The Simulation - Book 1

Chapter 3

Here's the next chapter! I really hope you guys like it... Please vote and comment for it and share it with your friends... Please try this book even though it's not part of The Elemental Chronicles. :D Please give it a try! Picture of Viktor on the side. :) 

Chapter 3

"Jennings! Campbell! Laurel!"

Laurel groaned, feeling pressure and a gritty pain in her head. There was something warm and heavy on her, pressing her to the floor, coupled with something extremely heavy on her legs, making them dig into something sharp and extremely painful.

The voices were making her head throb; she could hear them coming from somewhere above her. She inhaled and exhaled slowly but thankfully nothing seemed to be hurt badly.

"Dickinson! Gavin! Viktor!"

Laurel tried to move and felt something hot trickle onto her chest. She squinted, trying to see something in the dim glow of light coming from somewhere far above. Then she shrieked as she realized what was lying on top of her.

"Wait, I heard something!" It was one of the Enforcers who had been guarding the perimeter. "Can you shout again?"

Laurel was hyperventilating now. The thing that was crushing her was Campbell and he was bleeding badly from a large cut on his forehead. She had no idea if he was alive or dead; she couldn't check on his condition, not when she could barely move.

"I'm here!" She tried to say, but dust caught in her throat and she started choking and coughing instead.

"Laurel!"

This time, she felt the weight on her legs shift. She moaned a sigh of relief when the pressure was elevated.

"Can you crawl out?"

"Viktor!" Laurel breathed a sigh of relief.

"Can you?" Viktor repeated, his voice somewhat strained. "I can't hold this machine forever!"

"Viktor, Campbell!" She gasped. "He's on top of me; I can't move. He might be dead!"

There was a pause. Then the pressure on her legs returned and she screamed in pain and shock.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Viktor said. "I couldn't hold it any longer!"

"Viktor? Laurel? Is that you?" Sergeant McCarthy called.

"Yes, it's us!" Viktor shouted back. "And Campbell too!"

"Can you get out?" he asked.

"I'm out, but Laurel's trapped!" Viktor yelled. "We're in the basement."

Sergeant McCarthy swore. His voice came back somewhat muffled. "Half the house is on the basement." Then he spoke in a lower voice to the other Enforcers, but Laurel and Viktor could still hear him. "They're buried alive. We need to get them out of there before the house starts shifting."

There was a pause in speech for a moment; Viktor returned to trying to heave the machine off Laurel. Suddenly, Campbell's weight shifted on top of her and she gasped in relief as the pain in her legs eased.

"Viktor?" Laurel gasped. "What did you do?"

She was able to sort of sit up now. There was a complete barricade of ceiling and machines around her; the only reason that she hadn't been completely crushed was because Campbell had literally held the weight off her with his own body. She could now see his twisted and mutilated bones and it made her sick to her stomach. His hand was missing; it had been crushed under the machine next to her. Since Campbell and Dickinson had been handcuffed together, she presumed that Dickinson was also under the machine, which would explain all the blood that was now soaking her side.