It had been one hundred and twenty seconds since Isabeth opened the next door. Faith knew that because it was how many rapid heartbeats pounded against her sternum. They stared at the darkness. Nothing came and they for sure as hell weren't going in. Their rubber-soled shoes had turned into cement.
The silence was loud. It twisted Faith's intestines and chewed away at her sanity. Then she heard a noise scraping along the floor beckoning her head to turn to the left. Another noise called out and she turned her head to the right. The noise stopped and the silence was birthed once more.
"What was that?" Faith whispered.
"I don't—" Isabeth began to say but a sharp click sounded in the room. And then there was another click. It reminded Isabeth of something. Something that recently happened to her. She balled her hand into a fist but the cast on her left arm restricted the movement. That was it. That's what that sound reminded her of—the breaking of bone.
Faith narrowed her eyes trying to decipher something in the blackened room, "Maybe it's empty."
"Maybe it's empty." A voice said.
Isabeth and Faith whipped their heads toward the door, which displayed the white hallway they traveled down.
"The weird pale dude did leave right?" Faith asked gawking at the closed elevator door.
Isabeth nodded still peering into the void room.
"Just open the other door." Faith nudged Isabeth to move down a little. "
Then there were crickets. A swarm of crickets. The girls looked at their feet, the floor around them, the wall behind them and the ceiling above them but nothing was there. They flicked the phantom crawling on their shoulder and scratched at the invisible itch on the back of their neck.
Then the crickets stopped. More bones cracked. Faith's breath stopped, her mouth hung open as a white beach ball rolled out of the darkness and stopped at the doorway. Faith's arm became a boa as she wrapped it around Isabeth's arm.
Bones popped like fireworks as the beach-ball-like figure deflated. Then the cracks slowed. Crack! A hand hit the floor. Crack! A head twisted out. Crack! Legs unfolded. Crack! Crack! Crack! Knees bent. A Torso rose. A neck turned.
Towering over them, the balled man kept his eyes closed as his Adam's apple slowly bobbed up and down. His eyeballs danced behind his eyelids. Then he opened the side of his mouth. A clicking bounced off the walls of the hallway and then he tilted his head. His mouth opened to a sliver. "Be my friend." His eyelids scrolled back and the girls saw his black eyes. "I'll be your friend to the end. I'll give you—"
Three knocks banged from the door two doors down. The bald man's eyes scrolled back closed as he tilted his ear toward the door. "Not them. They can't be my friends? I wanted to feel their essence. They seem so sweet." Four knocks banged from the door two doors down. "Understood." The balled man popped is neck as he dropped to all fours. He crawled out the room sideways like a humanoid chimpanzee.
"Here." Isabeth held a key out. "You open the next one.
"I had enough!" Faith pushed the key away.
Do you agree with Faith?