Dissolve (31 page)

“I think so; I am just really weak and shaky. I will try to crawl to you. Just keep talking,” she said.

“I have never been so glad to hear your voice. I found someone else, but I don’t know who. They are still unconscious. Do you know what happened to you?”

“This concrete is cold,” she noted. “I was drugged. Shane and I went into the store and someone came up behind us and plunged a syringe into our flesh. That is the last thing I remember. It was so disturbing, especially since the rest of the population was mostly ash.”

“Oh Mia, I was drugged too and so was Noah. That means the rest of us must be around here as well. Can you find me?” I asked before a cool hand reached me. It gave me the chills to feel hands on me in the dark, but I shook it off once my rational mind realized it was Mia.

Mia grasped my hand tightly and then pulled me into a giant bear hug. “I have never been so glad to see somebody in all my life.”

“I know, the feeling is mutual,” I replied, returning the hug.

“I wish we could see. I want to find Shane.”

“I have one of the guys lying right here, but I can’t tell which one. He is still unconscious but has a pulse.”

Mia wasted no time feeling around the body before me. “Damn, I can’t tell either. What are we going to do now?”

“We need to find the others,” I said authoritatively.

“Okay, I will go left if you go right. Then we can meet back up by following our voices.”

“Here goes nothing.”

I broke away from the body in front of me and crawled towards the right. I went hesitantly, careful not to hit anymore wooden crates. I felt like I was crawling forever before I came across a table of some kind. I grasped the leg of the table and slid myself up it to a standing position. I brushed my hands across the top of the table and slid some papers around. Too bad I couldn’t see what they were.

I took another two steps to the right and something or someone caused me to dead stop in my tracks. I carefully bent down to a crouch and touched the object. It was another body. I kneeled down and ran my fingers across them to find their pulse. This one was stronger than the last one. They were definitely feminine, and I had a hunch this person was Nessa or Vienna.

I shook them gently and pleaded, “Wake up please!”

I felt a stirring and a cool, clammy hand grabbed my wrist. I screamed in surprise. I slid back on the floor to distance myself as I tried to calm my beating heart. The voice that came out of the figure was a small soft moan. Then I heard a gasp as they took in the surroundings. “Hello?” I ventured.

“Cora is that you?” the voice asked.

Relief flooded me as I realized it was Nessa. I hurled myself forward and pulled her up into an embrace. “Oh thank god you are okay. I was so scared when I woke up and couldn’t find anyone. Mia is the only other person awake, and we found a man’s body but they are still unconscious. Can you sit up?” I asked.

“I think so, can you help me up? I still feel weak.”

I brought Nessa to a sitting position and sat next to her, my arm around her. Then I called to Mia. “I found Nessa and she is awake. Did you have any luck?”

“No, not so far, but I haven’t gotten too far. I am still a little disoriented.”

“Nessa and I will come to you. Just keep talking like I did before so we can find you,” I said.

“I am really scared Cora. This is creepy. I can’t believe any of this has happened to us. I hope we make it out of this alive. A week ago, I never even thought something this catastrophic could happen. Now I am trapped with all these people while everyone else burns to the ground in nothing but a pile of ash. It makes me shudder.”

Nessa slowly got to her hands and knees and sidled up beside me. We touched and remained close as we followed Mia’s voice and finally reached her. She was sitting cross legged and I could tell she was shaking from fear.

“Are you okay Mia?” I asked as I grasped for her hand.

“I think so, I am just really freaked out and I can’t see anything. It is awful.”

Once I pulled myself close to Mia, I slid Nessa up and to my side. We sat there side by side in the dark, scared to death. “What now?” Nessa asked.

“We sit here and wait for someone, anyone to wake up. This place is big and we can’t split up now,” I replied.

“What about the man you found? Let’s try to go together and find him again. At least when he wakes up there will be four of us,” Mia suggested.

“Alright, that is a valid point. I want to crawl though so I don’t trip on anyone,” I said. “Let’s go then.”

I took lead and Nessa crawled right beside me on the left, so close I could feel her hair swinging as it hung down just above her shoulders. Mia brought up the right and occasionally hit my foot as we made our way forward, hoping to reach the man I found earlier. Debris cluttered the concrete floor and it stuck to my fingers as I progressed.

It was hard to navigate in the pitch blackness of the room we were in. I thought we had missed him completely and was about to turn around and move outward to widen my search. Then the tips of my fingers brush across a piece of fabric. I reach forward to inspect. Relief washes through me once we find the man’s body and I slow to a stop.

I feel Nessa and Mia come to a stop a little too late and topple the man with a loud “oomph”. In return, a slow sound returns from the body. I find his shoulders and give them a shake. “Wake up, please wake up.”

“Where am I?” escapes the sprawling man’s lips and I instantly knew it was in fact Noah.

“It is so good to hear your voice Noah. It is Cora, Nessa and Mia. We were all drugged; you were still out when I woke up.”

“Cora? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am fine besides a gash on my leg from some crates I ran into,” I said.

“My head is sore but I think I am alright. Where the in the hell are we?” he replied.

“That is the million dollar question,” Mia piped in.

Noah sat up and reached his hands out for me. I moved forward and sank into him. It felt so good to be in his arms, feeling the rapid beat of his chest. I was with Noah, it would be alright. He would keep me safe.

“Sorry to break up the reunion, but we haven’t found the others and I want to get out of this creepy place,” Nessa said.

“I miss Shane. I hope he is here somewhere,” Mia sulked.

“Alright, point taken. Let’s all stand up and hold hands. Then we can take it one step at a time until we find a door or a light of some sort. Hopefully we will come across the others as well,” I said authoritatively.

We all stood up hesitantly. I brushed the debris from the palms of my hands onto my jeans and took a deep breath. I was ready. I reached around and grasped Nessa’s hand from the right and found Noah’s at my left. I didn’t move forward until Noah squeezed my hand and let out a hushed, “ready.”

I took one step forward in sync with the others. I got a “good” in response from everyone before we took another step forward. We ended up taking three steps before we encountered anything. Mia narrowly escaped the crates I had tripped on earlier and we navigated around them before taking a fourth step. Then we took a fifth and a sixth step. At the seventh step, we hit a wall.

“It is a wall, look for anything to turn on a light or open a door,” I said.

I felt around to discover that the walls were made of solid concrete. I slid my hands up and down my section only to come up with nothing buy cobwebs that stuck to the tips of my fingers. I stood there waiting for a positive response, but only got no’s in return.

“Let’s all take four steps to the right, down the side of the wall. Maybe we will find something further down,” Nessa suggested.

Everyone said okay and we began to move off to the right. After four steps, the collective stopped. I repeated the process of searching up and down my section of concrete, hoping for something. This time, I found a box. I felt the plastic box and found it was cool metal steel on the inside of it, turning into a plastic switch. Excited, I flipped the switch.

Chapter 28:

I flipped the switch and the unexpected happened. The room did not light up in a bright glow as I hoped. Instead, a harsh red glow washed over us. It took a minute to adjust my eyes to the red tint filtering through the room but I was finally able to give Nessa a relieved look. We were going to be okay. We could find everyone else now.

“Oh my god, we are in a killing room. They are going to murder us!” Mia exclaimed as she started to cry.

Nessa wasted no time wrapping her arms around Mia to calm her down. “Shh, it is going to be okay. If they wanted to kill us, they would have done so already. Don’t worry, now we can at least find Shane and the others.”

“This is strange, no matter what. I think I am going to be sick,” Mia said, panicking.

“Calm down Mia, we are right here together and alive. Let’s concentrate on finding the rest of our group,” I said in a reassuring tone.

Noah laces his fingers through mine and I step forward, ready to look around the room. There were crates in the corner stacked up and I maneuvered around them, remembering my earlier fall.

A shoe poked out from behind the other side and I realized it was Liam once we made our way around to the body. I let go of Noah’s hand and checked Liam for a pulse. It was strong but he wasn’t conscious. Nessa saw us and rushed over to Liam’s side.

“Is he okay?” she asked with concern in her voice.

“He will be just fine. We just have to wait for the drug to wear off. Let’s pull him out of the corner and into the center of the room,” I suggested.

Nessa and I bent over and grabbed his arms and Noah grasped Liam’s legs. We slowly lifted him off the ground and moved him into the middle, careful when setting him down. Nessa knelt down and ran a hand across his face. It was clear that she cared for him. The reunion was cut short by Mia’s voice from the other side of the room.

“I found Shane; he is just starting to stir!” Mia exclaimed.

Nessa hesitantly stepped away from Liam and we all made our way over to where Mia was. She was on the ground trying to wake him. We watched as she planted a kiss on his lips and held him closely.

“Mia? Where are we?” Shane asked.

“We were all drugged, now we are trapped in a basement of some sort. So far, everyone is okay. We just have to find Vienna.”

At the mention of Vienna, my eyes swept the room. There was the table I ran into earlier and I barely saw Vienna underneath all the papers and stuff I knocked off the table.

“Let’s bring her out to the center with Liam,” Noah said authoritatively. “Where do you think we are?”

“I wish I knew. Nessa, why don’t you stay here with Vienna and Liam while we will look for clues as to why the hell we are in here. There is no telling with all this craziness going on out there,” I said pointing towards the ceiling.

I broke away from everyone and returned to the table that I found earlier. I remembered the papers I ran across and it seemed imperative to find out what they said. Upon further examination, I realized the wall was covered too. There were pictures, so many pictures. Alongside the pictures were maps and a chill spread through me. “Um, guys, you better come here and take a look at this,” I announced.

My words were interrupted by the sound of Nessa shouting. “Liam is okay, he is awake finally!”

She put his head on her lap and began to toss a barrage of questions at him. “Liam, are you okay? We were drugged. Now we are trapped in this weird basement but Vienna is still out. Did you see your attacker? What are we going to do?”

“I am okay I think. I just have a headache. I wish I saw who did this. I only felt the prick of the needle and the burning sensation as the drug took effect. I tried to see my attacker, but everything went black so fast.”

“Guys, sorry to break up the reunion, but you have to see this,” I said more insistently.

Noah was by my side in an instant, his breath on my neck as he leaned in to see what I was looking at. Caged butterflies flitted around in my stomach at his proximity, but they soon died when I came across a picture of Tom’s murder. Images flooded back to me and I lost control.

Noah managed to catch me before I sunk to the ground, but I shook him off. Tears sprung and ran down my cheeks at a steady pace. I gripped the picture and shook. The pain of that night returned in full force and I could see it all over again. The blood was everywhere and I clung to him as if he would wake up. My silky negligée was soaking up the blood as I lay there, head on his chest, sobbing.

It was like time was repeating and my panic rose. Before I could stop, I felt the seams of my skin coming undone and my particles sifting through my human body. I quickly dissolved in a rush into thin air once again. I floated through the stagnant basement, free of my chains and the pain I was gripped with. I vaguely heard my name being called, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to forget.

I was harshly flung back as I hit the impenetrable walls and felt the sting of it. I bounced towards the ceiling and was quickly stopped. The room was sealed up tight, as if they expected me. I reluctantly swirled back to reform in front of Noah. I didn’t even care that I was naked. I tried to get dressed but it was work, so much work. Each article of clothing felt like a million tons and I struggled with each piece as I reassembled them on my person.