Narrative: a freeze-frame in the hallway Who: Santana (feel free to add your character’s reactions if they witness the public display of craziness) When: Wednesday Oct 12, lunchtime [backdated] Where: McKinley Warnings: language, what may or may not be sewerage What: Brittany’s not at school for the second day in a row. Santana does a little investigating.
Brittany was officially off the radar. School had been back in for a day and a half since the three-day weekend, and Santana hadn’t seen her bestie once. Worse, Brittany hadn’t replied to any of her texts or IMs. It was getting past the point of strange, past the point of passing it off as Britt being Britt, even past the point of annoyance.
Santana was a little worried.
Not that she’d ever admit it – and no way would she go and find Wheels and ask him if he’d heard from her. Because if Brittany was replying to Artie’s texts and calls and not hers… well, Santana didn’t know what exactly she’d do, but it was sure to be something drastic. Best to avoid the situation all together, like Santana tried to do with all things ‘Bartie’. If she didn’t think about it, it didn’t exist.
But not thinking about it didn’t make Brittany any less lost. Or any less absent-from-school, at least.
Santana missed her. It was bad enough that the whole weekend had gone by and she hadn’t seen her, but school was supposed to be where they could hang, and go to Cheerios together, and cut class, and Santana could smile and forget her fears, and forget about Artie, and it could just be the two of them.
So when Brittany didn’t show, and Santana didn’t get hang-times with her BFF? She had to investigate.
Missing Cheerios practice was a serious enough offence. But not replying to a text message was way worse. So Santana started with the basics – Brittany’s locker. It was right by hers, so as soon as class let out, she made her way there, her cell phone in hand. It was pretty likely that Britt had just left her phone in her locker over the weekend, and she hadn’t been able to, like, text Santana and tell her about her family’s impromptu roadtrip. They’d probably left so quickly that Britt couldn’t even call her, or send an email.
She hit number 1 on her speed-dial, then raised her hand to the locker to see if she could feel any vibrations from within. The moment her fingers touched metal, everything froze –-
-- and she was in that weird, silent dream-space again. She recognized it immediately; the sensation was familiar by now. It was dark, and when she inhaled, it smelt musty and damp. So where was she? She took a tentative step forward, and immediately stepped into a puddle.
“Oh, gross!” The splashing sound of shoe meeting wetness made her cringe, and she couldn’t see well enough to tell, but her white trainers were probably ruined. Wet socks. The worst.
She kept going. She had to. She was in a tunnel, it seemed. Concrete encircling her, surrounding her from the ground to the ceiling. She kept walking, shoes sloshing through the liquid on the ground. Soon, the tunnel she was walking along met up with another one. This one had a steady stream of water rushing through it, and the top of the tunnel was lower; she had to bend forwards and keep her head low as her tunnel thing merged into the other. The water was up to her ankles now, and as a hint of sunlight shone down from above, she could see that the water she was wading through was the color of mud.
Oh. God. She fought back the urge to vomit, and just walked faster, following the twists and turns of the tunnel. It met another tunnel, this time bigger, and deeper. The water was up to her knees now, and something was compelling her to walk in the other direction – against the flow of water-mud-goop in the bigger tunnel.
So she did, cursing as she stumbled and splashed herself in her flailing efforts to stay upright. This was getting close to the Tina-dream in terms of horror-factor. She was trying really, really hard not to think about exactly what she was wading through.
Rainwater, probably. This was the storm water drain, and the weather had been nuts lately, so there was lots of water to drain, or whatever. And lots of dirt in Lima, that was why it was so muddy.
She kept walking. It felt like she’d been wading through the sludge-water for hours. The glimpses of sunlight dotting the tunnel were more frequent in this bigger tunnel. Up ahead, there was what looked like a landing – a little nook in the concrete wall raised a little higher than the rushing water. And … a glimpse of yellow. No, gold. That was hair she could see in the dark tunnel. A very messy, long blond ponytail, and the long legs of a very slim person curled up inside the nook--
--“Britt!” Santana yelled out. But she wasn’t in the tunnel anymore. She was in the busy hallway, her palm flat against Brittany’s locker, shouting at the combination lock hanging from it.
Well shit. She pulled her hand away like it’d burnt her, and looked down at herself. Her shoes were pristine. Her legs were dry and tanned and not a hint of mud to be seen.
She had to save Brittany. She had to get her out of the tunnel. Santana took a hurried step backwards, then turned full circle to see just how many people had been witness to her little outburst. And who knew how long she’d been standing there, frozen, her hand against the locker. That was how it always happened with these awake-dream things. She’d just never had one in such a public location before.
Fuck.
She had to get out of there before somebody could ask questions, or try and feel her forehead, or call the nurse or whatever.
Santana took off at a sprint, shoving her way through the students with enough force to make Coach Sylvester proud.