whimsical (robin buckley)

5. operation child endangerment

Suddenly, the elevator crashes down, making all of them fall. Robin hits her head, Dustin and Erica fall, Steve falls on his back and Sofia gets projected against some boxes, hitting her head on the ground.

It takes her some seconds, but once she opens her eyes everything is blurry. She hears muffled voices but can't really tell who's who. She closes her eyes and opens them again, seeing four blurry faces looking down at her.

"Sofia? Can you hear me?" she hears Dustin ask, as he pokes her face.

"What?" Sofia asks back, not fully conscious yet.

"Great, now my sister's deaf" Dustin says, getting up. 

Steve and Dustin start yelling at each other about some keycard, while Sofia tries to sit down, with Robin's help.

"You alright?" Robin, who's still processing everything, asks Sofia with a worried look.

"Yeah" she whispers, looking at Steve and Dustin, putting her hand in her head.

"We're stuck here" Dustin tells the group.

"Just so you nerds are aware, I'm supposed to be spending the night at Tina's, and Tina always covers for me. But if I'm not home for Uncle Jack's party tomorrow and my mom finds out you three are responsible, she's gonna hunt you down, one by one, and slit your throat" Erica says.

"I don't care about Tina! Or Uncle Jack's party! Your mom's not gonna be able to find us if we're dead in a Russian elevator!" Steve yells.

"Hey. What if we climbed out?" Dustin asks, pointing at the top of the elevator.

After realizing climbing isn't an option, they talked about other options, but none would really work. Dustin and Erica fell asleep first, and shortly after Steve did too, although he made a speech about why he wouldn't fall sleep.

Robin's pacing around the room while Sofia's sitting on the floor, with her back against the wall. Her head still hurts a bit from the impact, and she can tell some bruises are forming. She's mostly trying to calm herself down- she's more worried about Dustin than about herself.

"Hey" Sofia says, looking at Robin. Sofia really needed a distraction from her troubled mind.

She stops pacing around and looks back at Sofia. "Hey" Robin says.

"You okay?" Sofia asks her, knowing the answer.

"Not really. I'm not used to being stuck in Russian elevators" Robin jokes, sitting down next to Sofia. "What about you?"

"I don't know how to feel, since I've never experienced anything like this" Sofia jokes back. "It's so weird 'cause now all I can think about is all the worst case scenarios and be dramatic. Like, I just thinking about all the things I haven't done yet..."

"Yeah, I get it" Robin chuckles. "I feel like I've missed out so much. Like, I would love to visit Europe. It's one of my biggest dreams. My parents were those hippies who just traveled the world like there was no tomorrow, and to be honest, I'm jealous of them. They protested, spoke their mind, traveled a lot... that's just a dream life"

"You know, one of my biggest dreams is actually to backpack around Europe" Sofia says, making Robin open her mouth in surprise.

"Really? You're like the first person who wants to do that. I had this plan, like 2 years ago. I called it Operation Croissant, it was basically a plan to go on vacation through Europe over the summer, but then I realized I have no money to do that, so..." Robin chuckles.

"Maybe we can go... one day" Sofia smiles, looking directly into Robin's eyes. 

"Yeah, if we get out of here" Robin smiles, looking into Sofia's eyes.