BEYOND THE DEAD ZONE | COMPLETE

Twenty-Two |

Twenty-Two |

Dangling, I found out very quickly, was when you dangled off a fucking skyscraper on this makeshift swing. All three of us were utterly stunned. She'd led us quickly out of the cafeteria and up about twenty flights of stairs to the roof. My stomach tumbled in my body as I stared off the edge. Cora didn't seem to have a single dose of fear in her body as she held the swing in her hands.

"Who made this?" Cerci asked politely.

Cora grinned, "I did!"

"Is it safe?" Idris hummed.

"Sure is. According to my calculations, there's only a two percent fatality rate."

I glanced down at the cement below. Uh huh. I wasn't sure about those rates. So instead, I took a big ass step back. The swung was built with metal cables and in the middle was a sort of harness with four large buckles. My gaze followed upwards to where the cables were bolted to either side of the building.

"How do you get it back up?" I asked.

She giggled as if it was obvious, "When you start dangling your weight forces the springs to coil downwards on either side near the bolts. This is called kinetic energy and is applied to the springs. As a result of the springs having pressure, or kinetic energy exerted on it, Hooke's Law is applied and when you want to get back up, you just apply force downwards and it gets you back up to the roof's edge."

I nodded slowly, "Okay."

"So who wants to go first?" she chirped.

My eyes narrowed, this seemed like an elaborate scheme to kill us.

"Why don't you go first Cora?" Cerci asked nervously.

Cora's eyes lit up, "Really? Okay!"

She wasted absolutely no time slipping into the harness before sprinting towards the edge and jumping off without hesitation. I let out a cry, my hand reaching for her as the wires creaked and sure enough, she really did dangle off the edge. Up and down, up and down bouncing before the swing slowed and she sat like fifty feet off the ground. She laughed hard dangling there before she started twisting her hip. Yet again she was right. As she mechanically made the swing move, it etched closer and closer back up to the edge of the roof before she swung herself back up and landed on her feet. There was a gleam in her eyes, something raw and exciting in those grey orbs. I glanced from her to Cerci carefully.

"Who's next?" I joked weakly.

Thankfully, my turn was saved as the roof door swung open. We all turned to view the old man dressed in a very nice suit. My eyes instantly narrowed; no doubt this man was in charge around here. His eyes seemed to calculate each of us before he took a single step forward, his eyes sliding to me before he gave me a fox grin.

"Eero Brooks?" he called, his words sounded like a question but there was only confidence in his voice, "My name is Nicolaus Cappelli, why don't we take a walk?"

"Eero," Idris whispered, grasping my wrist.

I gave him a smile, "It's alright."

If they wanted us dead then we'd be dead. Although, I'm still not sure on that part but as of right now, the issue with Idris was an accident and I wanted answers. I gave the man a nod before slowly walking over. As I passed Cora, I could see the fear etched into her face when she looked at this man and that only added another question to ask.