Chapter Five
I walked through the portal and looked around for Bethany. All that was a head of me was white space everywhere. I stomped my feet on the ground a few times, making sure that there was a floor beneath me and that I wasn’t just floating in some empty, white space. There was nothing ahead of me; just more white. “Bethany!” I called out, but no response came back.
“Come on, Kaylie,” that same voice laughed. “Bethany is just over there.”
“Over where? It looks all the same!” I sighed. “Can someone please just tell me what’s going on?”
“Aw, honey, don’t lose your patience. Lose your patience and you mind as well lose your head,” the voice taunted me. I shook my head; there was no way that this could be happening. If I hadn’t lost my head yet, then I was certainly about to be. Right now, I was walking through a past memory of someone else’s mind, which seemed quite impossible. If this wasn’t losing your mind, then what was?
I shook my head. “Where do I go?”
“Walk straight and just keep walking. I’ll let you know when you can stop,” the voice replied in a soothing voice. Although this voice belonged to a mysterious person, it still had such a comforting undertone, giving me that feeling of trust, which was probably rather dangerous. Would you want to walk around with some mysterious voice trailing you, watching every single one of your moves? Shaking this head from my mind, I walked straight, continuously. There was nothing around but blank space; nothing to look at, nothing to benchmark where I currently was or how far I had walked.
My mind began to spin, wondering if this was a trap, and if I would ever get out. Then again, Bethany had escaped, hadn’t she? Besides, I couldn’t possibly become trapped in someone else’s memory, right? How was that even possible?
“How is it possible that you even be inside someone’s memory in the first place, Kaylie?”
I froze in my tracks, wondering how in the world the voice could have heard me. To my knowledge, I had been speaking through my thoughts, not my words. A rush of confusion struck me, as I looked up and scanned the room. To my dismay, there was only blank space. That voice had to have some sort of name and form. “Did I just speak out loud?”
“You’re inside of a memory, Kaylie. I can show you this because it was in Bethany’s mind, and I can see into her mind, just as I can see into yours.”
“Any time?”
“Well, I can access Bethany’s at any time of any day. However, with you on the other hand, I can only access it when you’re inside of a memory. Or I can only access the memories that you are currently thinking at that moment, when you're thinking of them. That's when you're outside of a memory." The voice said so in such a taunting voice that I began to shake, for fear of what might happen. I wasn't comforted by the thought that someone, or something for that matter, could access my thoughts and memories. The thought that someone could see through me and witness all of the fears and feelings that I was currently experiencing.
"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone your thoughts," the voice laughed. "Unless you give me reason to."
I shook my head. "Who are you and why won't you just leave me alone?"
"Why don't you try to figure that out?" the voice smiled back. "I'm offering you up a challenge, Kaylie, and we all know how much you love challenges. I want you and Bethany to figure out who I am what I want with you, and then try to adjust back to your normal life."
"What does that even mean?" I shot back.
"Find out."
Distressed, I continued walking, not stopping to answer the voice. Whoever the voice was, it was scaring me and worrying me to death. Was there some sort of huge secret out there that they desperately wanted me to figure out, and for what reason would they try to help me? The voice didn't sound familiar to me. What could there be that would cause me to worry so much and try to adjust back to my own life? Why was it like that? And what could Bethany possibly be hiding; she seemed too nice of girl to have any sort of secret to hide. Then, again, everyone has secrets, even if some aren't as scandalous as someone else's.
Unless it wasn't a secret of ours, but some secret about us? Or about something that didn't even pertain to us. Maybe it was some random secret that could change our lives, even if it didn't directly relate to us. Maybe if we found out, then it would begin to relate to us, and maybe then our lives would become endangered. What would happen then if this voice was only trying to get us to find something out that could put us into danger? Would this voice even have that thought in the back of their mind?
I doubted it, since their voice had such a calming tone, which did allow me to trust them. But what if trusting them was the wrong thing? What if Bethany and I trusted the voice, and ended up losing our lives? Then what would happen to us? "Bethany, I promise you that everything will be okay!" I shouted out, but she didn't answer. She couldn't hear me.
Then a thought struck me; there was no way that Bethany could have exited this room faster than the time it had taken for me to enter. Maybe I was going the wrong way. Perhaps I had gone too far, and needed to go back. I needed to make it out of here alive, and I needed to find Bethany so that we could figure just what is going on, so that we can try to save ourselves. I didn't want to die, and although I had only met her today, I knew that she wouldn't want that either. She found life too precious, and wouldn't want to get hurt. I wouldn't want her to get hurt.
"Don't fret," the voice laughed. "Just think of this like I game. I promise you that it will be fun."
"A game like this could lose me my life!" I shouted.
"It could if you don't follow along with me. Just come along on my little game, Kaylie. You and Bethany can follow me along on the game, and everything will change."
“Everything, how so?” I asked, trying to defend my life.
This time, the voice spoke almost in a whisper, which was far too creepy for me to acknowledge the fact that the voice sounded familiar. However, I still couldn’t place the gender or name of the voice. “Find out,” said the voice. “Walk five more paces, and reach out. You will find a door, if you look hard enough. Otherwise you’ll see nothing but blank space. There you’ll find Bethany, who still won’t be able to hear you, but if you keep up with her, then you might just find out something interesting about her, or see what happens during this scene.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling only an ounce of gratitude. There was nothing more that I wanted to know about this memory. I had found out too much, and I wanted to be out of this so-called game. I wanted to call it quits.
I kept walking the five paces and then put my hands out, feeling around for a door. As harsh as this might sound, I felt like a blind man searching about for something. Something that he thinks is there, even if he cannot find anything. I tried to reach out and ask for help, but there was no one there. No one but the mysterious voice, who I’m sure was laughing at me by this point. They were probably putting Bethany and me through this as a form of pure entertainment, not to try and help us discover a secret.
All I felt was a hard surface, a wall, but I couldn’t find for the door. My mind began to explore the possibilities of a where a door could be. It could easily be to the right of me with a latch or something to push the door open with. But if there was a latch wouldn’t I have seen it? That only led to one possibility. I backed away from the wall a few steps, then running into it, slamming my whole body into the wall. There was no latch meaning that the door needed to be pushed open.
When nothing happened, I backed up again and began pushing myself into the wall, again from a different spot. I continuously slammed my body into the wall, waiting for something to happen. A few back-aches later and I fell on my side. Now on the floor, I look up and saw that the door had opened, and Bethany was right inside. Collecting myself, I rushed through there, and walked up right next to her. She couldn’t see me, but I could feel her presence and that was enough of a comfort to me.
“I will not be put through this anymore,” Bethany sighed. “You can’t try to convince me, and blackmail me with my own secrets, whoever you are!”
The mysterious voice laughed back. “Oh but Bethany, I know who you are and all about you. There is no way that you can possibly try to conceal yourself from me. It’s just not going to happen. I’m going to expose you to everyone, and completely ruin you.”
“You cannot ruin me because I will not let you. I am my own person and I will not allow for anyone to hurt me using my personal information. I don’t know who you are, but I do know one thing; you are trying to bully me,” Bethany shouted, becoming furious. My eyes widened at the sight of seeing Bethany so angry. To me, she had seemed like that quiet kid who sits at the back of the classroom, only speaking when called upon. Although now when I looked at Bethany, I saw her with different eyes. She was a strong, independent woman, who held back her quiet, inner strength.
The voice seemed to be offended by this. “Let me tell you something, Bethany; this is my game and I’m the one who gets to call the shots, not you. So why don’t you just run home and cry to mommy, or something?” I had never noticed this with the voice, but right now it seemed cocky and rude, like it had another side. When it wanted to be, it could be the sweetest voice on Earth, but it could just as easily be the rudest. Sort of like the Queen Bee of a school. Just like Ashley Wince.
“I don’t want to play your stupid game!” Bethany shouted. “You want to hurt me. I don’t know what sort of game this is or what you want from me, but you can just leave me alone!”
“You can ask Kaylie that,” the voice replied.
“Kaylie? Who’s that?” she fired back.
“She’s another player in this game. Find her and you’ll know all of the answers,” the voice laughed.
“She’ll protect me if I find her?”
“Find out,” the voice challenged.
“What do I have to do?” Bethany sighed, not wanting to give into whatever the voice was saying, yet not seeing any other answer.
“Find the next portal. It will lead you to someplace new, where you will find the girl you are looking for,” the voice said. “There will be a door somewhere in this room. All you need to do is find it, go through, and the portal will be closer than you think. I promise that it will be easy to find. All you have to do is trust me.” The voice had that tone again, which was all sweet and innocent, trying to get you to trust it. My mind debated whether or not trusting the voice would be acceptable, or whether it would only prove fatal However, this was not my decision, and I had no way to influence Bethany’s choice in one way or another.
“Fine,” Bethany said, her eyes narrowed as she looked straight out into the open space. It just struck me then that she had just had a whole argument with basically herself, or at least that’s how it would be perceived to any out stander who happened to watch her. All they would see was her standing in the middle of a room, yelling out. Unless they could hear the mysterious voice, as well?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Bethany’s heels clicking across the floor, rapidly. She looked around, frantically searching for a way out. My heart compelled as I wondered what I could possibly do to help her. Then, I suddenly knew what to do. I had to get out of a room like this one not too long ago, and although I had used a ridiculous strategy, it had worked. With that in mind, I ran straight, and kept running until I ran into something hard. The wall. Now having found the wall, I continued on with the same tactic of running into the wall, searching for the door. Three bruises later and the door opened. I looked over to Bethany, and saw the excitement written on her face.
“Thanks,” she said softly, running towards the door. I peered out of the door with her and saw a bright line shining from behind. Bethany ran out into the door, and what she expected to be a floor was actually the portal. She screamed and I ran into the portal after her.
Seriously, what was with all of the portals, and why did we need them to find out the secret? Ho was traveling through each of these different realms- these scenes- going to help us come one step closer to figuring out some sort of secret?
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Author's Note:
I AM ROUGHLY 10K WORDS AWAY FROM MY GOAL. IT SEEMS LIKE A LOT BUT ITS LESS THAN 50% AWAY SO YAY ME!
And I'm about to spam you with a few more chapters today to make up from loss time during the schoolweek....
Ali xo