Aryssa groaned, and leaned as far away from Blake as she could. Of course, she was stuck next to him-it was just her luck.
They were in a creaky old elevator that she was uncomfortable enough being in. She'd never trusted elevators-they crashed fell and paralyzed people. So, being in one so old didn't really help.
She leant up against Lori in an attempt to keep her balance as she stayed as far away from the black haired boy as possible. The elevator felt as if it were moving at an inch an hour. Aryssa was positive it wasn't moving that slow, but it sure felt like it.
"Are we almost there?" Lori grunted, trying to push Aryssa away, no doubt upset about having her outfit wrinkled.
Meggie shrugged from the front, staring up at the doors expectantly. "Anytime now, I suppose. It didn't go this slow last time-or, at least it didn't seem like it was going this slow."
"We're probably over the weight limit." Arianna grumbled, shoving Bradley who had lost his balance and fallen over on her.
Chris glared over at them for a second before turning toward the door. "It's gotta open soon." He mumbled. "No elevator can go this slow."
As if on que, said elevator came to a screeching hault, before the doors slowly started to open.
The group fell not too gracefully out of the compartment, landing on top of one another, and gasping for air. Aryssa had fallen on top of Meggie and heard the black haired girl gasping for breath beneath her. Getting up, she tried to hold on to the little bit of dignity that she still had-despite the fact that everyone else had fallen as well.
"Well," she sighed, straitening out her shirt. "Let's get the show on the road."
Arianna turned to glare at her from the pile at the blonde's feet. No one else had managed to get up yet, as she had just noticed. They were still in a tangle of bodies.
Sighing, Aryssa helped the brunette out. She'd been at the bottom, and by pulling her out, she'd caused the rest of the pile collapse.
Once everyone was standing, they turned expectantly at Meggie, who without a word started to lead the way.
"This place is creepy." Aryssa shivered, glancing around. There were cobwebs everywhere and she felt as if it come collapsing down on her at any second.
"It's cool." Lori's voice was full of awe. "I've never been somewhere this awesome since that haunted house back in fourth grade, remember Ryssa?"
Aryssa groaned. "Unfortunately, I do." Her and Lori had been best friends ever since elementary school. They had both lived in the same town back inAmerica, and had both decided together that they wanted to come all the way toFrance, to go to this school. The only reason Lori didn't live in a dorm, was because her aunt lived just a few minutes away.
"What happened at the haunted house?" Bradley asked, looking back at them.
Lori laughed, "Nothing, really. It was pretty lame when you think about it, but it sure did scare the piss outta Ryssa-seriously. She wet her pants and had to change before we finished trick-or-treating."
Aryssa glared and stormed ahead as everyone started to laugh at her. She made sure to stay behind Meggie, though so that she didn't get lost.
"Okay," Meggie said after the laughing died down. "Here we are."
They ducked through a doorway that led to a room with a giant computer like thing in it. Defiantly not a nuclear power plant.
Arianna glared at Meggie. "How in the hell could you think this was a nuclear power plant?" she hissed.
Meggie shrugged. "Well, I don't know what one looks like!"
Sighing, Arianna went to go sit down on the chair that was in front of the screen. "This is so stupid. It's so obviously just a highly advanced computer-even if the dust suggests it dates back to the stone age."
"It just hasn't been used in a while." Chris leaned over the brunette, and gazed at the screen which lit up when Arianna hit a button.
"It seems to work just fine." She muttered, typing some keys. "Although some of the downloads on here are questionable."
Bradley walked over, and glanced at the screen. "The 'Virtualization Program'?" he read.
Arianna typed in a few more keys. "My point, exactly."
Aryssa began to step forward, but found that there was no ground in front of her. So, instead of walking towards her friends, she found herself plummeting feet first into a giant square hole in the floor. She groaned, as she landed on her butt. Man, she had to stop falling.
"Ryssa?" she heard Lori yell from above. But Aryssa barely heard her.
She was looking at what looked like three huge scanners.
"Aryssa!" Blake's voice broke through her. "Aryssa, are you okay?"
"Yeah!" Aryssa called up. "But I think you guys should get down here!"
The yell was shortly followed by everyone but Arianna jumping down and staring at the scanners.
"What do you think they are?" Meggie asked.
Rolling her eyes, Aryssa made her way over to the yellow tubes. "What do you think?"
"Hey, guys!" Arianna called down. "Here's another program-this one actually makes sense! It's called 'Scanner'!"
Suddenly, the tubes opened-all three. They were big enough to fit a whole person, Aryssa, Lori and Meggie shrugged at each other. A silent message going between them before they jumped in.
Almost automatically, the doors closed. Aryssa gasped, and began to pound on the walls.
"What's going on?" she yelled, as she felt the wind pick up. "Let me out! This is so not funny!"
"Why the hell did you hop in?" she heard Blake yell, pounding from the outside.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time!" she replied.
Suddenly, she began to tingle all over. Gasping she looked down and watched her hands disappear.
The next thing she knew, she was dropping from the sky and landing on her butt. Seriously, she had to stop falling. A grunt escaped her lips as she landed.
From both sides, she heard similar thuds and grunts. Glancing around, she saw that Lori and Meggie were there with her. Except they had changed outfits. Meggie now wore a red jumpsuit with a black stripe through the middle instead of her usual yellow t-shirt and shorts. Lori had a long black dress on with slits up the sides. Her hair had somehow grown longer, and now had multiple colors going through it.
Glancing down, Aryssa found out that she too had changed. Now, she wore a black bellytop with a mini skirt and knee high boots. She also had a top hat on with bunny ears poking out, and after glancing around she realized she also had a bunny tail.
"What's going on?" she asked, trying to cover her newly exposed stomach.
"I-I'm not sure…." Meggie mumbled, glancing around. They were in what looked like a forest-though not the same one near their school.
"Arianna!" Lori yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. "Bradley! Blake! Chris!"
"We're here." Arianna's voice came from all around. "Though, I'm not sure where you are."
"Gee, that helps a lot." Aryssa grumbled. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! One sec, let me talk to the boys!" silence.
"Wait!" Meggie cried. "Don't just leave us!"
Silence.
"Great." Lori mumbled. "She abandoned us. I knew befriending her was a bad idea."
"I'm back." Arianna's voice was low, mad sounding. "And I heard that, Lori."
Lori looked slightly panicked, at Arianna's tone. Aryssa rolled her eyes before yelling up, "Well, did you guys figure out what's going on?"
"No! But, listen! Stay right where you are, I'm going to try and send the boys after you!"
Aryssa sighed, and leant up against Lori. She really didn't want to have the boys come, but she wanted to get out of here even more. Looking around, she realized that most of the stuff around them looked unrealistic. Like they were in a computer game. This place sure was weird.
More thuds came from behind her and they turned around to see the boys land. Unsurprisingly, they had changed clothes as well.
Chris was now in a dark blue, tight bodysuit that Aryssa swore left about as much to the imagination as her outfit did. Bradley now wore a red Asian looking shirt and black slacks. And Blake was wearing a purple kimono with a sword attached to the side.
The boys got up, rubbing their backsides. Then they all smirked as they looked over at the girls.
"Nice outfits." Chris chuckled.
"Yeah," Blake was looking Aryssa up and down, she had no doubt that he really appreciated her outfit. "Real nice."
Meggie smirked back as Lori held Aryssa back-she was going to beat the shit outta Blake! "Like you guys are one to talk." Then she sighed, and glanced up to the sky. "All right, Ari, have you figure out where we are?"
"…Yeah. I mean, I think I did. I mean, it's just a guess, but…."
"Out with it, already!" Aryssa shrieked.
"… I think you guys are in the computer."
…
…
…
"WHAT?" they all screeched at the same time.