The In Between

Chapter eight

• Ricky falls on and for me •

James

• October  30•

I heard screaming, and from my experience, it was Ricky's screaming.

"Ric—" he fell on me. "Dammit, Ricky, what the hell!" I pushed him off me, standing up. Good thing: my legs were feeling a lot better, clearly the venom was only meant to scare me. Bad thing: Ricky made it ten times worse. Good thing: Ricky was clearly alive-dead. Bad thing: we were both still stuck in the hallucination-house.

He got up and brushed himself off. "Sorry I—" he was cut off, by me hugging him.

"Oh—" he said.

"I am so glad you're not dead." I said, holding him at a distance.

"I am too?" He responded.

"How are you not dead."

"I— I don't know—" a flush spread across his face.

"I am going to murder you."

"Please don't."

"How— how did you—? Never mind, I don't want to know."

"What have you been doing?" He asked me as I walked towards some plants in the corner of the room.

"Figuring out how to kill myself," I told him.

"You don't mean literally, do you?"

"Well, if you die, I die."

"You have to kill yourself?" I met his eyes. They were worried, like anyone would be if their friend (friend? Were we friends now?) told them that they tried to commit suicide.

"I don't know. I—I guess that's why I didn't just drop dead. You were still alive. You are still alive. Alive-dead."

"Oh god, that's morbid,"

"Pretty much."

"Well I hope we can get out of this stupid house soon."

"God, same."

There was really only one way out of this room. A door, like the rest. I didn't want to go through the door. The rest of this fucking journey had been tiring enough.

"I don't want to go through--" Ricky said.

"Me neither, stupid, but we've literally got no other choice,"

We made our way over to the door. I put my hand on the doorknob, but Ricky slapped it away.

"What the actual hell, Ricky? Do you want to get out of here or what? Also, that hurt."

"This has to be one of the last doors now, yes?"

"I don't know, Ricky!"

"There's probably going to be some sort of big monster to slay if we're near the end, so we should probably prepare?"

"What the hell are you preparing? We literally have nothing except for optimism right now." I told him. "And I'm a pessimist."

"Ok." he blinked at me, "so should we open the door then?"

"Please."

I turned the knob, half expecting something to jump out at us. Nothing happened.

The room was dark, no lights were on. There were columns along the walls, leading a pathway to a big door.