Chapter 4
Levi's POV
16:24:17.
My eyes flickered to the clock. The two of us were on opposite sides of the room. I had been taking the silent hour to recuperate. I had eaten three granola bars, and guzzled down a bottle and a half of water. After all that, I was feeling much better. At the moment, I was shuffling through the deck of cards. Masky had been staring at the same page in a random book for the whole time. He seemed to be thinking about something intensely.
I was bored, and had started to add cards from the other decks, trying to see how many cards I could shuffle at once. It was too quiet in the room. If I had my headphones and I-pod, I would be listening to my music, to drown out the silence, and my thoughts. Music always helped calm my nerves, and right now I really needed my music. I looked over at Masky. The wheels in my head were turning. Was I going to be able to go home? What would happen once the timer ran out? Why was this room filled with this stuff? Were they part of the puzzle Masky had mentioned? What did these people want? Why was Masky saying he wasn't safe? Was he going to kill me? These thoughts were not helping to keep me calm. The panic was starting to settle in my gut once again. I had to do something, now. I couldn't sit around and do nothing. I was not going to just roll over and die, like some pansy. My paranoia, and frustration getting the better of me, I grabbed a hammer, and ran up to the mirror and attempted to smash it against the glass, trying to break it.
After a couple of swings, the mirror stayed perfectly intact. I slid my back against the perfectly smooth mirror into a sitting position, resting my head on my knees. Not even a crack. Nothing. And I had hit that stupid mirror with all the strength I possessed. And nothing. I wanted to cry.
Heavy footsteps hurried towards me. "What were you thinking?!" Masky's voice was panicking. He grabbed my wrists, pulling me to my feet, dragging me to the couch, away from the accursed mirror. "Even if it broke, what do you think would have happened? What if there's an entire army in there? We wouldn't have a chance. Not just the two of us." His voice was dangerously low.
"Its better than doing nothing!" I growled back at him. I wanted to chew him out, punch him, shout at him; something other than mumbling to each other.
He placed a hand behind me. I flinched, still not trusting to even be this near him. It was already embarrassing enough that I was having a breakdown in front of another guy. He paused, looking away towards the wall as he awkwardly patted my back. Was he trying tot comfort me? "Just hold on a bit longer. I'm forming a plan." he whispered, smirking slightly.
This was the first time he showed any emotion besides annoyance, and distrust. He looked better when he smiled, I bet he has girls falling at his feet on the outside.
After another hour passed, Masky began to rearrange the room. He had put the IV-rack next to the door and spread two light blankets out in front of the mirror. The four remaining water bottles had been been placed in front of the blankets and took the caps off. On the other side of the room, he began piling all the extra clothes, blankets, and pillows. He motion for me to stand up, as he began covering the couch with the two remaining blanket. He stuffed the pile of cards underneath the edges of the blankets. Walking over to the pile of items, he handed me one of the hammers. He filled the two needles with the liquid sedative, making sure to put the caps back on the needle tips, and placed them in his pocket. Once he was done, he sat on the floor, patting the space next to him.
I sat down hesitantly, eyeing the pocket that held the needles.
"Remember our deal?" He said, drawing my eyes to his.
I nodded.
"You have to trust me, okay?"
I nodded again.
He leaned toward me, lightly placing his hand on the back of my neck, sliding his fingers in my hair. He pulled me forward, placing his lips upon mine. I could feel my eyes widen. My body froze. 'What is happening?! What is he doing?! Why is he kissing me, all of a sudden?!' He did know I was a guy right?! I didn't know what to do, or how to react, so I just stayed still.
He began to slide his lips from mine to my cheek. "Play along. I'm going to explain the plan." He began to tangle his fingers in my hair, getting closer to my ear. "Something like this will distract them from really listening."
Oh, now I get it. He didn't mean none of this. We were finally going to try and escape. This got me out of my shocked state, and I began to play along. Or tried to play along as best I could. I had yet to find that special someone to have my first kiss with, much less fake a make-out session with. All I could do was mimic couples I had seen in high school, or around town. Hooking my arms around him, moving my head slightly as if we were really kissing.
I was a little stiff and awkward the whole time he was going over the plan. Honestly, I hoped that I could remember everything that he said. Being touched at all by a stranger, much less a guy, was a terrifying experience. I couldn't stop shaking. And I could tell if it was because of my instincts were telling me to stay away from Masky, or just my nerves, or the fake make out with Masky.
However, not once did he touch me inappropriately though. Small touches on my back, neck, and in my hair. Things to make it look like we were being intimate without any feeling behind it. When the clock reached 14:30 we would make our move.
At the moment the clock read 15:30:55.
For the next hour, the two of us just sat together. We talked in hushed tones about nothing in particular. For some reason, that I could not figure out why, my face felt like it was burning. I told him about my family, my life, interest, and hobbies. I made sure to not tell him where I lived, names, and places I like to visit though. Just as a precaution. I didn't really want to him to be able to find me, if I ever made me back home.
Through the whole thing, he just sat and listened, with for the first time seemed like genuine interest. It was a nice change to the hectic day. I felt like I was talking to any regular friend. But I didn't know anything about Masky. "So, Masky, what's your life like?"
Masky looked away from me, and I could tell that my question made him uneasy. He rubbed his face tiredly."I guess, I have a couple of…. Friends…." His tone at the end sounded on edge. Like there was a double meaning, included. It confused me. He sighed, again. "Levi, I can't really tell you a lot about me." I could understand that, we didn't really trust each other. "I guess, I like doing normal stuff….I never really had a family, so hearing about yours was interesting. Thanks for that." He paused, and look at me again, like he was trying to think of more to say. His gaze seemed softer this time.
Without warning, Masky suddenly reached for my face. I did everything in my power not to flinch from him. We were making progress, he was starting to act like a normal person, and not aggressive anymore. His fingertips caressed the skin around my right eye for a moment. I winced in pain, from the contact. "Sorry," He pulled his hand back. "Do you know how you got that?" His voice was quiet, and a little angry.
I couldn't understand why, it was just a black-eye. Not my first one and it won't be my last. I shrugged. "I think it might have happened, when they kidnapped me."
"I see." He looked to the floor in front of him, with a small grimace. He looked up to the clock suddenly, causing me to look, too.
14:32:14.
"We need to get started." He stood up, pulling me to my feet with him.
I nodded, a small smile making its way on my face. Overall, Masky didn't seemed like a bad guy. Maybe a little crazy and paranoid, but not bad. For a moment, I thought I seen a smile on his lips, but if it was there it was gone, in a blink of an eye.
The two of us got to work. I couldn't help, but look at the mirror once, trying to peer behind it. My own reflection, just stared back at me. Nothing. Shrugging, I grabbed two bottles and dosed the blankets in water. Once that was done, I did the same to the mirror.
Masky, had kept the second hammer, it was hanging from his belt loop. He picked up on of the wet blankets and placed it on one side of the mirror, with a smirk. I put the second blanket on the other side of the mirror. Effectively covering the whole thing, and blocking our kidnappers view of us for the moment. The blankets wouldn't stick for long, so we had to hurry. Now silence was the key.
Masky began wheeling the gurney at an angel, beside the door. After that, he took the needle from the IV, sticking it in an odd angle in the key slot. The red blinking light, switched from red to green, and the door unlatched, the card machine began to emit a small smoke. He opened the door wide, but didn't leave the room.
While he did all that, I walked over to the couch and lit some matches, setting one of the playing cards, setting the others on fire like kindling. The fire on the couch, began to spread quicker, than I thought it would. It somewhat bothered me, as smoke began to fill the room.
'What if this didn't work?' I worried. I didn't make a sound though. I had promise to trust Masky's plan, and I would do just about anything to get out of here.
Masky was kneeling beside the door, behind the gurney, urging my silently to come and take cover.
An alarm sounded throughout the building. Whether it was because of the fire, or a security alarm, I couldn't be sure. It was shrilling like a banshee's scream. Red and blue lights began flashing out in the hallway. I quickly ran over to Masky, hiding behind the gurney with him. No turning back two us stayed as still as corpses, and waited.
Men in the same white security guard uniforms from before began to flood into the room, shouting at one another. If I counted right, there were ten. A couple had already began to put out the fire. Two were taking the blankets off the mirror. The rest were searching the room, for us.
"Go!" Masky, whispered to me, over their shouting.
We both held the bars of the gurney tightly, pulling it in front of the door, as fast as possible, trapping the men inside the room. It would buy us some time.
Masky., grabbed my wrist, in a death grip, pulling me into a sprint down the hall. "Where are we going?" I wheezed trying to keep up, and to avoid being dragged. It felt like his grip was going to crush my bones.
Masky rounded a corner, ignoring my question and me tripping over my feet to stay up right, pulling out one of the needles in his pocket. He pulled the cap off with his teeth. Once we rounded the corner, he shoved me against the opposite wall and crouched beside me. He peered around the corner and squirted the liquid out of the needle a little, much like a doctor would on those cheesy T.V. shows. Looking at me, he put a finger up to his mouth as if to shush me.
I nodded.
Seeing my understanding, Masky ran out from behind the corner and out of sight. I could hear grunts and small amounts of cursing. Then silence. 'Did he get caught?' He probably got caught. Steeling my fear I peeked around the corner, catching a glimpse of three men lying on the ground. One had the needle sticking out of his neck. Masky was hovering over the second and third with the hammer in his hand. Blood was splattered on his arm that held the hammer, and puddled on the floor, around them.
Seeing him standing there, covered in blood, he looked calm. He wasn't even fazed, by what he'd just done. Chills ran down my spine. 'This isn't the first time he's done this.'
Masky returned to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me along once again, To say I was shocked was an understatement, I was terrified. My legs were wobbling beneath me.
"Did you kill those men?" I asked.
Masky seemed to glare at my wuestion. "Probably." He he said, voice cold. "We can't focus on that right now. We need to get out of here."
I swallowed hard, forcing my legs to continues to carry me. These hall were never ending. Everything looked the same, blinding white, just like the room. Each corner began to blur with the next. Masky continued to drag my behind him, at a fast pace, showing no signs of slowing. Every guard that we came across was the same as the others. Masky would tell me to wait; sharp pounding noises and grunts would fill my ears; then there would be that vivid, contrasting red blood, that stained the too, white floor.
All of sudden, just when I was starting to think nothing would change and o would drop from all the running, and pent of fear; There was a change. Instead of rounding the next corner, Masky pulled us into a dark room. He pulled the blinds down on the door window, and made me crouch underneath it.
"Listen for footsteps." He ordered.
Silently, I looked around the room, littered with shelves, and boxes, that seemed to fill the small space. It reminded of some sort of storage, or evidence room, you see on T.V.. Weird trinkets, knick knacks, and really just junk, spilled from the boxes. One of the boxes near me, I saw my Skull-Candy headphones and MP3, just laying there, discarded on top. 'My babies!' I silently rejoiced Not caring if Masky said something, I snagged my beloved headphones and put them around my neck, stuffing the cord and MP3 in my pants pocket. I heard Masky, grunt disapprovingly, but chose to ignore it. Resuming my lookout duty, he had assigned me.
Masky rummaged around the shelve for a brief moment, stopping at one container and pulling out what looked like a black and white mask.
'A mask! Really?! All this for a stupid Mask….' I gawked at him, unbelieving. 'If he's been an ass all because of a mask, I will deck him!' I silently, raged. 'At least that explains his fake name now. He just missed his mask. Maybe he is crazy.' I crossed my arms, re-evaluating my assessment of the guy, who dragged me down several hallways for a stupid mask. 'And not the way out.' I grouched.
Thumping noises, began to fill the hall, getting close at a fast pace.
"Masky!" I called as quietly as possible. Yes, I thought he might actually be crazy, but he did say he knew how to get out of this place.
"Shit." He ran over to me, stuffing the mask in his coat pocket. We peeked out the blinds briefly, seeing that people were slowing down at the door.
Voices boomed from outside. "He might have gone in here to pick up that creepy mask. Did you draw the blinds?" One was saying. Oh, they knew him well.
"No Sir, it's against policy to close the blinds. We should take a look." The other said.
Not allowed to close the blinds? Then why do they have them? I wondered, like a complete moron.
"Yeah the Boss will throw a fit if we don't check every square inch of this place."
The two of us scampered to the other side of the room and into the small janitorial closet. Masky placed me, behind the door and opened it, so that I was hidden. While he stood on the other side of the opening, pressed against the wall. Through the crack of the door, I could see his chest was rising and falling slowly. Not even fazed by any of this. He was totally calm. His eyes were cold, void of any humanity.
'Predator...' My brain supplied. Making feel very grateful, I was not the focus of those eyes. There was something off about Masky, besides his fake now, but he definitely was use to fighting. Maybe he was here longer than I realized.
The two men entered the room, leaving the door open and flipping on the light switch. "This room always freaked me out." one of them said shuddering, opening up all the blinds. "Have you seen how many dolls are in here, Todd?"
"Shut up, John." The other barked. As they began to search the room.
Now, that guy mentioned it. I looked at the room of what I could see of it from my hiding spot, this room did have dolls in here. I felt myself go ghost white and still, literally couldn't breath. I hate dolls. Chucky creepy looking, glassy eye dolls, that stare at me unblinking, with their unchanging expressions. 'Why did he have to point that out?' I silently, cried. To get my mind off my slight phobia of the creepy dolls, I turned my eyes back to Masky, and matched his breathing, so, I wouldn't blow our cover.
I watched as Masky gripped his hammer at the ready.
Todd drew closer, flashlight shining through the dim areas. He reached the closet, poking his head in. Everything started happening too fast. Masky jumped the man, swung his hammer into the side of his head.
The other man, John, pressed a button on his radio. "Room 315: Evidence and Conduits." He shouted into it. Masky was on him in an instant, tackling John to the floor and raising the hammer again.
Three more men filtered into the room, two grabbed Masky by the arms and forced him off the other man. The third grabbed the hammer, leaning his face toward his radio. "Subject: Masky. In custody. Returning to Detainment Cell 2-2. Sub-Group: Proxy."
'Oh no! I got to do something!' I panicked, going with my gut instinct. I couldn't let them take him. He did help me escape that room. He promised we would both get out of here. Masky did everything to make sure I was out of harms way, to hide me in case one of us was captured. He might be crazy, who isn't in this world.
I crept out from my hiding place, purposely ignoring the creepy dolls, holding my hammer with a shaky hand. I have to do this. I steeled up my resolve and ran up to the men, hammer raised, bringing it down on one of the men holding Masky. I aimed for the head, but ended up hitting the man on the back. He let go of Masky, from pure surprise. They must have thought me and Mask had split up.
Masky acted instantly, punching the other guy in the temple as hard as he could, knocking the man out. John and the other man were quickly reaching to restrain him again. Masky, yanked my hammer from my hand faster, than my could see, giving everything that was happening all at once around me. He kicked one of the men in his chest, pushing him back, and swung at John. The hammer connected. Now only three remained.
The one that I had attacked turned to me, grabbing by the throat and shoving me to the floor. I struggle to get free. Thankfully his grip was not as strong as Masky's had been, I was able to squirm out of the man's grip, and get to my feet. Swiftly kicking the man in the face as hard as I could. He went down. I growled as I rubbed my throat. Why was that everyone's go to spot when fighting me, or trying to kill me. Not cool. I kicked him again for goo measure.
I heard a quite chuckling and looked up. Masky was sitting on a pile of unconscious bodies, watching me, with a grin on his face. My blood was pumping with adrenaline and fear, my whole body was tingling all over from it. A small part of me felt empowered by the sensation. I let a rought breath, trying to calm down.
"Not, bad,"' Masky said, smirking. He stood up and handed me back my hammer. "I think its time you meet my friends." He said, laughing a little.
'Friends…..?' He gave my the second hammer to hold, while he secured the creepy mask on his face. Giving it another look, I noticed it had feminine feature more distinctly, black lips, black around the eyes, and very surprised looking black eyebrows. The more I looked at it, the more I felt like I seen it somewhere before, but that was impossible….Right?
"We should be safe now." He shrugged. "That guy said the caught me. The whole facility should have lowered their guard." He said, taking back his hammer.
"I, um..." I looked at my hands, then at the man I had knocked out. 'I hope, I didn't kill him.' "Okay."
We exited the room. Masky still sprinted, way too fast, but finally he brought us to a stop in front of a couple of large, white, heavy looking double doors. During the entire time, we were running, I found out that Masky was right, security had died down quite a whole place was actually silent. A person would almost think it was abandoned or something. We bare met any trouble when making our way to these doors.
Masky, pushed at the doors, but they didn't budge. He looked at me, then the doors. I nodded and pushed with him, they still wouldn't open. Masky let out a groan, as we took a step back. "And here, I was hoping not to rely on their help…."
I looked at the obstacle in our way, and noticed panel for fingerprint, key-card, and number pad. The door would open without all three. "We could backtrack and go get all the stuff." I tried, suggesting.
He looked over at me, and I was hit with, sudden feeling of read and fear renew of him. It had to be because of the mask, or what. Seriously, what was with this guy? I shuddered slightly.
"Yeah, that would be a waste of time. The others are already here, anyway." He said, his voice cold.
Before I could could ask what he meant, by 'they', the doors slid open. A young boy with blonde hair, black eyes with read pupils and a link costume poked his head in. He had red liquid streaking from his eyes and down his cheeks, most likely paint. What was he suppose to be a dawn of the dead Link or something. It made me uneasy. 'First time in my life I can say I was weary of a Zelda character, especially Link.' I thought to myself. Promising myself never to admit it to anyone.
"What? You don't want to see us, or something?" Cosplay Link teased, at Masky. "I'm hurt, Masky."
Two more people walked in. One was holding a hatchet over his shoulder. He had messy brown hair, orange goggles, and a smiling guard mouth. He wore a decorative gray hoodie, gloves, jeans, and sneakers.
The other a yellow hoodie, pulled over a strange looking black ski mask. However instead of holes for the mouth and eyes, there was red stitching in the form of a frowning face. He also wore gloves, plain jeans and sneakers. He held a rusted looking pipe over his shoulder, in the same manner of the other one. "You have all your belongings?" He asked in a detached tone.
I took a step back, so that I was standing, slightly behind Masky. Were these his friends? Was that what he meant by 'they'? These guys had to be my age or a little older. Why were they all dressed weird?
"Yeah. They didn't even try to hide them." Masky answered, shrugging.
The one with the goggles, seemed to be twitching, like he couldn't stay still. "A-are we bringing h-him?" He stuttered, excitedly.
As soon as their attention turned to me, I was nervous all over again, and it scared me that I didn't understand why. I had so many questions.
"Don't let them escape!" Thundered a voice behind you. Turning around, there stood a man with smooth, neatly combed hair and lab coat. Behind him were about fifty security guards and what looked like doctors.
My heart jump to my throat. We were so screwed. Before I could turn be to Masky, I felt a sharp sting at the base of my neck. Instantly my limbs began to feel weak, and my eyesight became fuzzy. I felt myself start to fall, my legs no longer able to hold me. Instead of meeting the floor, though, I fell against Masky. I felt as He slowly lowered me to the floor. "Sorry, Levi." I heard him say, before I my eyes closed against my will.
TBC
A/N: So what do you guys think? The next chapter will be in Masky's POV. Probably won't post that chapter till next weekend. Anyway Hope you all are enjoying the story so far.
