The 34th Floor

The 34th Floor - Chapter 23 - Grace

The grumbling in my stomach yanked me from where I had been lost in my own trance. It was like my insides were feeding anxiously at my raw skin. The whining continued in my stomach, reminding me of the story my grandmother had told me when I was little and refused to eat. She had told me that the whining that came from the inside of my stomach was that of the rats and they were hungry and if I didn’t feed them, they’d eat out my stomach until I was nothing but bones. The story, although told so long ago, still brought chills to run down my spine and the eeriness of my surroundings didn’t help my case. I swore I could hear the crying of a wounded cat and the whining of a feeble rat.

“Grace, are you alright?” Noah called out.

I gasped, taken aback by the loudness of his voice. I jumped ten feet before turning around and nodding my head vigorously, trying to convince myself more than him. “I…I’m fine.”

“Come here. We’re trying to get Cade up on his feet.”

“You know, if there was some electricity, it would help us all,” Rachel complained as I picked up my feet and made my way towards the two.

“How are you feeling, Cade?” I asked, crouching down to his level before taking one of his hands in mine.

“You really want to know?” He questioned, turning his head so he was staring into my eyes with those unusual pale green ones of his.

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” I smiled, trying to keep his mind away from the pain as Rachel and Noah attempted to use the wall to get him to stand.

“Well, the side of my stomach is aching, the throbbing in my head is unbearable, I’m hungry and I think I have to use the bathroom again, but this time I was hoping for a decent toilet to sit on.”

I watched in horrification as he winced and proceeded to hit Noah across the head because his pain was quickly dissolving to anger and frustration.

“Shh, calm down,” I soothed, running a hand up and down his bare hand.

“It fucking hurts!” He shouted, moaning as Noah and Rachel got him to fully stand.

“We got him up on his feet, but where exactly do we take him now?” I asked, squinting in the dark.

“Let’s go deeper into that room over there, see what it is, and hope we can get the electricity running. None of us are going to survive much longer if we don’t get some food into our bodies,” Rachel stated, pushing one of Cade’s arms around her neck as Noah mirrored her action.

I leaded the two deeper into the room, a bit nervous about something coming crashing from up above or hauling me to the side.

“Just keeps getting darker,” Rachel muttered while being weighed down by half of Cade’s body.

“Grace, watch-“

“Fuck,” I murmured, the minute my head collided with a wooden door. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

I pealed my head off of the wooden door and caressed it in between my head as it slightly throbbed.

“Is it bad?” Noah asked, reaching out to rub my head.

“No, it’s a bump, but I feel like a complete dumbass for running into a wooden door.”

“Can we continue, someone over here is really heavy,” Rachel whined, staring at Cade, who had a lopsided grin across his face.

I muttered an apology before pushing open the door and ushering everyone inside. My fingers were curled around the wooden door and my grip seemed to tighten as Cade’s face looked even worse under the glint of light bouncing off the stainless steel appliances.