Rabbit Hole

The World Goes Dark

At the time, I thought the worst had started with Mark. I was wrong.
It was only that night when I started to comprehend what exactly I was getting into.

Lights out was beginning in 5 minutes, and I walked back to my room with Liv. After the conversation we'd had earlier on that day, everything changed for the better, with her at least. She'd actually apologised to the others, all of them forgaver her, but Lloyd was still frustrated about the whole situation. She also started to open up more, and became much more than the mean girl, the personality she dropped. Eventually, we moved onto other conversations, into relationships.

"So, did you have any other partners before Andrew?"
"Yeah, two. I'm kinda not sure one of them counted though."
"Why?"
"She asked me out in Year 6 for a school dance. This was before the whole trans thing, by the way. She's straight."
"Are you?"
"Nope. Pan."
"So, why might she not count?"
"We dated for literally two hours. Once the dance was over, she broke up with me. Aparently she didn't want to seem lonely infront of her friends. I'll be honest, fucking hurt."
"Yeah, that's a rough way to be broken up with."
"Believe me, the other one's worse. It's above 'used you to seem popular' but a step below 'left you for dead in a forest'."
"Kinda hard to top that."
"Hopefully that stays the worst. But the other guy, this was just before Andrew, started dating me while I was still a boy. It was going well, then I realised I was trans. I told him, and he was pissed off at me. He accused me of 'tricking him into dating a girl' even though I could have never known about it when we started dating. He broke things off, and then went to everyone he knew. He said that 'if I was willing to use it against him, then it shouldn't be an issue telling everybody'. That's actually how Andrew met me. He was one of his old friends, and cut him off after he outed me. Nicest thing anyone'd done for me, from one of the worst people I've met."
"The fact that that's not the worst breakup you've had-"
"What can I say? Just got shit luck I guess. So what about you? You ever had a girlfriend?"
"No, I just never clicked like that with anyone I know. I found it hard enough to get friends in the first place, a girlfriend was almost off the table as soon as I figured that out."
"I mean their loss, I guess-"

The lights go off.
We lose our vision.
What's going on?

"Shit. We need to get to a room now Amanda." Liv almost yells in my ear in panic.

My room was only a few metres down the hall, so we run towards that. We close the door.

Liv starts to panic even more. "Wait, shit. Why did I do that? If it's lights out, I can't be in a room with someone else. I need to go-"
"Don't go anywhere." a voice says from the corner of the room, and a small torch turns on. Lloyd.

"What the fuck were you doing in here?" Liv instantly snaps, startled. "And what's with the fucking dramatics?"
"I needed to talk to her, but while you're here, I'll warn you too."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Mark handed me a note before he died. Told me to destroy it after reading. Warned about a glowing light from the room."
"Which room?" Liv instantly questions.
"The one with the metal door."
"Oh god." I realise.
"What, Amanda?"
"I saw a glow from the room."
"What colour?"
"Pink."
"Oh ok, you're fine. You have to watch out for blue. If it were me, I'd be fucked at pink."
"Wait, isn't it a bad idea saying that in here? You know, the cameras?" me and Liv have the same thought.
"Power cut. All cameras are down."
"Ohh, that's why the lights went out too."
"But we need to do something soon. They aren't slowing down. Amy's next."
"Next?" Liv suddenly interjects. "Next for what?"
"Oh right, you haven't been here for any of what I've said yet. Mark's death was linked to something they're planning. They tried to do something to him in that room last night. It failed, but changed him enough to kill him. Either it broke him beyond wanting to live, or he snapped and they killed him because he knew too much?"
"But Mark killed himself. We saw him jump."
"Think about it. It lines up too perfectly. Why was the pool cover closing, and why did he fall after it was almost closed? Why did it get jammed? And what did "I won't let you take away the one thing I've known." mean?"
"So, what happened to him is about to happen to Amy?"
"Yeah."
"Then why the fuck don't we do anything? All of us together can take those four. We could save her and stop this before it really starts-"
"No. We can't risk it."
"But- we can do it. It isn't a risk."
"Look, we need to let this happen so we can figure out what we're up against."
"We can't do anything, Liv. I'm sorry."

It had finally set in for all of us. It was hopeless.
No matter what we did, we couldn't save everyone.

But that didn't stop us from trying.

"Lloyd. If you don't want to do this, I will."
"Liv, don't be fucking stupid. Do this on your own and we lose both."
"I won't be on my own. Amanda could help."
"You don't have to help her on that."

I stand there, looking at both of them. I could join Liv, and risk everything for this, or I wait with Lloyd, and possibly lose both Liv and Amy.

"Think about it Amanda. If this goes wrong, we lose three people immediately, and it could speed up the process for us. Don't do this."
"Amanda. Are we really gonna let another innocent person suffer to save our own skin?"

God, this fucking hurts to decide. Either way, I hurt one of them. But I think I know what I'd rather do now.

"Lloyd, I'm sorry. But we can save her."
"You're making a mistake. A huge fucking mistake. You'll get us all fucking killed!"
"We can take them! Bill would do it to save his best friend, and Kat and Pat wouldn't sit around and let it happen. That's 6 against 4. Easy. The only person who wants to call this off is YOU. So are you gonna join us?"
"Fuck you. You've just doomed us all."
"Alright then. We're going to do this. You're free to join us at any point."

We both head for the door, and start the plan to-

"I CAN'T FUCKING LET YOU DO THIS! THIS ISN'T HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO THIS!"

He runs to the door and uses a pole to jam it shut.

"Lloyd what the fuck are you doing?"

He pulls out a knife.

"Lloyd, fuck's sake!"

"I could have saved both of you! But looks like you're not even worth attempting to save."

"Save? What are you talking about?"

"You've not figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out, Lloyd?"

"I was never trying to keep you out of danger. I was trying to stop you from saving everyone. I was trying to stop you from ruining this operation."

"So, you're with them?"

"That's right. I was never sent here. I was put here to stop you. I am working with the place."

Lloyd fucking lied to us.
He was part of Wonderland itself.