A/N: Alright guys. *Literally shoves chapter onto the computer* You can't believe just how long it took just to type all this out.
Anyhoo, will be entering university next month, so might as well get this done first.
Enjoy! :)
Caution: very mild swearing...or if you call that swearing, that is.
Chapter 9
RJ
"RALPH!" I yell as I see him plummeting towards the ground, the building falling close behind him. It is at that moment when I realize that I am gasping hard for air and my legs are sore, that I've been running for a long time and I didn't realize it.
To this day I cannot recall when I'd started running.
I leap over a large crack in the ground, keeping my eyes fixed on the collapsing building, and the person falling from it. I run faster, and faster still, hoping that I can be able to outrun the building before it completely falls.
Finally, I reach the place where Felix and the others are gathered. Felix's eyes widen when he sees me "RJ?! But how…"
"No time for answers!" I call back as I look upwards, my figure completely consumed in the shadow of the approaching building. I scan the entire building rapidly, hoping to find him before it is too late. There! I see him. Ralph, falling slowly through the air, the bricks and concrete all raining down around him.
I quickly grab a rung from the ladder on the side of the building and hoist myself up, even though the building is bending in my direction. Some of the rungs were already broken, so it has taken a while longer than I expected to work up just a floor of the building.
SNAP. The rung breaks apart in my hands, and I grab onto the nearby window ledge to hold myself. I look up again; Ralph is still falling, this time closer to where I am at.
Even if he reaches the part where I am stationed, I cannot reach and grab onto him since he is too far away. To be honest, at my current position, there is no way to get Ralph away before the building falls upon both of us.
Unless…
"What are you doing?!" Felix calls from below, and I hear the worry in his voice.
"Just something crazy." I say back, not lying this time.
I wait a few more seconds, just a few more, enough for Ralph to fall gently to the point where I am standing. His eyes are closed, and he doesn't make any effort to hold on the sides of the building; maybe he got knocked out cold up there when the building started to crash? Either way, it is clearly obvious that he'll not be able to save himself in time.
Slowly, I do a mental countdown in my head, counting for the seconds that it took for Ralph to fall by me. And it won't be long now…
…Three…two…one. Now!
I leap forward with all my might, my arms outstretched, and slam into Ralph, as if I am tackling him from the side. The force of my impact catapults us over and away to a small clearing near the woods, just far enough to barely escape the effects of the crumbling building. With my arms clutching Ralph, I am able to get a good look at him, and sure enough, he is indeed, unconscious. His forehead is bleeding, and there are a few small cuts on his lips and cheeks.
I start to panic, and glancing down at the unconscious person in my arms, I am thinking that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake by not revealing to Ralph and Felix about the truth.
The ground is fast approaching; I twist my body so that I may get a greater impact than Ralph when we crash. I can hear Felix and all the others gasp loudly as we plummet into the ground.
BAM! We both hit the ground the same time, the impact causing a dust cloud to rise up around us. I cough loudly, and then let go of Ralph and stand up. Turning my head, I see Felix bounding towards me, hammer in hand, in long, looping strides.
"Oh my God, RJ. Is he okay?" Felix asks me nervously, crouching besides me by Ralph's unmoving body.
"I don't know, I don't know." I mutter as I slap Ralph's face gently with one oversized finger, praying intensely inside that he'll wake up and show that he's fine and well. But as the seconds drag pass, Ralph remains motionless, his cuts still bleeding, much to our alarm.
I hear a greater sound, one that sounds like an angry roar, only magnified to extreme levels, come out from behind us; I whip my head back to see what it is. "Oh God," I mutter, sucking in my breath hard at the same time; as where the building had once stood, only the bottom floor was left standing; the rest of the building had crashed down to form a huge heap of bricks and concrete, piled up together in front of the building. The wreckage is so great, even with our distance, we're just barely able to escape the damage. Dust clouds swirl up from the gigantic wreckage, the damage beyond any magic hammer could fix. I curse inside, at the same time horrified at the destruction, for that is something far beyond what I expected would happen.
Felix simply shakes his head and turns back to Ralph, tapping his hammer to the cuts and bruises, healing them. But still he lies unmoving, making me to believe that although I managed to get him away from the falling building, I may have already killed him in the process.
"C'mon, c'mon, wake up." I find myself muttering under my breath.
After what seems like forever, Ralph jerks alive in our hands, glitching with red sparks as he does so. Letting out a loud groan, he sits up, rubbing his head with his hand.
"God, that hurt, that hurt a lot." He mutters. He raises his head slightly, and surveys the damage of the now-collapsed building. "What…what happened?"
"The building fell, and you were falling with it. I don't know what happened up there, but I don't see you make any effort to hold on to anything, brother." Felix explains.
"I passed out, sorry." Ralph apologizes. "I think my head got hit by a falling brick before I went unconscious, though." His finger tapping the place where it originally bled.
"Anyway, RJ just appeared, came up climbing up the building, came at you from the side, grabbing you on the way, and crash-landed here. I think that impact killed you though."
"Killed me it did," Ralph says "my sores feel better now, though."
"Uh-oh." I mutter. Whoops, my bad.
"Well, all that matters is that you're okay, right?" I ask nervously, my gaze shifting from Ralph to Felix, then back to Ralph.
"Well, maybe that's all we really…OH MY GOD NOT AGAIN." Ralph rubs his eyes and sits up. Felix turns his head and gasps, and at the same time I hear a collective gasp rise up from all the Nicelanders. I turn my head to see what made all of them so afraid.
A gigantic hand has moved in front of our cabinet window, holding something in its grasp. It doesn't take long for me to register that the 'something' is a huge orange sign, with the words 'OUT OF ORDER' printed on it. Another hand appears, and collectively they fix the sign onto the window of our cabinet.
This means one thing: our game's really broken, for good.
"We're done! We're done!" One of the Nicelanders puts his head in his hands. "Last time we got lucky, this time we're out for sure!" The others all begin to scream and wail, running around in panic as they do so. Ralph and Felix get up and try to calm the screaming crowd down, but the more they try, the more panicked they become. All around the game, trees are fallen, grounds are cracked, and the stars stopped shining down from the silent night sky.
And all I'm doing is just standing still.
Seeing Ralph and Felix running to calm everyone down, the building damaged beyond repair, and our game deemed 'Out of Order', a strange, new feeling begins to rise inside me, a feeling that I don't even know how to explain. The feeling completely overwhelms me, and feeling dizzy, I fall down on my back, not even noticing it.
As I lie down on my back, the feeling consumes all my fear and terror, all my uncertainness and my doubts. Instead, as I stand up, a strange courage begins to build up, filling in every fibre of my coding, and I feel a sense of bravery that I haven't experienced before. All the time, not only I have been trying to hide the truth from Ralph and Felix, but from myself as well. All those minutes trying to deny my past is a lie saying that I'm someone that I'm not. All the time I have been running from the truth, trying to hide from my secret, only to find out that you should have revealed them earlier.
Ralph, Felix, the Nicelanders, and all those unplugged characters living here in the game…they don't deserve this. They don't deserve to have their game to be deemed 'Out of Order'; they don't deserve to suffer the continuing earthquakes; they don't deserve to listen to lie after lie. I lied too much, told them too little, warned them too late. All I wanted was to fit in, and what did I cause?
This has to stop. Right now.
"That's enough, everyone." I find myself saying as I step forward, my body bursting with newfound bravery. I have hidden too long, too much; I have made too many suffer because of my own selfishness. It is too much, too much.
It's time that I spill it out.
I hear the others all stop at the sound of my voice. I didn't notice how loud that I was speaking. Maybe the newfound courage has given me new strength to prepare for what's coming next.
"RJ?" I hear Ralph ask, "But you don't have to…"
"It is time." I reply. It's time that I reveal everything, time that I tell them all.
Tell them everything.
"Guys, I'm…" I choke out. This is much harder than I expected. "I'm sorry. For everything."
"RJ? But…I don't understand." Ralph lets out.
"No, Ralph. You do understand, you're just afraid to admit it."
I take a deep breath, and slowly I let the words flow out.
"Some of you may have caught on already, so I won't let it hide anymore."
"It's my entire fault that all of this happened."
A/N: Spoiler alert, the next few chapters may be longer than the previous ones, but...yeah, doesn't make much of a difference, right?