Chapter 5 – The End…
I'm going to issue a warning for readers. This is where the series will feel like it's shifting and I'm glad you've stuck around this long. Trust me, it's going to be worth the wait.
Ren looked at us three with absolute fear in his eyes, "you all need to get out of here. NOW."
"What? What's going on, Ren?" I felt my heart jump into my throat.
"Look here," Ren turned his laptop towards us and we saw that the news was bringing us a 9-1-1 call that was reported from the same dorm building as us, "if you three don't get out, who knows who could be coming for you." He pointed specifically at Weiss.
"M-Me? Why just me?" Weiss was very frightened at this mention.
"You're the one who knows about Jaune the most. Someone probably wants it to be secret." Ren looked back at his laptop. "Listen, I know a back way out of this building. A way not many people know."
"Wait! No! We can't leave!" Velvet grabbed my arm and held on tightly.
"What do you mean?" I can't think of the reason, but then it dawns on me.
"Pyrrha's still in here! We can't leave her!" Velvet looks at me with pleading eyes. "I don't know much of what to do in this situation, but she's my best friend. Please, Jaune."
I smiled right at her, "I was never thinking of leaving her." Velvet gave me the biggest hug she has ever given me, and I look at Ren. "Do you think you could lead Weiss to that exit? I'm going with Velvet to get Pyrrha and we'll meet at the bottom."
"That sounds good to me. If we act now, then we should be able to leave without a problem." Ren nodded his head.
"Alright, let's get going." I stand up and head for the door with Velvet in tow. I push open the door and look down both sides before proceeding to go towards the elevator. I press the up arrow as I see Ren and Weiss head towards the stairs.
"Jaune, no matter what happens," Velvet looks at me with her mysterious brown eyes, "no matter who we run into or what. No matter anything," Velvet moves into the elevator as the doors open wide and she turns to look at me, "thank you, for humoring a girl in her pursuit of knowledge." She smiled her usual smile, but this one felt warm and gentle.
I stepped into the elevator after her, "let's keep the 'no matters' until after we rescue Pyrrha."
"Right." The elevator doors close and we begin to ascend. It doesn't take long for us to get that creeping feeling that something isn't right. The numbers grow higher as we get to the 5th floor, but the number gauge drops to 4 and back to 5. "Velvet, do you see…" but I was interrupted as the elevator shudders, quakes, and trembles as it comes to a forced stop.
The lights begin to flicker and die out. I heard Velvet scream in the darkness. I fumble for my phone in my pocket and shortly after I pull it out, I lose my grip and it hits the tip of my shoe causing it to tumble further into the elevator. I get down on my knees, waiting a second to allow my eyes to adjust to the darkness and then I went forward to feel around for my phone. Eventually, my hand bumps against the object and I grab it victoriously. I turn on my flashlight and see Velvet huddled in the corner with her hands on her ears crying softly to herself.
"Velvet? Velvet!" I cry out to her and she opens her eyes. I reach out to her with the light shining on her. "Come on, we need to work together to get out of here!" She grabs my hand with her shaky and uncertain one and I hoist her up on her feet. "First, we'll need to pry open these elevator doors so that we can get to Pyrrha." We get over to the door and press all of our fingers between the crack and try our best to force the doors open.
"Jaune, this isn't working!" Velvet began to cry out. "We won't make it to her if we stand around like this."
"Alright then," I point the flashlight up to the ceiling, "then we can climb up the service ladder and try our luck from there."
"I'll need you to help me up so that I can get to it." Velvet looks at me and looks at the emergency exit.
"Weren't you just in the corner?" I ask her as nicely as I possibly could.
"Aren't you like way outside of what I could bench?" She responded as nicely as she possibly could.
"Fair enough." I start to help her up, but the elevator jolts to life, throwing us to the ground as it brings us to the 5th floor. We both crawl out quickly as to not get stuck in the elevator again. The doors close shut and we breathe more steadily as we finally reached the floor we needed to be on. It's darkened in the entire hallway with two red fire exit signs that illuminate both ends of the hall. "Which way is Pyrrha's room." Velvet pointed at a door a little bit down the hall.
We began to walk towards where Velvet pointed, but as we got closer I realized that the wallpaper had deep gashes in it. As if someone had struck it with a knife. Velvet's eyes grow wide as we notice that Pyrrha's dorm room door has been smashed open in a forced entry. We step inside and look around trying to find any evidence of what happened. It looked to be a single room, so she wouldn't have had a roommate that could call for help. Things were looking bad when Velvet called out for me.
"Jaune! Jaune come back to the closet!" Velvet called out to me. I retreated to the front of the room as we looked in the closet. Pyrrha was shoved inside of the closet with some obvious wounds from a knife or perhaps a cleaver. Her blouse had been torn and bloodied, but she was still alive.
"Velvet? Is that you?" Pyrrha croaked out softly.
"Yes, Pyrrha. Yes, it's me!" Velvet was stroking Pyrrha's hair as Pyrrha smiled.
"Good, I've been hoping you would come for me."
"Pyrrha, who did this to you?" I asked with a quake of fear being present in my voice.
"Jaune, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we get her out of her and to safety before whoever did this comes back!" Velvet helped Pyrrha to her feet and I moved to help keep her up from the other side. "Alright, let's head for the exit."
We began to hobble Pyrrha out of her room and going towards the left when I noticed that the red neon sign was being blocked out completely.
"Velvet, not that way." I spoke out quietly.
"What?" Velvet looked at me and then back at the hall.
"Velvet, not that way!" The thing blocking out the light started to move and get closer. "RUN!" We turned and hobbled as quickly as possible in the other direction. Sure enough, whatever was on the end of the hall started to make loud and booming steps as it chased after us. We got further down the hall and the booming got closer. "Hurry! Go!" Pyrrha was breathing sharply in pain but was going as quickly as she could. We got to the fire exit and slammed open the door and piled inside the landing. I pressed my body against the door and closed it tightly. The booming kept getting closer and closer. Velvet ran up to the next landing and brought back the pole used to open the attic space. I propped the pole against the door and the stairs, successfully jamming the door shut. Velvet and I got back to holding Pyrrha up as we descended the stairs.
We got down to the third floor when we heard what sounded like the pole snapping and the booming entering the stairs. We tried to go as fast as we could, but the stairs were getting more difficult to navigate with both an injured person and the fear of what was following us. We silently hoped that whatever it was decided to ascend the stairs to look for us. All was too eerily silent, which sat horribly with me. We finally got to the first floor and pushed open the emergency exit.
On the other side of the door was the south lawn nearest the school. We turned to the left and made our way around the building to see cop cars and everything near the front of the building. Velvet and I started to scream for help as we approached. A few cops came over to assist and paramedics escorted Pyrrha over to the ambulance.
The detective on the case came over to ask us a few questions on what happened inside the building and what happened to Pyrrha. We told them everything that we could from the moment we were told by Ren to leave, the elevator, finding Pyrrha, the thing in the hallway, and then the staircase escape.
After we were done being questioned, we started to relax over by a paramedic station. Velvet turned to me, "Jaune, you know what you said earlier about the 'no matters'?"
"Yeah, of course I do." I smiled at her.
"Well, can I say them now?" She asked as her eyes started to wander away.
"You've already said what you wanted…" I stopped and thought for a second. Something didn't seem right. "Velvet does something feel wrong to you?"
"No…well, now that you say…" She looks up the building and begins to scream. I follow her eyes and know exactly what was going down, even though it still didn't feel real to me.
We watched in horror as Ren plummeted from the roof of the dorm building.
Chapter 6 – The End of Normal Life
