Gahhh sorry for the delay guys! I've just been so stressed out over STAAR tests and everything! I don't know why I didn't take them into account when I promised to consistently upload, but I swear I'll have 4 or 5 for you tomorrow! Anyways, here's chapter 21. Enjoy!
"Do you think he's okay…?" I whispered to Ashley. She didn't say anything; we just listened in intense silence for gunshots.
Finally, after a few dreading seconds, the surprisingly peaceful sounds of Leon's TMP were heard coming from inside the building.
We were both terrified, and we both knew it, but we pretended like we weren't and continued talking. I learned a lot about her, actually. I found out that when she was five she broke her right leg, and when she was eight she and her father lived on a farm and owned six horses. Even that her favorite was a white Bronco named Angel.
I told her about myself, too. About how when I was two I got a bead stuck in my nose, when I was five or six I broke my wrist, and that I've been teaching myself how to play the piano since I was nine or ten and that I was pretty good at it, if I did say so myself. I also told her about the time when I was twelve and I wore my Santa hat all year long, and when I finally took it off, there was a rat in my hair.
Ashley cracked up at this. "What? No there wasn't!"
I didn't deny it (because there actually wasn't, I just made it up to see what she would say), I just laughed right along with her. We didn't even notice when a tall, handsome man emerged from the burning building a few feet in front of us. It completely startled us when he spoke.
"Well, I see you two are closer than ever." He said with a smirk.
We both jumped up from our spot in the dirt (more like mud), and greeted him with flying hugs…. Literally. I practically glomped the man. My feet weren't on the ground, I had my arms wrapped around his neck and I was holding myself up like that, all the while Ashley was almost on the floor because she was laughing so hard at the blush on Leon's face.
"Oh my gosh Leon, we were so worried about you!"
He gently set me down and nervously chuckled. "I can see that…"
When I noticed how red his face was, I felt like laughing too, but I didn't since it probably would have wounded his pride or something. Instead I let my cheeks bloom as red as his.
We carefully walked back to the giant doors and when we reached them, Ashley and I both looked up and Leon expectantly.
"Leon, I thought it was a retinal scanner," Ashley said. "How are you going to open it?"
"With this." He dug into his pocket and pulled out what looked like an-
"Is that an eyeball?" Ashley shouted.
"Yeah, the guy had a false eye… I figured that this was the key to the door."
"So you just took the liberty of sticking your fingers into his skull and pulling it out? That's disgusting beyond belief!" I couldn't help but loudly snort at her last comment.
"What? No, it just fell out!" Leon defending himself like that was pretty funny, too.
"But it was still in his head, Leon! And you're touching it!"
"It's not like it's-"
"Oh for God's sake…" I reached up and snatched the fake eye from Leon's hand and held it in front of Ashley. "Touch it."
"W-what?"
"You heard me; I said 'touch it'."
"But it's an eye!" She whined.
"Ashley, it's glass. It's not squishy or anything and it's barely even slimy anymore."
She narrowed her eyes and stared at the thing. I could tell she wanted to touch it, she wanted to badly. Slowly, she stuck her arm out, index finger pointed, and felt the cool glass that was in my hand. When she touched it, she whimpered softly and I rolled my eyes. She retracted quickly and wiped her finger on her shirt.
"T-there."
I sighed and handed the eye back to Leon. He chuckled and held it up to the scanner, and the doors opened.
We were standing on a road that slanted uphill, and there were three Ganados standing at the top of it. Leon pulled out his trusty rifle and shot their heads clean off, receiving high-fives from me and Ashley. Once we began walking, there was the loud sound of a car horn and we looked up incredulously to see a truck speeding down the hill, headed straight for us. And of course, there was a dead end, so we had nowhere to run.
"What are we going to do?" I shouted over the noise of the horn.
Leon quickly rose up the rifle and shot the driver, making the car crash right in front of us.
"Well… I guess that works…"
Leon smiled and shook his head at me again, and we began walking up the road.
Right after we passed the crashed truck, a dozen of villagers crawled out of the back of it and began running towards us. We all pulled out our guns and began shooting people's heads off. Well, Leon and I did anyway. Ashley's aim was a little better, but not as good as ours, so she stuck with shooting them in the chest. Once everyone was dead, Ashley turned to me and gaped.
"Can I help you…?" I questioned.
"How do you aim so well? I suck!"
Leon and I laughed. "I don't know… it kind of comes naturally I guess."
She let it go with a "Hmph…", but we could tell she was still curious about it.
With another glance behind us, we turned and began walking up the road. There was a castle on the other side of a bridge, believe it or not. I guessed that's where we were headed.
Suddenly, hundreds of villagers came through the door from before and began running up the hill towards us.
"To the other side of the bridge!" Leon shouted.
Ashley and I nodded and we all bolted for the bridge; I had never run so fast in my life.
When we were on the other side, there were two cranks. "You girls take that one!" Leon directed.
"Okay." We said in unison. We grabbed the handle and began pushing forward and turning the crank. It hurt like hell. The thing probably hadn't been used for ages, it was rusty, and it took almost our entire upper-body strengths combined to get the thing turning. Once we did though, the bridge began slowly rising, and eventually, it was all the way up.
We all stood there breathlessly, as we examined the bridge. We couldn't hear the villagers anymore, so we assumed they had given up and left.
"Come on." Leon said. And we entered the castle.
As I said earlier, be expecting 4 or 5 chapters from me tomorrow. They may not all be uploaded at the same time, I 'unno. We'll just have to see. See you guys later~!
