Sanitized

Chapter 41; Time

Isaac and I threaded through the tunnels and pathways that lead all the way to the underground. He and I saw a large hole in the floor we were standing on, and looked downward and saw a giant destroyed blender.
It would have looked like a scene from a cartoon if the lighting wasn't so dimly lit, and if the entire room wasn't abandoned and empty.
He and I jumped from the ceiling and landed, the second of our approach the lights went out, and it was black.
I felt hands grab me, and I wanted to scream, but a hand covered my mouth.
I felt faint, as I tried to breathe, but the hand covered any sort of way for me to. I heard Isaac struggling too, as he was also mumbling and attempting to speak.
I felt his hand grab my arm lightly, and then felt it attempt to stay close to me, but his hand was quickly taken away.
I heard his muffled screams slowly disappear from the air, as I began to suffocate.
I attempted to break from the grasp of the tight arms, but they wouldn't let loose.
I kept trying to scream, but then realized that it was useless.
I began to give into the darkness, and felt my body slump.
My  muscles felt weak, and my arms tired.
I felt my face burning, as I attempted to get one single breath out. I felt the arms guiding me forward, and I stumbled on a piece of glass. My foot bleed, and the circulation in my arms was cut off.
My screams weakened, and I struggled to keep my eyes open.
I looked upward, and began to wriggle around weakly, as my world faded to black.

...

I woke up to a thud, and a slam on my back.
My bones groaned, and I tiredly opened my eyes.
"Faith!" I heard Isaac say, as I saw him run up to me.
"Where am I?" I weakly said.
Isaac wrapped his arms around me, and helped me stand up.
I reluctantly wrapped my arms around him in return.
I looked at my surroundings and saw nothing but a metal chair and a windowless slick black room.
There was a door that was opened slightly, and Isaac had his hand gripped on it.
"Come on, let's get out of here." he said, pulling me towards him.
We walked out of the room and began to walk through the hallways of the Deepsea Metro Station. We hopped onto the train tracks, and began to walk on them, and kept following the tracks.
"What are we doing?" I asked him.
"We need to get out of here." he responded.
"Why? Can't we just continue the mission?" I asked.
"No, we aren't ready, we need more people to come with us, so for now, we're getting out of here." he said seriously.
"Okay, if you say so. How did you even escape from where you were put?"
"There were guards in the room where I was trapped, but I splatted them. There were some in your room, but I also splatted him. We need to get out of here quickly. They'll find out any minute now, and set off the alarms, and they'll be guards everywhere. We don't want to make this too complicated, do we?"
I nodded and said, "Do you remember what even happened?"
"No, not really at least. I remember being trapped in the dark. And being knocked out." he said, putting a hand to his forehead and wincing.
"Are you okay?" I asked him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." he said, wincing more.
I stopped walking, and Isaac stood beside me, leaning forward and wincing, closing his eyes.
"What did they do to you?" Isaac asked me.
"I don't remember too well, but pretty much the same thing, I think. But they didn't slam my head to knock me out." I said, putting my hands on his shoulders.
"We should keep going." he said.
"Are you sure you're okay?" I asked him.
He nodded and smiled at me. I gave him a sympathetic look, and grabbed his hand.
We walked forward, and kept creeping through the dark tunnels of the train tracks. 
Isaac and I stayed silent through the close to pitch black hallways, and it was unusual. I couldn't put my finger on it. Something was definitely wrong with him. He hadn't been his usual happy, little kid birthday boy, self lately. Well, at least for the past 8 hours or so. I didn't know how long we'd been down here, or how long I'd been unconscious.
I wanted to see his smiling face, and see him bounce up and down like he used to. It was like he and Tres had switched personalities.
Tres had recently been super happy (minus the time Callie teased her about something), and Isaac had been super low, or at least more serious. I didn't mind it, but I definitely liked it less.
I kept my eyes forward, and tried to focus. But focusing was never easy for me, I had always had a hard time paying attention, understanding others emotions, and sometimes even my own. It would be hard for me to not talk, or hard for me to not be blunt. And I resented the fact that that was true.
I was embarrassed by it, but I couldn't control it.
But everyone just always thinks that it's just a quirk of mine.
But there's always that voice saying Is there something wrong with me? Everyone tells me that it's fine, and that they don't mind my honesty, or my ability to liven up a room's vibe, just because I wasn't able to read the original.
But the one advantage to my quirks, was that I was able to easily read people.
Not their emotions.
But their personalities.
So if I saw a tiny change in their personality, I knew that something was either very wrong, or right.
Everyone around me had changed.
It felt like the people that I knew had all changed, and some for the better, some for the worse.
And Isaac had. But I couldn't try to figure it out now, but I had an eager desire to. Something was telling me that this had to be dealt with, but something else was telling me to focus. That something else had never been there before.
Something had definitely changed. I didn't know what though. Something had changed within me too. Everyone had changed.
My heart kept telling me something different than my head.
Before long, Isaac and I had followed the tracks all the way back up to the surface, where we had started at NILs statue.
"We're here." he said.
"How are we going to get back?" I asked.
"That." he said, pointing to the helicopter in the sky that looked like Steven and Opal's.
He tossed a grapplink, and we flew all the way up onto the helicopter.
"They aren't here." I said, confused.
"They are probably sending it back to the hotel by autopilot." Isaac guessed.
"Makes sense." I said, climbing up into the driver's seat, and speeding it up.
"WOAH!" I heard Isaac scream, as I slammed the control stick forward to speed it. He grabbed onto the wall handle quickly in fear.
"Afraid of heights?" I asked him.
"Yeah." he said.
I laughed, and he smiled back.
"You seem like you try to face your fears pretty often, because I see you up in high places a lot." I said, smiling.
"Well, I think of it like this. Maybe I won't be afraid of heights if I get used to them. But, nope." he said, laughing at himself.
"Well, the facing your fears part is good." I said.
"Well, Marie even said that I liked heights. But that was just to impress her really. She honestly had little faith in me when I started out. You haven't talked to her much, have you?" he said.
"No, I've definitely talked more to Callie." I said.
"Well, Marie is a little nicer than she comes across as. She is more like family to me than a mentor." Isaac said, blushing slightly.
"Kind of like Callie to me. She's a lot like an older sister who's less responsible than you are. Even though I'm probably the least responsible and klutzy person ever." I said, laughing at myself.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, smiling at him, "I know my own weaknesses."
He gave me a smile, and I looked back at Inkopolis in front of us.
"Seems like we're almost here." he said, changing the subject.
I nodded, and looked out at the city in front of us.
As we flew over the abandoned buildings, I felt sorry for everyone that was gone.
All of the cluttered rooms, and scattered floorings. Everyone had attempted to leave in a hurry, but had failed, as they were inevitably sanitized.
I saw a couple broken windows, and several broken rooms.
Isaac and I then landed on the roof of the New Albacore Hotel, and jumped off the helicopter and onto the ground.
Isaac and I then walked back down to the room, and saw Marina typing on her laptop.
"Where are Tres and Elliot?" I asked.
"I think they're out on the balcony." Marina responded.
"Is anyone else back yet?" I asked.
"No, why would they be. You guys were gone for five minutes." Marina said.