Omar Calderón, aubergine with legs and a moustache (gravitar) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-11-12 00:42:00 |
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"Well. An elevator. Yes, this was an excellent idea." The scorn in Jonas's voice cut through the darkness. He pulled out his phone, tapping on a key that caused the light from the screen to illuminate his face like one of the spirits they'd just left behind in the hallway. He didn't bother to ask if Omar and Aisha were alright; he'd heard both of them speaking and they weren't crying (thank God) so it seemed likely that everyone had survived the ghost attack. Not that Jonas really cared, although the loss of the group's cheerleader (complete with matching short skirt) would have been tragic indeed. Their skimpily-clad compadre wasn’t ready for sarcasm quite yet. Pupillary reflexes kicking in posthaste, her pupils swelled up to the size of dinner plates as she scanned their surroundings, dark but for the harsh fluorescent glow of Jonas’ phone. “Do you think they can get in?” she asked, in a hoarse whisper, her deceivingly delicate-looking hands brushing over the crack in the elevator doors. But it would seem not. No ghostly fingers scrambled for purchase, no eerie faces appeared in the walls; nothing trembled or shook. Except, perhaps, Aisha herself, who was biting her bottom lip, hard, unwilling to let show how terrified she was. And how cold. Why hadn’t she remembered her letter jacket? "You didn't seem to have a better one either, dingbat." Omar rolled his eyes at Jonas. They'd been stuck in between a rock and a hard place, and the rock was their legs freezing up as the ghosts with knives chased them. The hard place was the elevator, which was small and dark. He wanted to believe that it would simply work fine, but the fact that the lights in it weren't working save the few on the control panel didn't bode well for him. "You okay?" he asked, then quickly added on, "Aisha?" because he didn't really care about Jonas. Aisha started to shiver, violently — she couldn’t help it. Reflexes. She turned around, leaning her back against the doors of the elevator, and slid down until she was sitting with her feet stretched out in front of her, arms folded over her knees, attempting to rub some life back into her freezing limbs. “I am fine,” she said sounding perhaps a bit snappish. Her voice softened as she spoke next, realizing how she must’ve come across. “Just — cold, that is all.” Jonas turned his phone to face it outward, allowing the light to highlight the outlines of the other two bodies in the elevator. He was inwardly relieved to find that they were the only other two bodies, half-expecting to see several other demonic and unwelcome faces staring back at him from the darkness. This was the worst hotel he'd ever stayed at, no doubt about it. "It's hard to say how long we will be here," Jonas said. "We may be reduced to sharing body heat. Unfortunately that may mean that Omar will freeze to death." By this point Omar was reaching up along the ceiling of the elevator looking for the escape hatch. All the elevators in movies had them, especially the older ones, which this elevator seemed to be. "What's this now?" he asked as he finally located the door. He turned a latch and then tried to slide the door open, but it stuck about halfway. Rusty metal, most likely. "She'd be better off with me," he said, trying the hatch a few more times before giving up. "160 pounds pure muscle, baby." “Actually,” said Aisha, in her most studious tones, “you know, it is better to have some fat on you for insulation against the cold. If you were only muscle you would be burning your energy much faster, because your muscles require...” she paused, realizing no one could possibly be interested in what she had to say, given the circumstances. “Do you need any help?” she asked, squinting up at Omar, instead. Silently, of course, she agreed with Jonas’ suggestion that they share body heat — it was biologically solid, to be sure, guaranteed to bring her at least some measure of relief. But she had no idea how one went about it, with someone who wasn’t your sister, or Jasmine, or even Bryn, or someone — female. These were boys. And they were older than her. She thought, frantically: what would Jasmine do? But what Jasmine would do, she thought, wryly, would probably be to give a blowjob. She hugged her knees to her chest. There was just no way. Glad that she had stopped talking about how he needed some fat for insulation (because the 100% muscle thing was clearly just a little bit of an exaggeration), he hit the hatch one more time, then turned around and shook his head. Which she probably couldn't see very well. "Nah," he told her that said he was giving up. "Think it's stuck. Might as well just settle in here until someone can come save us." "Great," Jonas grumbled. He turned his attention back to his phone, writing fake tweets into his text message field and then deleting them. Stuck in an elevator #NoJeah #WorseThanAHolidayInn Not even any hot tubs. #WTF He shifted a few inches closer to Aisha. "Don't worry. I promise to not let you freeze." "This is absurd," Jonas said angrily, his teeth chattering. His eyes had adjusted some to the pitch black inside the elevator, but his body heat was decreasing by the minute. According to his phone, they'd been here for hours -- although in this God-forsaken place, who even knew if time was what it pretended to be. He shifted his arm from where it was snaked around Aisha's back and it bumped into one of Omar's. He didn't mind, though -- the extra limb was good for the tiniest bit of body heat, and Jonas would take what he could get. "No one is coming to find us. We will have to get out of here some other way. I refuse to die in an ice box." "I refuse to die listening to your annoying voice," Omar grumbled, though he too didn't move away from Jonas' touch. The asshole was warmer than nothing, and he might be too proud to actually say he was cold, he wasn't so proud he would make himself colder. Still— wait. He clamped his jaw down so he could hear over the sound of his chattering jaw. "What's that noise?" Aisha was half-catatonic, wedged as she was between Omar and Jonas’ shivering bodies. Partly because she was the smallest and the least appropriately-dressed, which meant she lost body heat the fastest — but partly because she was still Not Over the fact that she was cuddling with two practically grown men, and that made her too nervous to move. She’d never even kissed a boy before! How could this have happened? Still, her head shot upright as she heard the noise, too, heart kickstarting its rabbit-like pace, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. “It sounds like — “ she whispered, but stopped short as the creak and the groan sounded again. “The elevator is shaking,” she gasped. “Does anyone else feel it?” "Merde," Jonas swore. Yes, he felt it. "We have to get out of here, now." He looked up at the cracked-open tile on the roof of the elevator, shining the light of his phone at it. Indeed, he could see the elevator shaking just as well as he could feel it. "Omar, can you...?" He knew exactly what Jonas was asking. "Yeah," he said, pulling himself to his feet, no more snide remarks or name-calling would be made now - it was time for action. He didn't even feel cold anymore, though that thought barely registered in his brain before it was gone. "But you gotta get this hatch open all the way first." Jonas had already joined him on his feet, standing several feet below the hatch. The shaking had increased and it was hard to balance. Jonas didn't know a lot about elevators, but he was pretty sure that this wasn't a good sign. He was about to ask Omar for a lift when he realized that he was weightless, already floating upward as he looked upward. Thankfully, Jonas was used to this -- he might not have been best friends with Omar, but they were teammates, after all. "Going to need a little extra," was all Jonas said before skimming some strength off the top of his two elevator companions. He worked to get an awkward grip on the hatch, struggling for several seconds before it finally popped off. "Shall we --" But Jonas's question was cut off by a loud clanging noise as one of the wires broke free, causing the elevator to shift heavily against the shaft. Their time was running very short. Aisha’s phone was buzzing. She ignored it at first, training her attention on Jonas and Omar as they struggled with the hatch, but after a long moment of feeling helpless, she dug the thing out of her sports bra and unlocked the screen. It was Rose, who said: (1/3) WHERE ARE YOU “Guys?” Aisha called up to her companions. “Rose and Oliver are stuck in the attic with demon toys and they request our help.” Just like that, matter-of-fact. She’d just begun to compose a quick, reassuring reply to the frightened redhead when the final wire snapped. They were falling. Aisha’s blood-curdling scream echoed throughout the shaft, surely the last sound she would make before she died. It happened so quickly that Omar could barely make sense of it later, but only seconds later the three of them were motionless, floating over a dark, empty shaft as the elevator plummeted to the ground stories below them. He'd grabbed Aisha seconds before the cable snapped and pulled her close, hot on Jonas' heels as he crawled out the hatch. Had they been a foot to the right or the left the ceiling of the elevator may have dragged them down with them. He still could barely believe it. They were alive. |