Chapter Four: Shae's POV

Shae and Arielle meet Donnie, another teen, in the experiment.

Chapter Four

Shae

I sucked in a breath as I crawled off of Arielle with a clumsy stumble and a deep, scarlet blush.  My arm lifted to scrub against my lips, my heart thrumming in my chest.  It was hard to believe that she’d done such a thing, because it conflicted with all of her confident independence and strong femininity.  Remembering our situation, I didn’t have long to bother her for an answer.  The transition from snakes to this new person was dizzying, but I recovered quickly. Sucking in a breath, I pointed my gun, but cursed as I remembered that it was empty.

The stranger who stood in front of me was a boy.  His strawberry-blond hair was shaggy and grown out, standing out starkly against his candy green eyes.  One thin, gangly arm was out in front of him, pointing a gun that was similar, if not identical, to my 9mm pistol.  While I wielded mine with experience and direction, he was just waving it at me like a child imitating the violent influences of a video game or cartoon.  After the fun of holding a death machine, the boy dropped it and jumped up in my face like an excited animal, scoping me out.  Quickly, he lost interest again, buzzing around Arielle with the same excitement, until she managed to stand up and shoo him off.

Annoyed, I shoved the empty gun into my jeans.  He was no threat to us, an obnoxious teenager with no attention span, but not a threat.  Ushering Arielle over, I pointed to the room around us, only just then realizing what it was.  Because of our past experiences I hadn’t considered that this place, containing the other boy, would be anything other than a mock house. Likely it would be the one in which he used to live.  Instead, it was something completely different.  The space was open, the floor covered in a neatly cropped grass.  A single tree was planted in the middle, under which was a padded, round bed that looked like it was made for a dog.

Following my stare, the boy dashed over and flopped onto it, rolling over to his back with a happy-go-lucky grin.  Swallowing hard, I looked over at Arielle, “Something is really weird about this.”

“Weird?  Did you just say this is weird?”  She snapped.  I flinched, surprised that I hadn’t predicted such a reaction, “What about this isn’t weird?  I, for one, woke up in a metal prison cell, had to put this on, almost got killed by snakes, and then…”

Arielle blushed, leaving out the last bit, “Now we’ve run into some kid.  At least he isn’t trying to murder us like…”

“Like what, lady bugs?”  I snapped.

Arielle’s brows narrowed into a deep glare as she shoved past me, venturing off in favor of the blond, green-eyed boy.  He rolled over onto his stomach innocently, his eyes landing on her as she approached.  He seemed to see her as a whole, not noticing her revealing outfit in the least.  That was, of course, more than could be said for me.  Annoyed, I folded my arms, watching as Arielle fiddled with the collar around his neck.  He leaned into her with a mock, child-like innocence that made my blood boil.  Who did this kid think he was?  He was younger than us, maybe by a year or two, but not nearly enough for the way he was acting.  My hands clenched as he rubbed his grinning face against her arm.

Slapping my hand over my mouth, I stood there with wide eyes; jealousy.  Shaking my head, I reached up and gave it a rub as my lips started to tingle.  I didn’t know Arielle until a few hours ago, and when I got away, I would leave her at the finish line.  I’d spent most of my life alone.  I worked best alone.  I needed to be alone.  Suddenly, my heart wrenched.  Grinding my teeth, I stomped across the grassy turf until I was standing beside Arielle.  Both she and the boy looked up at me, startled.

Reaching down, I grabbed the boy by his arm and dragged him to his feet.  He swayed, and then stood upright, unbalanced on the strange bed-like mat.  I grabbed the collar around his neck and jerked up, gagging him a little so that I could read the polished, silver tag.  It read ‘Donnie’.  Arielle started to protest, calling me a variety of things that surrounded the words ‘idiot’ and ‘jerk’.  Putting up my hand, I signaled her to stop, which only sent her into another fury. Dominance was a pesky thing.

“Is your name Donnie?”  I snapped.

He nodded, frightened.

“Why do you have a gun, and this collar?  Where the hell did you get this stuff, and how did you get in here?  I want some answers, and I want them now.”  It wasn’t like me to be so assertive.  In fact, the words sounded strange in such a harsh and demanding voice.  However, Arielle was right.  After firing my gun, and almost being eaten by potentially poisonous snakes, I wanted to get to the bottom of our situation.

Donnie trembled in my grasp, “T, t, the cell.”

I nodded approvingly, prompting him to continue.

Reaching into the pocket of his canvas work pants, Donnie produced two pieces of dark paper that had been folded together.  Holding out his hands, he pointed to each, indicating the order in which he’d received them, and my brows furrowed with concern.  The first paper read ‘where’s your best friend?’  I remembered my own experience in the cell, and likely Arielle’s wasn’t much different.  The second paper indicated the collar, but not the gun.  It was a little longer, the typed words spelling out: ‘Can you trust us to own you?”

There was a lump in my throat, and suddenly I felt a little guilty.  Releasing Donnie, I watched as he folded the papers and slipped them back into his pocket.  He was the same as us, lost in a twisted riddle.  Likely that note, while it meant nothing to me, had some bearing on the secret to his past.  Donnie rubbed the edge of his neck with a deep glare, and I noticed the red rash mark that had appeared from the thick canvases collar being jerked up against it.  He leaned back against the tree, looking a little distant for a few seconds before regaining himself.

Though I wanted to, I dared not ask him about it.  I was just barely feeling out Arielle’s reason for being here, beyond her initial explanation.  I was getting the feeling that those who were orchestrating this ‘test’ were after something.  They knew more about us than we knew about each other, and thus I feared that making enemies so soon wouldn’t prove productive.  I decided that if nothing else, we could use him.  I tried to stop the corners of my mouth from turning up into a grin as I imagined shoving him into the passages first, or using him as a shield for Arielle and me.  The thoughts were less malicious than just a fantasy, but something about him annoyed me enough to find that fantasy satisfying.

“How do we get out of here?”

Donnie shrugged dumbly, “I don’t know; I’ve been here for a long time.  I’m not sure how long exactly, because there’s no way to tell.  I’ve been sleeping, and running around, you know. I never really looked for a way out because I figured that someone would come and let me out. Isn’t that the test, I mean, don’t we wait for someone to come and get us?”

Arielle shook her head, “No.  In case you didn’t notice, we were in a room full of snakes when you found us.  The papers, they’re the key.  If we don’t do what the papers say, then we might stay in these rooms forever.  Sounds fun and safe, but there’s no food or water, as I’m sure you know by now.”

I abandoned them in their conversation, searching for a way out, as I had in the hall before. Though experience told me that the search would be fruitless, I looked anyways, needing to clear my head.  Truthfully, despite our little nap, I was starting to feel tired again.  Donnie had a point; there was no telling whether it was day or night.  For all we knew, it could have been midnight. That or the stress of the previous events was getting to us.  The possibilities were dizzying.  I began to feel a little claustrophobic as I kicked at the grass and scratched at the walls, looking for lose panels or trap doors.  Nothing.  Then, something caught my peripheral vision.  Whipping around to face it, I discovered an object near the bottom corner of the wall.

It was a large vent.  Dashing over to it, I dropped down to my knees and peeked in, expecting to see the shadows.  Surprisingly, there was nothing but darkness.  Running my hands over the slick, metal surface, I realized something even more shocking.  There were four holes on the corners, but no screws.  Nothing was holding it down.  I dug my nails beneath the vent and popped it off, nearly jumping with excitement as I swung it out of the way.  Reaching inside, I felt around, realizing that the passage was just big enough to fit through if we crawled. Something fluttered against the tips of my fingers, and I snatched it up, withdrawing it from the darkness.

My heart skipped as I realized that it was a piece of paper.  Shoving it into my jeans without reading it, I quickly looked around myself and replaced the vent, deciding that it was better if we rested a little longer before moving on again.  Peering over my shoulder, I made sure the vent was secure before jogging back over to Arielle and Donnie, hands trembling.  Sucking in a breath to regain my composure, I stepped in between them, shielding my eyes from the neon, artificial light.  It was like we were trapped in a hamster’s cage, forcibly subjected to the luminance of a child’s bedroom.

Arielle watched as I sat and rested my back against the tree’s trunk, blinking slowly, “We should rest here for a while because if we’re in here, then at least we know that it’s safe.  Nothing has hurt Donnie yet.  If we get a few hours of real sleep, then we’ll be better prepared for whatever is beyond this room.”

Suddenly, Arielle perked up, “Did you find a way out?”

I nodded with reserve.

Donnie began to dart around with excitement in his usual, obnoxious fashion, and she came up close to look me in the eyes, “We can’t wait around here!  The sooner we get out of here the better.  Who knows how long this test is?  If we keep moving, it will be over with faster.”

“Arielle, I said that we need to rest.”

She put her hands on her hips in a huff, “Where do you get off?  You’re doing it again!  I thought that we were going to be a team, and make decisions together.  All you’re doing is bossing us around and trying to take the lead.  That’s not working together, Shae.”

Sighing, I rested both arms behind my back, “Remember when we rested last time?  They dropped you a note.  They don’t give us clues if we’re looking… think tiger.  Tigers only stalk their prey when its back is turned.  If we take this a little slower, then we won’t miss anything.  If we end up at the finish line and have to go back because we missed a note, then we’ll actually lose time.”

Arielle blinked, I hoped that she would find my logic sound.  Promptly, she lay under the tree in the speckled shade and got comfortable.  Her eyes then met mine in pointed glare, “I’m not curling up at your feet; I just can’t sleep with all the light in my eyes.  Also, if you’re getting any funny ideas about looking down my shirt, don’t.”

Rolling my eyes, I curled into myself with a growl.  How dare she accuse me of such? She was the one dressed like a school girl, and she was the one who tried to make out with me.  Now I was the pervert?  I felt a flush of guilt as those thoughts ran through my head.  It wasn’t her choice to do those things.  It was those who orchestrated the experiment, they were the ones to blame for her strange behaviors.  She told me herself that she had siblings to look after, and it was not becoming of a mother figure to portray herself as a w***e.  Gently, I leaned forward and shrugged the jacket off of my shoulders, draping it over her body.

The girl’s frame shook, startled as she quickly sat up, suspicious.

“Here; I won’t look, but if it makes you feel any better, you can wear this.”

I could tell that Arielle was reluctant.  She thought that I was patronizing her, or she wasn’t used to taking charity, but either way she settled into my jacket and clutched it around herself. She had been running around scantily clothed for hours, so I imagined that covering herself up was like a breath of fresh air.  Gently, I unfolded the tattered collar so that it lay against her face, a warm smile spreading over mine, “This will help with the light, too.”

“You’re nice all of the sudden,” She said with a guarded tone.

“Well, I didn’t want you to think that just because I’m stressed, I’m not a gentleman.”

Her look retained its defensive, suspicious glare until her eyes eventually closed.  It was easy to see that she was tired, and later, we would all be grateful for the little bit of rest.  Leaning back again, I too closed my eyes, but didn’t sleep.  Instead, I watched them.  Cautiously, I observed the rise and fall of their chests, and the peaceful thrum of their breathing, until I was sure that they had fallen sleep.  Then, I produced the note that I had found in the vent.  With a deep reluctance, I unfolded the piece of paper and rested it in my lap to read.

A bit of text in the center stated: Reload.

It didn’t take me long to understand the message.  My eyes shot to Donnie as a deep sense of uneasiness ripple through me.  Gently, I reached underneath him and retrieved the gun that he had long since forgotten.  To him it was just a toy, filled with powder caps.  I released the bullet cartridge and replaced it with my empty one before dropping the weapon in his lap.  I felt myself becoming nervous; they’d given me the gun, and then we faced snakes.  What other frightening thing existed beyond the vent that required I shoot it?  Why couldn’t Donnie shoot it instead?

I tried to stifle a laugh; that question answered itself.  Taking a deep breath, I decided that I too should get some rest while I still had the chance.  Looking over the others one last time, I laid down flat on the soft turf and dozed off

When I woke again, Arielle was tugging at my arm, shaking me awake.  Donnie was bouncing around her with eagerness and excitement.  Likely, he could have spent the rest of his life alone in that room, but now that he had attention, he wanted to be the center of it.

“Where is that way out you mentioned earlier?  We’re done sleeping, let’s get out of here.”

Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I grumbled and stood up, nodding.  I pointed across the room to the vent.  At our distance it was subtle, so I could understand why they had missed it. Together, we jogged over to the vent and like before, I pried away the cover.  Arielle scoped out the dark opening as I grabbed Donnie and pointed into it, “You go first.”

He looked betrayed, “No!”

“You’re the smallest, be a man.”

“I’m not a shield!”

“Would you two stop?”  Arielle snapped.  “You’re like a couple of five year olds!  I’ll go first.”

She zipped up my jacket and jerked the gun from my waistband, startling me.  Donnie and I watched with surprised expressions as she climbed into the small vent and made her way down what sounded like a metal passageway.  Feeling defenseless without my gun, I shot Donnie one last annoyed look before following suit.  Purely because of her previous comment, I tried desperately not to look up from the steel plated floor at Arielle ahead of me.  I managed successfully, that is, until I heard her gasp.

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.

Reviews

[A.D. Wilson]

My computer is acting weird today. It froze up last night when I tried to save my review. Oh well, I will try again.
Great chapter! Donnie is going to be a very interesting character and may cause a lot of friction between Arielle and Shea. He will most likely get them into trouble, too. I can't wait to see what happens next. Oh, there is a typo in the paragraph where Shea grabs Donnie by the collar. It says "canvases collar" instead of "canvas collar". Keep up the great work!

[anne p. murray- LadeeAn..]

You have such a talent and flair in your writing. I am excited to read it all. It captures my attention. You and Dog meat have co-authored magnificently together.
It is so professionally and creatively written, that I feel as if I'm reading something from a famous author.

[WynterPhoenix]

I'm in love with this story you guys are writing. I can't wait to read more.

[Coyote Poetry]

You have create a outstanding story. I like the characters. The situation is interesting. I like the detail and the mystery of the house. A excellent chapter. Thank you for sharing your story.
Coyote

[Hatchling]

LOVE IT!!!!!