She smiled giddily, thinking she was re-experiencing one of her latest fantasies with her most recent ex-boyfriend. As she slid her left hand over his and squeezed his palm gently, she felt his warm breath tickling her neck.
Oh, how she wished that this could be her reality. She hummed as he trailed light kisses along her bare shoulder and bit her lower lip as his mouth tickled that sensitive spot just below her neck. Paige reached back behind her and curled her fingers through her lover's hair, not noticing the lack of thick curls which were usually present in these sort of fantasies.
"I've missed you, my love," Paige whispered quietly, giggling and rolling her eyes upward as he smothered the back of her neck in fluttering kisses.
Damn.
If this dream was real, she never wanted to wake up.
"I guess that means you're feeling better?"
Paige's froze for a moment, her eyes popping open to the unexpected sound of the man's voice. Swiftly, she turned to confirm who was groping her, and when she saw that he was not him, but Drew, her ex-ex-ex-boyfriend, she threw his arms off her and scrambled off the bed. However, with her luck, gravity wasn't kind to her, and she gloriously tripped over one of her shamefully discarded garments and stumbled onto the floor in a tumbleweed of arms and legs. Drew, who – to her horror – wasn't wearing a single stitch of clothing – immediately scuttled off the bed and scampered over to her, not even bothering to cover up in the process.
"OH MY GOD, DREW!" Paige shouted as she shielded her eyes, "COVER THAT THING UP!"
"Why? It's nothing you haven't seen before…" Drew replied with genuine confusion even though he obeyed and slipped on a pair of boxers. When she heard elastic slap skin, she dared to peek before bringing her palm away from her face.
Paige frowned and stood up, completely stupefied as to why Drew was acting so clueless this morning. She opened her mouth to say something, but she immediately realized that she was standing stark nude in front of him. Paige instantly wrapped one arm around her chest and placed her other hand between her legs. "What the hell, you creep! Turn around!"
"What's wrong with you, Paige? First you tell me to cover up, and now you're suddenly gun-shy? Did you hit your head or something?" Drew crossed his arms, determined not to turn around.
"What's with me? What's with you?! Why the heck are you in my home, in my bed, and not wearing any clothes?!" Paige exclaimed as she spotted her bathrobe hanging on her closet door. Slowly, she sidestepped towards it. "I thought I made it pretty clear that we would never be together again."
Drew's eyebrow cocked as Paige quickly disappeared inside her closet before reappearing and wearing the robe. Then, he frowned. "And when did you make that decision? Last I checked, we've been married for the past twelve years. What happened over night to make you think differently?"
Paige folded her arms and arched a brow. "Are you out of your mind? We're not married! I've never married you."
"Oh yeah, then what's that?" Drew spat as he pointed to something to her right.
She spun in that direction, and her breath caught when she saw a wedding photo of Drew, herself, and a two-year-old Ralph. Just what the hell?! "No. This can't be right." She shook her head vigorously. "We're not married, and we're definitely not seeing each other right now." Paige was livid. "Did Toby put you up to this? If so, this isn't funny!"
Drew slipped on his pants and pulled a t-shirt over his head before responding. "Who the hell is Toby?!"
"You know damn well who he is!" Paige couldn't believe this man! What the heck was he trying to prove?
But before Drew could respond, a high-pitched exclamation caught her off guard. "Mommy!" A little girl with dark, somewhat curly, brown hair ran up towards her with arms wide open and jumped into her arms, giving her a tight embrace. "Guess what! Guess what!"
Paige remained silent at first, shocked from the little girl's presence. Drew stepped in on her behalf as if he wasn't surprised at all.
"What is it, pumpkin?"
The little girl beamed ear to ear. "I lost a tooth! See?!" She raised her lower jaw until her bottom teeth were protruding out of her mouth to show them her great accomplishment. She then opened her hand and presented the baby tooth in her palm. Drew carefully took it and placed it on his dresser.
"I'll leave it here until you go to bed. Then, we'll be sure to put it under your pillow for the Tooth Fairy." Drew smiled gently before taking the little girl out of Paige's arms. "Now, be a good girl and finish getting dressed for the day. Don't want to be late for school, Veronica."
Veronica? Paige shuddered to think that she would ever name any daughter of hers after her mother. Though her relationship with her mother is better than it was before, the last thing she wanted was to have a kid named after her.
"I don't know why you're so confused, Paige, but maybe you're still hungover after the party last night. Stay home and get some rest; I'll call your co-workers and let them know you're unwell. If you start to feel better, see if you can convince Ralph to leave his bedroom for a change." Drew stated as he finished getting ready. He grabbed his baseball cap and added, "I'll take Veronica and Rebecca to school today on the way to work."
"Rebecca?" Paige quietly questioned, wondering if she supposedly had another kid in this strange reality.
Drew sighed. "You know, our oldest daughter?
"Right," she shrunk a little, pretending like she knew who he was talking about. "That Rebecca."
"Get some rest," Drew replied as he walked over to her and attempted to kiss her goodbye. Paige swiftly dodged his puckered lips and forced out a cough.
"You don't want to do that," she quickly thought of an excuse and forced a burp out. "I've got vomit breath."
Drew sighed and turned towards the door, almost defeated. "Whatever."
When he left the room, Paige took her chance to lock the door behind him, so that she could mentally process everything that was going on.
But the moment she clicked the lock, a sharp ringing pierced her ears. She grasped her forehead, feeling the dulling pain from earlier ever more present. The world around her began to spin, shake, triple and retract all at once, distorting everything she was feeling and experiencing.
"Oh God. PAIGE!" cried a faint echo in her mind, and it sounded familiar. Too familiar, but she couldn't remember whose voice it belonged to. Descriptions to what sounded like a murder scene were being sputtered out in scrambled sentences, the panicked voice unable to speak in complete sentences before demanding for someone or something to arrive quickly.
And suddenly, another voice – like Drew's – interjected, yelling incomprehensively. The sound of his voice, unlike the first one, was doubled like clashing notes on a piano, causing the pain in her skull to increase. She pressed her palms into her eyes and crumbled over as her ears starting ringing.
"MOM!"
The pain in Paige's mind immediately stopped to the sound of her son's voice, and her heart broke from how desperate and scared he seemed. The memory of what happened before she woke up in this strange universe was coming back to her now. She had fallen, tripped on something on the floor and busted her head as she fell. Then everything went blank until she woke up here, in this strange reality.
She closed her eyes and slowly let out a breath. "I gotta get out of here."
Walter knew he had no business walking towards the Centipede Headquarters, but because Ralph had practically begged him to talk to Paige while he was out with Drew, Walter couldn't really say no. He would do anything for that boy if given the chance.
Walter knew it was a bad idea to begin with and considered chickening out after he had arrived in the parking lot with his car, but for whatever reason, he was compelled to see this all the way through. When he got to the front door and rang the doorbell, no one answered.
He frowned. "I could have sworn Ralph said she'd be here almost all night…"
Walter pulled out his phone from his pocket and dialed Paige's number before calling. After several rings, no one answered so he tried knocking on the door. After five hard knocks, he was sure someone would have let him in, but nobody did. He peered through the window in the off chance that she might have not heard him and immediately froze when he saw two limp feet.
When he eventually came to his senses, he raced off to find the sharpest rock in the company's front lawn before smashing it into the lower right panel of the door. The glass shattered instantly, and he stuck his hand in, using his sleeve to knock away the remaining broken glass before twisting the lock and opening the door from the inside. As the door swung open, broken glass swept across the floor as Walter ran past it, leaving the door ajar.
"Oh God. PAIGE!" he yelled, voice thick with panic as he scrambled over to her. He covered his mouth as he assessed the situation, noticing the puddle of blood seeping beneath her head. His fingers shook as he dialed 9-1-1, and when the operator answered, he struggled to tell them that Paige was hurt, and in a hurried jumble of words, he eventually said, "Please! Arrive as quickly as you can!"
Unsure if he should move her, he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and gently pressed it underneath her forehead in hopes that it would staunch her blood flow.
Without warning, the door he forgot to close forcibly slammed open. "What the hell happened?!" Drew stormed over to him as if whatever was going on was his fault, and he frowned. "Did you do this to her?!"
"No! Of course not!" Walter gritted his teeth. "I found her like this. The ambulance is on their way." He paused for a second. "Where's Ralph?"
"I saw the broken glass, so I left him where he was."
"Where is he?!" Walter reiterated, wanting to grab Drew's collar but refrained for obvious reasons.
"Relax, man." Drew rose his hands in mock defense, "he's in the car."
"Go get him. He needs to be here." Walter ordered, but Drew didn't move.
"No. If anything, he shouldn't be in here. I'm his father, and what I say goes."
But before Walter could reply all of the insults he wanted to throw at the dumb jock, Ralph's interjection stopped him.
"MOM!" Ralph shouted as he scrambled over to Paige's limp body and touched her arm gently. "Is she alive? Is she okay? What happened?"
"I don't know," Walter replied, "but if I had a guess, she might have tripped." Walter's eyes spotted a small, blue pencil case on the floor near where her feet would have been before the fall. "And from the looks of it, she tripped over that and then smacked her forehead against the corner of her desk." He pointed to the blood splattered on the corner.
Ralph was silent as he observed the path Walter had mapped out based on the evidence at hand and froze the moment his eyes landed on the item his mentor had showed him. He wanted to vomit.
"This is all my fault. I didn't put it away!" Ralph's throat clenched tightly. "Why didn't I remember to put that away!"
Before Walter could tell Ralph differently, a team of paramedics came rushing through the door with a stretcher. All three of them backed away from Paige as the team carefully latched a brace around her neck before turning her over. They picked her limp body off the ground and placed her on the stretcher before carrying her out.
"Come on," Walter said as he touched Ralph's shoulder. "Let's follow."
"Ralph will go with me," Drew replied swiftly, ushering his son away from Walter.
Ralph backed away. "I want to go with Walter."
Drew didn't have the energy to fight and sighed, "Whatever," as he left without the other two. Walter and Ralph weren't too far behind.
~ SCORPION ~
WriterFreak001:
I hope you're enjoying this story so far! I anticipate about six or seven chapters, and I'm super excited to write them! :) Please let me know what you think!