The Lost Duckling

Chapter 15: Boo

The smell was stronger on the other side of the door, Mary decided. She tried to ignore the weak feeling creeping through her legs as she stepped further and further into the unfamiliar world.

A small red light blinked above her closet door, marked with the large X Mary had just drawn  on it. She could still see her dorm room through the gap, looking even smaller from here.  Something urged her to close the space, some deep instinct just told her to shut it. Mary obliged, wincing as the door creaked to a close.

The sound seemed to echo through the empty floor. She remembered that the first time she came here was at night. She hadn't been afraid then, Mary fondly realized. Not like she was now.  Of course, back then there wasn't shattered glass glinting at her from under empty windows or a considerable layer of dust coating everything in sight. Mary looked at her own footprints. If anyone came looking for them, they would have a clear track to follow. 

"Lilo, we can't just walk around," She hissed, noticing another trail leading to and away from the door. It was thick, and littered with what looked like prints made by suction cups. Mary shivered, all too capable of guessing what had left the them.

Lilo glanced down and the tracks and pulled a small, digital camera from her bag, snapping a picture with a full flash.

"Do you want that thing to find us?" Mary squawked, glancing nervously into the shadows.

Lilo looked at her camera. "Come on, this could be a new dimension!" She excitedly whispered, aiming the lens at the vast expanse of dilapidation around her.

Mary flinched as the flashes went off, heartbeat rising with each picture.

"Lilo!"

The girl turned away from her observation to follow Mary's wide-eyed gaze.

At the end of the room, a single light bulb flickered to life.

"Shoot," Lilo hissed as she grabbed Mary and ducked behind the closed door held in place by a metal frame just wide enough to conceal the both of them.

They held their breaths as they crouched on the ground, not hearing anything other than the slight buzz of electricity running through the air. After a tense minute, the light flickered back off, and the girls sighed as they carefully stepped out of hiding.

"No more pictures. We have to go find him," Mary chided, crossing her arms around her torso. Lilo nodded firmly in agreement and began walking inside the pre-worn tentacle pathway.

The tracks swung to the left, in the direction of the rogue light bulb. Mary felt herself gulp as they passed under it, almost swearing that she could have seen it flicker somewhere inside.

They followed as the path looped around a few times, in a seemingly random series of movements. Whatever it was, Mary wasn't exactly sure that what made them was sentient. Or maybe, that it wasn't fully in control by the way the tracks jerked around.

"Stitch must have put up a fight," Lilo declared almost proudly as she gestured to the many turns they had walked through.

Mary hoped that he had. She hoped that he was still fighting, even though she doubted what he could do given his small size. "So, he's an alien," she said, trying to calm herself down with conversation as she followed the seemingly endless tracks.

"Yup," Lilo answered, deeply concentration on what she saw in front of her.

Mary wrinkled her nose as a particularly strong wave of stench passed in front of her. "Aren't you worried about him?" She choked, waving the smell away with her hand.

Lilo paused for a moment before continuing on. "He'll be okay."

"What makes you so sure?"

Lilo sighed as she stepped over a fallen ceiling fan blocking a narrow, gray hallway. "This might sound crazy, but I'm not sure how much I'm technically allowed to tell you about him."

"Uh, what?" Mary drawled out, voice a little louder than she had intended. "You mean I can show you some weird portal world and spill about my demented childhood fantasies that somehow turned out to be true but you won't tell me about the alien dog living in my dorm room?" 

Lilo winced and turned around to face Mary in the dim light, a look of guilt on her face. "It's not that I won't, it's that I can't."

Mary popped a hip and Lilo sighed in response.

"Look, there . . . there are laws. Rules in our government and rules in the Intergalactic Council, and there are consequences when people find out."

"Consequences for you or for me?"

Lilo fidgeted. "For both of us. And I . . . I don't know exactly what they would do, but . . ." Lilo leaned a little closer, hushing her low voice. "I remember hearing Cobr- this guy with connections talking to my sister once. He said that he had to wipe someone's mind about something they found out. I can't tell you anything more really because I'm trying to protect you."

Mary raised her eyebrows at Lilo's obvious distress. She was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that aliens existed and that she had met one and that they were currently in some parallel world trying to track it down and that her actions and this new knowledge might have consequences-

She needed to sit down.

Mary carefully crouched into a little ball on the floor, careful not to disturb the distinct outline of the prints against the dusty surface. Somewhere in her mind she registered that she had probably gone close to twenty four hours straight without sleeping. Add that to the stress of everything. 

"Now is so not the time for a panic attack," she whispered to herself, beginning to rock on her heels slightly as she tried to ease the awful squeezing feeling in her chest. "You're just really tired and this is all fine."

A soft hand was placed on her shoulder.

"Hey, I didn't mean to scare you," Lilo said, bending over and trying to meet her roommate's eyes.

"I know," Mary sniffled. "I know. It's . . . this is all just a lot."

"No kidding," Lilo laughed gently. "Do you want to stop for a minute?"

Mary silently nodded, taking deep breaths. Or, at least, she tried to.

Lilo patiently waited for her to relax a little. Gradually, Mary uncurled herself and stretched her neck.

"Feeling better?" Lilo asked as Mary stood up.

"Let's go," she replied stiffly, managing to suppress a sniffle.

Lilo nodded and resumed the lead, walking a little more slowly than she had before.

Mary kept up, noticing the world around her the best that she could in an attempt to distract herself from the thoughts running rampantly through her head. 

The halls all looked the same, gray drywall and darker gray carpeting. In multiple places there was clearly water damage of some kind, a deep stain draping down from the ceiling that sent a chill down Mary's spine.

She turned to her hair instead, combing through the low pigtails absently, barely noticing the faded pink streaks residing there among the brown. 

In fact, Mary was so distracted with distracting herself that she didn't even notice Lilo abruptly stop in front of her until she ran into her back. 

"Hey what-"

Lilo quickly held up a hand for silence. Mary closed her mouth and began listening. 

They had stopped in front of a door that matched the gray walls. It looked just like all the other doors in the hallway, except that it was open the tiniest fraction.

As Mary focused on that door, at all the possible things that could have made Lilo stop, she felt her blood turn icy as she realized what the other girl had heard.

A child, laughing. Right next door.