Chapter Three: Arielle's POV

Shae and Arielle continue the experiment together

Chapter Three

Arielle

            “Wait just a minute!”  I yelled after the gun-holding, mystery boy as he opened the backdoor of my lookalike house.  His shoulders heaved in what I thought was an exasperated sigh, before he turned to look at me.  The boy gave me a once over, yet again, which made my cheeks flush and my temper rise at the same time.  It was like he never seen a hot girl before, but I did not let this distract me from the problem at hand.  “Ok, mystery boy, we should not just be opening doors, especially when we do not know what is behind them.  Who knows what will be behind that door,” I speculated with a distrusting glance at the stainless steel door, which reminded me of the door of the cell I had woken up in.  Mystery boy rolled his eyes and opened the door.  Great, Mr. Macho Mystery Boy thinks he can call all the shots without discussing possible solutions with me. 

I held my breath as he opened the door; I had no idea what to expect.  Zombies, flesh-eating ladybugs, and giant tarantulas were just a few of the ideas I had about what could be behind door number two.  Bracing myself for an attack, I hesitantly peered over the mystery boy’s shoulder, only to find a long, windowless hallway with door number three at the end.  The door seemed to be quite far away, but I am not a good judge of distances.  Immediately, I let the air out of my lungs that I had been holding in and stepped in the hallway following mystery boy.  He held the gun at his side, but I could tell his reflexes would be fast and react to…oh let us say flesh-eating ladybugs.  What?  You may think ladybugs seem harmless, but I swear they have an evil master plan of sorts.  I am just not sure what their plan was yet, but I will find out.

As we walked stealthily down the hall, I was getting somewhat fed up with his whole I-am-the-man-so-I-am-the-leader act.  “Hey, mystery boy, do you have a name?  Or do you want me to keep calling you mystery boy?”  He did not answer me and kept walking.  I had to jog just to keep up with his long, confident, yet careful strides.  “Mystery boy, why can’t you answer me?  What if I am under attack by flesh-eating ladybugs or zombies?  What do you want me to call you?  Or would you rather me scream out, ‘hey oh-so-mysterious-boy-with-deadly-gun please save me’?”  I said in my best damsel in distress voice.  For dramatic effect, I sighed and put my hand to my head as if I was about to faint in fright.  I saw the corners of the boy’s mouth tug upward in a slight smile, but he immediately schooled his features back to the impassive mask.  Sigh.  This boy was impossible to work with and he obviously had issues with females being in charge.

I resumed our walk down the hallway until I realized that the mystery boy was standing where I left him.  Hands on hips, I turned around to see his face in a struggle of some sort.  Since we were stuck in this god-forsaken, madman’s experiment, I jumped to the conclusion that something was wrong and ran to his side.  “What?!  Are you okay?”

“Shae.”  Mystery boy mumbled under his breath as I strained to hear his voice.

“What?” 

“My name is Shae.”  He looked up to me and I smiled, glad that he felt I was worthy enough to know his name.

“Nice to meet you, Shae.  My name is Arielle.  Under normal circumstances, I would ask you about your life and all that jazz, but this is not a normal circumstance.  I want to get out, as I am sure you do to.  The only way I think we will be able to leave this place is if we work together.  When I say work together, I mean we discuss stuff like opening doors, before we open the door.  Ok?”

He nodded and I was happy to finally agree with him on something, so I turned once again to continue our trek down the long hallway.  “Flesh-eating ladybugs, huh?”  Shae asked me with a slightly amused smirk and I almost punched him for his cheek.

“Oh shut up!  Let’s go!”  Embarrassed about my comment concerning ladybugs, I let Shae lead us to the door.  From far away, the door appeared to have a handle, but up close we realized it had been an optical illusion.  “Great! Another f*****g test!”  I screamed so loudly that I startled Shae, who had jumped back at my outburst.  I could feel the tears well up in my eyes, but I refused to cry, especially not in front of a complete stranger. 

SLAM! 

This time both Shae and I jumped at the sudden noise.  Shae held his gun out in front of him preparing to shoot anyone"or anything"that would threaten us.  “It was door number two closing.  We are trapped in here.”  I announced rather pathetically as I slid down the wall into a crumpled heap on the floor.  Shae did not sit down; he began checking the walls of the hallway for an access panel or something of that nature.  To me it was pointless to look for a way out; the people who created this place could make us wait indefinitely for their next test, so I decided to conserve my strength and wait for the instructions. 

An hour must have passed, before Shae decided that he could not find an access panel and he sat across from me, looking quite pissed.  He was balling his hands up into fists so hard that the skin over his knuckles turned white.  In an attempt to make conversation, I asked, “So how did you end up with that?”  I pointed to the gun that he had resting on one of his knees.

“How did you end up in that?”  He asked me, pointing to the revealing outfit I was presently wearing.  His lips twitched as if he was being funny and I punched his knee for it.  For one moment, I saw his eyes flash in anger and I was quite afraid… I mean he did have a gun and he did have an easy familiarity with it, so I assumed he had used one before.

“Sorry,” I apologized, hoping to defuse the situation.  Neither one of us knew each other, so he could have taken my teasing punch for something more sinister.  “How did you wind up here?”

“How did you?”

“Is this how it is going to be between us:  If I ask you a question, you will respond with a question?  I am only trying to make conversation, because only the Holy One knows how long we will be here for.  I thought it would be better if we knew a little bit about how these experiment people got us, and then we would know why we are here.  I signed up for something like an obstacle course, not this.”  I gestured to our hallway prison and my outfit. 

Sighing, Shae stretched out his legs and laid the gun carefully at his side.  In a moment’s notice, he would be armed and ready for whatever these people had planned.  “There was word on the street that there was a study that was offering big bucks and a year’s worth of rations.  I needed the money, so I signed up, and here I am…with you.”  When he said “with you”, Shae stared a little too long than was comfortable at me, making me want to squirm in my spot.  In his hazel eyes (if I wanted to be truthful with myself, were quite stunning), I could see loneliness and aloofness swirling around in them.  “How about you?”

“I found an ad in the newspaper for a job as a guinea pig.  Normally, I would not take jobs with the title ‘guinea pig’, but the pay was what made me go in for the job.  I have three siblings to feed, so I really, really needed the money.”  Blurting out my family situation to a complete stranger was unlike me, but I realized that Shae was kind of in the same boat as me.

Closing his eyes, I thought he was about to sleep, but he asked, “What about your parents?”

His question caught me off guard.  Most people in this day and age do not ask about your family, because it is considered rude, since most of the population is living in extreme poverty.  His simple question would have infuriated most people, but I could tell he was genuinely interested about my situation, so I answered honestly.  “My father is dead.  He died seven years ago from a heart attack, I think.  The medical reports that were sent to us were conflicting on the cause of death, so I assumed it was a heart attack.  My mother always said he could never stay away from the sausage and bacon and that she knew it was going to be the death of him…and it was.  Several days ago, my mother never came back from work…”  My explanation about my mother was all that was needed, because Shae and I both knew what that implied: death or prostitution.  I did not ask him about his parents, because I brought up too many bad memories of my life, forcing me into silence; otherwise, I would become a sobbing mess, again.

 Shae’s breathing deepened, and I assumed he had finally fallen asleep, which was not a bad idea.  Who knew what we would face next or when we would get a chance to sleep next?  Following Shae’s example, I stretched my legs out in front of me and laid my head against the cold steel wall.  I do not know how much time had passed, but I was woken up by something nudging into my back. 

My first instinct was to panic and jump up and down, screaming like a maniac, but I took a breath and calmed myself.  Reaching behind my back with a hesitant hand, I groped for what had woke me up from a sound and dreamless sleep.  The instant my hand felt the familiar texture of parchment paper I relaxed, knowing it was not something about to bite me.  Checking on Shae to make sure he was still snoozing away, I pulled out the letter, which was addressed to me.  I opened the letter in hopes that it would tell us the way out or something of that nature, but it did not.  My heart sank as I read the four words, which gave me two options; neither of these options appealed to me.  I wanted to throw that piece of parchment far away, but I could not…Shae would find it.  Thus, I folded the letter up and stuffed it deep in my bra, in hopes that Shae was too much of a gentleman to look there for anything. 

This place was ridiculous.  What they asked of someone was too much.  They were continuing to push everything I believed in…for what?  What was the point of all this?  Was there some rich benefactor watching this on a television, while he sipped a margarita, as some prostitute went down on him?  Or…  Was this really an experiment gone wrong?  All these questions raced through my mind, as I tried to erase from my memory what the letter asked of me.

As I sat there, dejected, Shae shot up like he was a newly released cork from a wine bottle.  His back was facing me and he backed up, almost tripping on my legs.  Annoyed, I asked, “What the hell are you doing?”  Then I heard a slithering, hissing noise, and my blood went cold.  Shae reached down and helped me to my feet right as the noise grew louder.

POP!  POP!  POP!  POP!

All along the hallway, vents popped opening, allowing hundreds of thousands of snakes to slither in.  “F**k!”  I heard Shae swear as he pulled me in a race to door number three.  Behind us, snakes were everywhere, like one big pulsing mass.  Shae began pounding on the handle-less door and screamed for someone to open it.  Shocked speechless, I backed into a corner as the tidal wave of snakes got closer.

“F*****g do something, Shae!  They are f*****g coming!”  I clawed at the walls, desperately hoping that by some miracle I would find something that would lead us the way out of this hell hole.

“Stand back!”  Shae shoved me out of my corner and pushed me behind him.  “Cover your ears!”  Pulling the gun out of the waistband of his jeans, Shae began shooting the door, trying to force it open.  It did not work.  All it did was create huge dents in the door, nothing useful to our dire predicament.

 I froze, when I felt something slimy move across my ankle.  I tried to scream out to Shae, who had gone back to see if he could find a crack to open the door.  The snake was huge, I could feel its width as it began to wrap around my ankle.  Shae must have realized I gone quiet, which is not like me, because he looked back at me and saw my panicked face.  In one fell swoop, he grabbed the snake and threw it into the advancing horde of snakes.  “Are you ok?”  I was surprised at the gentle tone he used, considering there were hundreds of snakes about to kill us.  “Come help me.  There is a slight crack between the door and the wall.  Maybe with your small hands, you can force it open.”  Nodding, I went to the door and found the crack that he was talking about.  I slipped a few of my fingers in the crack and managed to wedge it open a bit wider, allowing Shae to slip his fingers in. 

The snakes were only a few feet away now.  A few of the bigger ones broke free from the horde and began slithering their way to us, causing me to scream in fear.  “Shae!”  Responding to my cries, he whipped out his gun again and began shooting some of the snakes nearer to us, but then I heard the worst sound in my life…the clicking of an empty gun. 

“This makes no sense.  They always give us a fighting chance to get out of a situation.”  Shae began talking to himself in desperation.  My thoughts went to the letter and my two options.  I had to do it…I picked the lesser of the two evils.  I grabbed Shae’s arm and made him face me; he looked confused by my actions.  Right as a snake slithered its way over our shoes, I touched Shae’s lips with mine.  His arms automatically went around me, forcing my body to meld with his.  The kiss deepened and I found my arms wrapping themselves around his tall, lean muscled frame.  Shae pushed me against the door, only to be surprised that it was gone.  We fell on top of each other in a heap on the other side of the door"safe from the snakes. 

“Well, well, well, look who we have here,” said an unfamiliar voice as I stared up into the barrel of a gun.

Author's Note

I have co-wrote this story with Dog Meat Todd. All of Arielle's POV chapters have been written by me, Vanessa Rico; and all of Shae's POV chapters have been written by Dog Meat Todd! Constructive criticism is appreciated.

****All artwork has been done by my fabulously artistic co-writer, Dog Meat Todd********

Reviews

[Morgan]

This story is crazy awesome so far! I'm wondering what the hell is going on here, and I can hardly wait to see where this goes! Great ending to the third chapter, and I like the way you are switching the chapters to be from Arielle and Shae's perspectives, it works really well. Amazing job so far you guys!

[melissa]

Wow I don't blame them I would have freaked out to because,I hate snakes I'm scared of them

[Fairytale]

"(if I wanted to be truthful with myself, were quite stunning)" - this phrasing confused me. There is a bit of awkward wording which distracts me from the intriguing, exciting story line. I really like the way the story flips point of views from Arielle to Shae. I am looking forward to seeing how this story progresses. Keep up the good work.

[Chris Smith Welshpoetcs]

Damn, now I'm wanted to see what happens next ; )

[Yina]

WOW! That was intense! I love it though:)

[Matthew Smith]

-I am just not sure what their plan was yet, but I will find out. - Need to keep the past-tense, present-tense thing consistent. I've noticed a few of these issues throughout.
-and I almost punched him for his cheek. - Not sure if it's just me, but I think you meant "punched him in his cheek", or something in that line.
-shoot anyone"or anything"that would - Common WC dash glitch. There are also a couple more instances of this glitch throughout.
-An hour must have passed(no comma) before Shae decided that he could not find an access panel

There is only one major thing I have an opinion on. The narration is extremely formal, but to varying degrees in certain places. I would suggest, seeing how the story flows and the nature of Arielle, having the narrator speak as one would normally speak, that way the variation between spoken word and narration, point of view, and style isn't so, like, different in places. A big factor is judged off the comical use of flesh-eatin' ladybugs, an obviously humorous theme, but the style in which it's delivered is too stiffly formal.

I'm aware that each individual character's development and depth only can really shine through appropriately on every other chapter, but I would suggest a more aggressive description of each other's characters actions. I know each of you tag-off on your individual characters, but it seems like there's a general unwillingness to really get into the other character, to urge them and push them through the story as equally as one's own character. Idk if this makes sense.

Anyway! Was a good chapter. I'd suggest changing the ending a bit--it seems like she ends up looking into a gun barrel quite often.

[Naomi Roseღ]

This kind of reminds me of Saw, except people aren't getting blown up and their faces aren't getting ripped off XP
Each room is a different adventure. I am very interested in where this story will take me next!
Great job

[Crystal Kelly]

This was an amazing chapter!!! I mean you have me on the edge wanting to read more!!! Great chapter :)

[MR_BERG]

That's a great chapter! The dialogue crackles, and the tension between the two is palpable.

[Cody McGeary]

Another great chapter. This is a very good story you two have come up with. I have a huge fear of snakes so this chapter had an added level of creepiness to it. The cliff hanger chapter endings are awesome. Can't wait to find out whats next.

[Kevin Horsley]

Well written continuation, flowing better. Enjoying the characterisation and the thoughts around who they are up against.
I am imagining that the world is quite dystopian on the outside from the general conversation, a select few captains of industry controlling everything else.

Good write