ALICE
"Are they still behind us," I asked Nicky, gasping, as she dragged me through the forest.
"Yes they're still behind us! Now run faster, you dummy!" She said as she continued to drag me, running faster than I thought possible.
"Who are you calling a dummy," I asked jumping over a fallen log. Branches scraped our arms and legs as we passed. The dense forest would almost be magical if we weren't running for our lives.
"You! Now! Go! Faster!" Now you're probably wondering why two normal girls are running through the woods. To be honest I had no clue myself, but let's rewind back to the beginning.
("I'm telling the flashback." "They don't know who you are yet!" "They don't know who you are either." "Right, well, I'm Alice, and this is Nicky. We are unfortunately the two girls in the story. Don't worry. This will all make sense later, but for now enjoy.")
A Few Minutes ago...
NICKY
I look down the hallway left and right, tiptoeing back to my room, hoping my roommate wouldn't notice I was gone. I slowly opened the door, cringing when it gives out a loud creak. My face scrunched up as I waited for her to turn on the living room light and bust me, but nothing. No light flashed on; she was nowhere to be seen. Which was odd; I stepped through the front door, sighing with relief. It was short lived, however because right as I stepped through the entrance my face was met with a frying pan. "Bang!"
I groggily opened my eyes, groaning as I felt my sore head to see my roommate staring whimsically out the window in thought. I gave off an even louder groan attempted to sit up. She turned her head, and smiled apologetically at me as she started to speak.
"I thought you were an intruder." I gave her a glare that could melt a glacier.
"Sure you did. Just like you didn't mean to hit me in the face with a tennis racket last week! You live to abuse me. Now, why are you so jumpy tonight?" I asked her, rubbing my poor, swollen head, Man, she had a mean swing.
"I found something today," she said, staring at the frying pan she held in her hands so tightly, her knuckles were turning white. I really wish she'd put it down.
("Oh, wow! You start where I hit you with the frying pan." "Well this is where it began isn't it?" "Yes but.....fine, continue. ")
What did you fine, I asked," getting nervous at her tone. Alice is never this grave about anything,
"You have to follow me." She said getting up from her spot on our bright blue couch, finally setting her favorite weapon. Thank God, I thought silently. I moved to follow her, momentarily ignoring the massive bruise that was sure to from on my poor forehead. It was sure to turn all sorts of shades of black and blue in the morning.
("I didn't hit you that hard." "Yes. Yes, you did. I checked." "I said I was sorry." "No you didn't!" "I didn't? Hm, well I'm sorry okay. At least you didn't have a concussion." "Alice!" "Sorry, keep going.")
Alice led me through the back entrance of our apartment building, past old town market where our favorite Chinese restaurant was, to an old, bleak, run down warehouse. It was literally falling apart at the seams. All the windows were broken, the paint was peeling off, there was no roof, and the window frames had spider webs hanging from them. The door was hanging off one bolt. To be honest it was a dump.
"Is this what you do all night when you can't sleep. You hoodlem'." I asked her, staring at the building in front of us. I was not impressed.
"No, I usually just research, but I found this building one afternoon when one of my classes were let out early with this device," she said, holding up a rectangular object that was about the size of a phone, but with a weird antenna sticking out of the top.
This was one of Alice's flaws; she had suffered insomnia since she was fourteen, and refused to take the prescribed medicine for it. She usually researched random subjects for hours on end when she thought I was asleep. I stopped trying to break her of this habit years ago when I realized she wouldn't listen to reason.
"Well, I guess we should go in," I said breaking the uncomfortable silence. If she brought me here, then whatever was inside must have been really important.
"No, no, no, no, no, no ,no," she exclaimed, shaking her long auburn hair. "We don't know what's in there! Correction we don't know who's in there. Nicky no! I don't care enough about whatever's in there to risk going into a building that's falling apart."
"It's an abandoned warehouse. No one's going to be in there, now come on. Besides it most likely won't fall on us today, probably," I added, giving her a hard time; she was pretty easy to scare. I walked towards the entrance, hoping to get this over with, so I could finally get some sleep.
"Fine, but if we die it's your fault." As we wandered through the building, I noticed Alice starting to shake so hard a leaf would be jealous.
"Something's wrong," Alice said, moving closer to me. I rolled my eyes at her; She looked like a penguin when she did that. Whenever she got cold or frightened about something, she would huddle close to whoever's near her. She's made quite a few of our friends uncomfortable by doing that to them.
"Nothing's wrong; you're just being paranoid. Now, let's see if we can figure out what this device tracks." I held the device up scanning the area. It kind of looked like the E.M.T. Meter from Ghostbusters. It flashed orange and increased as we got closer to whatever we were tracking. The antenna expanding into a T as we got closer to what it was finding.
We were walking down a long hallway with three or four doors on each side. It looked really high tech, and the long hallway was surprisingly clean and intact. TTHe walls the same white as if we were in a doctor's office, and the doors a metallic grey. This was really strange considering how run down the outside was. The tracker started beeping rapidly as we got closer to the last door down the hall. As I tried the doorknob, I found it wouldn't budge. It was locked. Alice breathed a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness." Her shaking grew a little less severe, but she was still clinging to me like a koala. "Nicky this is like a horror movie. This is the part where we open a door, and the serial killer is right behind, waiting for us. Let's go. Please?" She still looked freaked out. The door was locked; how would a serial killer kill us if he's behind the locked door, I thought, mentally rolling my eyes.
"Alice, pick the lock; there's no serial killer behind it. Don't you want to know want to know what your tracker found or what?"
"What?" She exclaimed Her eyes bulged out, and she freaking out even more than she was before. "No, I'm not picking the lock! I don't want to know what it found! Curiosity killed the cat, and we're about to be the cat," she exclaimed, her eyes widening so much that I thought they'd fall out of her eye sockets.
"So, you admit you can do it," I asked her. I knew the answer already; she could. I've seen her do it before, when she got locked out of our house. She had forgotten her keys on the table one day when she was late for class. I hadn't mentioned it though.
"Nicole Marie Lynn, I don't want to!"
"Pick the lock," I told her.
"Fine, but I have a really bad feeling about this."
ALICE
Why'd I let her talk me into this. This is stupid. Something's wrong; I can feel it. I did as she asked though, and picked the lock. It was really simple; not really complicated because of how old it was but it still took me some time. Once I heard the mechanism click I threw the door open.
"See nothing bad happened," Nicole said rolling her eyes. She had quite an attitude, but then again I did hit her with a frying pan.
"Yeah, you say that now," I murmured following her in. My tracking device was beeping louder than ever. We were tracking the second piece of the device I found outside after I got out early from one of my classes. I didn't tell her that though because I wasn't sure what it could do. I didn't want her in harm's way. I didn't like the way this place looked either. It looked high tech, and well managed. Nothing like what it looked like on the outside. Forget the serial killer, I think there could be a mad scientist waiting around the corner, waiting for his next science experiment to come waltzing in . The device beeps louder as the orange bars turned red, and the went to the highest bar possible. The second piece was close.
"Alice, we found it!" Nicky exclaimed, pointing at the shard. The device looked like a metallic crystal with grooves were the two would connect. The creepy feeling got worse.
"Nicky I don't think we should be here," I exclaimed, my pulse skyrocketing. I moved back to my previous position of huddling as close to Nicky as possible. Something was really wrong.
"It's fine," she tried to reassure me. Right as she touched the second half of the device, a bright holographic light shot out of it, and we were thrown backwards, away from the shard, and onto the harsh ground.
I groaned, feeling my head. I looked down at my hand to see blood coating it. That was sure going to hurt in the morning. "Nicky, you okay," I asked her,attempting to sit up. I was seeing stars, but I successfully ignored it standing from my spot on the ground.
"Yeah, just give me a second." I followed her voice to where she was lying to give her a hand up. She didn't seem to be hurt, only having a few scratches and bruises here and there, but nothing major. "What was that," she asked me, rubbing her lower back where she fell on it.
"I don't know, but it was bright as heck," I said, shaking my head. I turned to Nicky and noticed how disoriented she looked. "Nicky, how many fingers am I holding up?' I held three fingers, hoping she didn't have a concussion. She would never let me hold this down.
("Wow, Alice, you care SO much about my well being." "Hey I checked your head; you were fine!" "I can't believe you!")
"Well, well, well, look who found our crystal. Hand it over," a hoarse, shrill voice demanded. We turned around, and there were three or four men in black suits; they kind of looked like Agent J and K from Men in Black only scarier with multiple scar marring their faces, necks and hands.
" Nicky," I trailed off... I slowly reached into my pocket, and pulled out my half of the shard. I had a strong feeling we should give them what they want.
"Here," I said throwing it at who I assumed was their leader. He was in the middle, and looked the most important even though he was five foot tall at the most. Which was a stark comparison to the guy next to him who was the tallest at about 6,6" and looked the scariest of the men. The one in the center caught it, and then looked around the room.
"The other half. Where is it," he demanded. Would it kill him to say please. Lefty began to scowl which caused me to inch my way closer to Nicky. She still looked kind of dazed from the fall. Maybe she did have a concussion after all.
"I, I don't know," I stammered, scared out of my wits. The shard was there a minute ago. I looked over at Nicky; the room started to sway, and then it all went dark.