Author's Note: I may or may not have gone way overboard with this. But stick to the end. It's worth it. Maybe. Possibly. Just read it. Please. (Oh, and I apologize for the language. Please forgive me, Lindner/Williams/random people/idk/I'm so exhausted rn.
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"Oh, shit."
I lifted my foot, feeling the sticky gum still connecting the bottom of my brand new sneakers to the hot asphalt. Great. Just great. I scraped my sole against the concrete, trying to get off the last pieces of bubble gum left on my shoe.
"Well this is a good omen," I muttered to myself.
I sighed and glanced up at the looming grey building in front of me. I've always hated dentist offices. That sterile smell that seems to stick to all your clothes, those stupid grubby kids that are always running around and touching everything, those idiotic questions the dentist always asks you, his hand halfway down your esophagus. Which is why, you can imagine, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about getting all four of my wisdom teeth yanked out.
I reluctantly opened the door to the building, stepping into the air-conditioned interior. The waiting room was all stark white and sharp angles -- the bright sterility of the room half-blinding me. A poised blonde women sat, back perfectly straight and hands fluttering like birds above her keyboard, behind the receptionist desk. Her eyes flickered up. "Name?" she said, her voice strangely both soothing and robot-like.
"Charlotte Payne," I answered. The woman typed something into the computer and nodded.
"You can go ahead through that door. Dr. Petrov is ready for you."
I gave her a shaky smile and followed one of the nurses through the door next to the receptionist office. The nurse, another blonde woman, guided me through a maze of hallways into yet another aseptic room. "Dr. Petrov will be here in a few minutes," she said, the faintest Russian accent tinging her voice. I nodded, and she left.
I had barely gotten comfortable on the plastic dentist chair when the door swung open and Dr. Petrov walked in. He was a hulking figure, and I was afraid for a second that the buttons on his taut white coat were going to pop off. The bright fluorescent lights reflected off his perfectly bald head.
"Hello..." he glanced down at a clipboard in his hand. "Charlotte. You're getting your wisdom teeth out today, right?" I mutely nodded. "Well, no sense in wasting time. Let's get started."
"Y-yeah." I laughed weakly. "Let's do this thing."
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The world was... heavy.
Part of me knew that it didn't make any sense, but it was as if a thousand pounds had been attached to my body. I could feel something soft against my back, and it was as if I was in fact sinking into the plush material. I let myself relax, feeling a wave of calm wash over me as I just let myself drift away...
"Dude! Wake up!"
And then the serene feeling was gone as I felt a wave of pain jolt from my leg as something smashed into my shin. I forced my eyelids open, squinting against the sudden light.
"O-oh my God." A terrified face was just inches away from mine, and I let out a surprised gasp and sat up suddenly, banging our heads together. Great, I thought, pain throbbing from both my leg and my forehead.
The boy in front me let out a sigh of relief. "You're awake!" I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzziness from my brain. Something about his voice seemed off, like he was talking with a mouth full of food. I blinked once, twice.
We were inside a small carpeted compartment, each side of the room with two red seats and the wall painted a deep shade of maroon. The boy was sitting across from me, and I noticed with a jolt that a brown leather briefcase was handcuffed to his wrist. I looked down to my own arm and saw that I had a matching black briefcase attached to my forearm.
The whole room was shuddering, and I turned to the side, a wave of panic rising inside of me, and yanked on one of the curtains on the wall. The curtain rolled upwards with a loud pop, revealing unfamiliar rolling hills of green and brown. What the hell...
"Is th-this a weird laughing gas trip?" The boy whispered. His voice shook with a strong stutter as he stumbled over his words, long pauses interrupting his speech. "Holy shit. This is so weird." I suddenly realized why his voice sounded so muffled as a string of drool dripped from his mouth. He reached into his mouth and pulled out bloody gauze. The cloth fell from his fingers, and he suddenly started giggling uncontrollably. "I can't feel my mouth!" He yanked on his bottom lip, his quiet chuckling growing louder into loud guffawing.
"What the hell are you doing?" I half-screamed, my own mouth barely even working. I spat out the bloody gauze from my mouth onto the ground and resisted the urge to strangle the boy into compliance. "Where the heck are we? What am I doing here?"
The boy's eyes grew large and frightened as his laugh quieted down. "Wait. This isn't a dream?"
"What?" I squinted at him. "No!"
"Oh... oh my God..." He sunk down in his chair, his facial expression growing more panicked with every passing moment. I could tell the truth was finally dawning on him as his stutter grew worse. "I c-can't die today... tomorrow was supposed to be Taco Tuesday..." he whispered to himself, staring at the floor.
I stared at him incredulously and then gave up on communication. I frantically ran through my thoughts, trying to piece together my hazy memories. I remembered Dr. Petrov placing the mask on me, and then black. That was it. "Damn it!" I quietly cussed.
I felt something brush against my arm as I shifted in my seat, and I glanced down to see a slip of paper sticking out of my front pocket. That's strange... I don't remember that being there earlier. I tugged the paper out with my one free hand and unfolded it.
Deliver to 3847 Yorkshire Drive. Do not open the suitcase.
Across from me, the boy was on the verge of hyperventilating, his quiet squeaks the only sound in the silent room. I wasn't exactly calm myself, but I took a few deep breaths, trying to slow down my pounding heart. Figure out what's going on. Stay calm. Survive. I silently coached myself.
"Hey..." I paused, motioning for him to fill in his name.
"L-Leonard." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his hand shaking.
"Leonard. Calm the hell down. Look, we're going to get out of this, alright? But you're not helping anybody by freaking out. Got it?" I tried to steady my shaky voice, attempting to sound more confident than I felt. It seemed to work on Leonard because his face a slightly less ghastly shade of paper white, and he seemed to be breathing at an almost normal pace.
"What do you remember last?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Um... I was at the dentist. That's it." His eyes flickered nervously to the briefcase attached to his arm. "What's in this? Drugs? A bomb?!"
I tried to open the case, but it was securely locked shut. "I have no idea. But I'd rather not find out." I looked back out of the window, where small groups of houses were starting to pop up now and then. I had the feeling we were nearing an urban area as buildings became more frequent.
"So here's the plan." I leaned forward and whispered to him, just in case there was a microphone nearby. "We're going to get off of this train, and we're going to go to the nearest police station and figure out what the heck is going on. Okay?"
"Alright..." I let out a surprised gasp as the train suddenly jolted, my head hitting the seat. There was a long screech from outside as the train braked and slowed to a stop.
I almost jumped to my feet, grabbing Leonard's arm and yanking him up with me. "Come on. We have got to get out of here." I paused for a moment before pulling open the compartment door open, cautiously glancing down the hallway. No one appeared.
Leonard and I stepped out into the hallway, slowly making our way past dark windows and closed doors. We finally came the last door at the end of the hallway. I took a deep breath and opened it.
A fresh breeze and the sound of birds twittering hit me hard like a wall. The train had just stopped in the middle of nowhere, the only sign of civilization the train itself and a wide dirt road in front of me. Somehow, it was even scarier than if I had walked out into a barren landscape. How could everything look so normal when it clearly wasn't?
"Look!" Leonard nudged me in the side with his briefcase and pointed behind me with his other hand. I spun around and spotted the small car parked farther down the dirt road. My heart leapt with joy. If we could just drive into a city, we could get to a police station or at least a populated area and get some help.
This nightmare will be all over soon.
Leonard and I sprinted across the grass field to the car, both of our numb mouths spreading into wide grins, despite the situation. I yanked on the car door handle, holding my breath. It opened with a loud click.
"Yes!" I climbed inside, forgetting about my briefcase for a moment and accidentally banging it against the side of the car. Whoops. A pair of keys were already in the ignition, so I went ahead and started the car.
"Um..." I heard Leonard mumble something beside me.
"What?"
"This is easy," he whispered. "Too easy."
A red flag went up somewhere in my head, but I just ignored it. "Look, as long as we get to a city, we'll be fine. It's going to be fine." He still seemed hesitant, but he didn't speak up again.
I drove onto the road and continued down it at a good clip. It was a little hard navigating the car over potholes with a heavy briefcase attached to my arm, but I managed to do it. After half an hour, the dirt road intersected with a paved road, more cars whooshing past us.
"We're almost there," I said.
We had been driving down the road for only a few minutes when Leonard spoke in a panicked voice. "That car's been following us for a mile."
"We've only been driving for, like, five minutes. I'm sure it's a coincidence." I still checked the mirror though, glancing at the black van on our tail. Thinking back, I did remember seeing it when we had first gotten on the paved road. I tried switching lanes, and the car did the same. I swerved back to the right, and the car slowed down and moved a few cars behind us, but still stayed close enough to be in my line of vision.
They were definitely following us.
My heart started pounding again. "Okay, no time to try to find a police station. We're going to find some place safe with a lot of people, get a phone, and call 911. No one's going to hurt us with people around."
It didn't take long for us to come upon a mall. I waited until the last minute before skidding into the parking lot, hoping to throw off the black van, but it easily followed us. "We're going to make a run for it," I said.
I screeched into a parking spot and flung open the door without even switching off the car first. Leonard and I sprinted across the parking lot, weaving in between cars and risking furtive glances behind us to see what the black car was doing. As I watched, a few musclebound guys opened the doors and stepped out, one of them making eye contact with me.
"Faster!" I screamed, my sneakers pounding against the pavement. Leonard and I ran inside, our handcuffed briefcases swinging against our hips and flying everywhere. A few people gave us some weird looks, but I didn't stop running until we reached the food court and had lost the goons far behind us.
"Please, help!" I grabbed onto the arm of the first person we passed.
"W-what's wrong?" She had a toddler in a stroller, and he let out a loud wail as she took a nervous step back.
"Just, please, could we borrow your phone? We need to call the police. It's an emergency!" I was begging her now, whatever anesthesia I had been on wearing off. My mouth started to throb as the reality of the situation started to dawn on me. I had been kidnapped, chained to God-knows-what, lost in a completely unfamiliar place, and now I was finally almost safe.
She hesitantly handed me her cell phone, and I flipped it open, quickly dialing 9-1-1 into the keypad. There was one ring, and then a calm voice came over the speaker.
"This is 9-1-1. What is your emergency?"
"Oh my God, thank God," I breathed out. "My name is Charlotte Payne, and I've been kidnapped. It was just supposed to be a wisdom teeth removal, and then I just woke up in a train, and there's a briefcase attached to my arm, and I have no idea what's--"
"Okay, just take a deep breath," the voice said. "We have your location, and we're sending you help right now. Stay with me, okay?"
"Alright." The moment of calm was interrupted by a loud clang beside me. I looked down to see Leonard banging on his briefcase. "Leonard? What are you doing!"
"We need to open the briefcase," he grunted. He had picked up a rock from one of the potted plants in the mall and was now smashing it against the lock of the suitcase, trying to break it open. "If I'm going to be chained to something, I want to know what it is."
The lock finally cracked, the curved metal piece detaching from the main section. Leonard deftly removed the lock, and opened the briefcase. Inside, lay a single smashed vial, the colored liquid once inside the test tube staining the inside of the briefcase bright green.
"What the..." Leonard stumbled backwards, the briefcase still attached to his wrist. The shattered vial shards tumbled onto the ground, the green drops still clinging to the glass dripping onto the ground.
I felt my chest start to tighten as my vision suddenly went blurry. A faint roaring sounded from deep inside my house. In a moment of clarity, I blinked and saw Leonard drop to his knees, puking all over the ground.
I took a step back, the roaring sound growing louder. I could hear screams coming from around me, but it was as if I was in a dream. Fragmented sentences echoed in my head. Bioterrorist... biochemical weapons... they... they wanted you to open the briefcase... they manipulated your every move.
And as my vision faded to black and I tumbled through the abyss, I managed to say two last words.
"Oh, shit."
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"Oh, shit."
I lifted my foot, feeling the sticky gum still connecting the bottom of my brand new sneakers to the hot asphalt. Great. Just great. I scraped my sole against the concrete, trying to get off the last pieces of bubble gum left on my shoe.
"Well this is a good omen," I muttered to myself.
I sighed and glanced up at the looming grey building in front of me. I've always hated dentist offices. That sterile smell that seems to stick to all your clothes, those stupid grubby kids that are always running around and touching everything, those idiotic questions the dentist always asks you, his hand halfway down your esophagus. Which is why, you can imagine, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about getting all four of my wisdom teeth yanked out.
I reluctantly opened the door to the building, stepping into the air-conditioned interior. The waiting room was all stark white and sharp angles -- the bright sterility of the room half-blinding me. A poised blonde women sat, back perfectly straight and hands fluttering like birds above her keyboard, behind the receptionist desk. Her eyes flickered up. "Name?" she said, her voice strangely both soothing and robot-like.
"Charlotte Payne," I answered. The woman typed something into the computer and nodded.
"You can go ahead through that door. Dr. Petrov is ready for you."
I gave her a shaky smile and followed one of the nurses through the door next to the receptionist office. The nurse, another blonde woman, guided me through a maze of hallways into yet another aseptic room. "Dr. Petrov will be here in a few minutes," she said, the faintest Russian accent tinging her voice. I nodded, and she left.
I had barely gotten comfortable on the plastic dentist chair when the door swung open and Dr. Petrov walked in. He was a hulking figure, and I was afraid for a second that the buttons on his taut white coat were going to pop off. The bright fluorescent lights reflected off his perfectly bald head.
"Hello..." he glanced down at a clipboard in his hand. "Charlotte. You're getting your wisdom teeth out today, right?" I mutely nodded. "Well, no sense in wasting time. Let's get started."
"Y-yeah." I laughed weakly. "Let's do this thing."
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The world was... heavy.
Part of me knew that it didn't make any sense, but it was as if a thousand pounds had been attached to my body. I could feel something soft against my back, and it was as if I was in fact sinking into the plush material. I let myself relax, feeling a wave of calm wash over me as I just let myself drift away...
"Dude! Wake up!"
And then the serene feeling was gone as I felt a wave of pain jolt from my leg as something smashed into my shin. I forced my eyelids open, squinting against the sudden light.
"O-oh my God." A terrified face was just inches away from mine, and I let out a surprised gasp and sat up suddenly, banging our heads together. Great, I thought, pain throbbing from both my leg and my forehead.
The boy in front me let out a sigh of relief. "You're awake!" I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzziness from my brain. Something about his voice seemed off, like he was talking with a mouth full of food. I blinked once, twice.
We were inside a small carpeted compartment, each side of the room with two red seats and the wall painted a deep shade of maroon. The boy was sitting across from me, and I noticed with a jolt that a brown leather briefcase was handcuffed to his wrist. I looked down to my own arm and saw that I had a matching black briefcase attached to my forearm.
The whole room was shuddering, and I turned to the side, a wave of panic rising inside of me, and yanked on one of the curtains on the wall. The curtain rolled upwards with a loud pop, revealing unfamiliar rolling hills of green and brown. What the hell...
"Is th-this a weird laughing gas trip?" The boy whispered. His voice shook with a strong stutter as he stumbled over his words, long pauses interrupting his speech. "Holy shit. This is so weird." I suddenly realized why his voice sounded so muffled as a string of drool dripped from his mouth. He reached into his mouth and pulled out bloody gauze. The cloth fell from his fingers, and he suddenly started giggling uncontrollably. "I can't feel my mouth!" He yanked on his bottom lip, his quiet chuckling growing louder into loud guffawing.
"What the hell are you doing?" I half-screamed, my own mouth barely even working. I spat out the bloody gauze from my mouth onto the ground and resisted the urge to strangle the boy into compliance. "Where the heck are we? What am I doing here?"
The boy's eyes grew large and frightened as his laugh quieted down. "Wait. This isn't a dream?"
"What?" I squinted at him. "No!"
"Oh... oh my God..." He sunk down in his chair, his facial expression growing more panicked with every passing moment. I could tell the truth was finally dawning on him as his stutter grew worse. "I c-can't die today... tomorrow was supposed to be Taco Tuesday..." he whispered to himself, staring at the floor.
I stared at him incredulously and then gave up on communication. I frantically ran through my thoughts, trying to piece together my hazy memories. I remembered Dr. Petrov placing the mask on me, and then black. That was it. "Damn it!" I quietly cussed.
I felt something brush against my arm as I shifted in my seat, and I glanced down to see a slip of paper sticking out of my front pocket. That's strange... I don't remember that being there earlier. I tugged the paper out with my one free hand and unfolded it.
Deliver to 3847 Yorkshire Drive. Do not open the suitcase.
Across from me, the boy was on the verge of hyperventilating, his quiet squeaks the only sound in the silent room. I wasn't exactly calm myself, but I took a few deep breaths, trying to slow down my pounding heart. Figure out what's going on. Stay calm. Survive. I silently coached myself.
"Hey..." I paused, motioning for him to fill in his name.
"L-Leonard." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his hand shaking.
"Leonard. Calm the hell down. Look, we're going to get out of this, alright? But you're not helping anybody by freaking out. Got it?" I tried to steady my shaky voice, attempting to sound more confident than I felt. It seemed to work on Leonard because his face a slightly less ghastly shade of paper white, and he seemed to be breathing at an almost normal pace.
"What do you remember last?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Um... I was at the dentist. That's it." His eyes flickered nervously to the briefcase attached to his arm. "What's in this? Drugs? A bomb?!"
I tried to open the case, but it was securely locked shut. "I have no idea. But I'd rather not find out." I looked back out of the window, where small groups of houses were starting to pop up now and then. I had the feeling we were nearing an urban area as buildings became more frequent.
"So here's the plan." I leaned forward and whispered to him, just in case there was a microphone nearby. "We're going to get off of this train, and we're going to go to the nearest police station and figure out what the heck is going on. Okay?"
"Alright..." I let out a surprised gasp as the train suddenly jolted, my head hitting the seat. There was a long screech from outside as the train braked and slowed to a stop.
I almost jumped to my feet, grabbing Leonard's arm and yanking him up with me. "Come on. We have got to get out of here." I paused for a moment before pulling open the compartment door open, cautiously glancing down the hallway. No one appeared.
Leonard and I stepped out into the hallway, slowly making our way past dark windows and closed doors. We finally came the last door at the end of the hallway. I took a deep breath and opened it.
A fresh breeze and the sound of birds twittering hit me hard like a wall. The train had just stopped in the middle of nowhere, the only sign of civilization the train itself and a wide dirt road in front of me. Somehow, it was even scarier than if I had walked out into a barren landscape. How could everything look so normal when it clearly wasn't?
"Look!" Leonard nudged me in the side with his briefcase and pointed behind me with his other hand. I spun around and spotted the small car parked farther down the dirt road. My heart leapt with joy. If we could just drive into a city, we could get to a police station or at least a populated area and get some help.
This nightmare will be all over soon.
Leonard and I sprinted across the grass field to the car, both of our numb mouths spreading into wide grins, despite the situation. I yanked on the car door handle, holding my breath. It opened with a loud click.
"Yes!" I climbed inside, forgetting about my briefcase for a moment and accidentally banging it against the side of the car. Whoops. A pair of keys were already in the ignition, so I went ahead and started the car.
"Um..." I heard Leonard mumble something beside me.
"What?"
"This is easy," he whispered. "Too easy."
A red flag went up somewhere in my head, but I just ignored it. "Look, as long as we get to a city, we'll be fine. It's going to be fine." He still seemed hesitant, but he didn't speak up again.
I drove onto the road and continued down it at a good clip. It was a little hard navigating the car over potholes with a heavy briefcase attached to my arm, but I managed to do it. After half an hour, the dirt road intersected with a paved road, more cars whooshing past us.
"We're almost there," I said.
We had been driving down the road for only a few minutes when Leonard spoke in a panicked voice. "That car's been following us for a mile."
"We've only been driving for, like, five minutes. I'm sure it's a coincidence." I still checked the mirror though, glancing at the black van on our tail. Thinking back, I did remember seeing it when we had first gotten on the paved road. I tried switching lanes, and the car did the same. I swerved back to the right, and the car slowed down and moved a few cars behind us, but still stayed close enough to be in my line of vision.
They were definitely following us.
My heart started pounding again. "Okay, no time to try to find a police station. We're going to find some place safe with a lot of people, get a phone, and call 911. No one's going to hurt us with people around."
It didn't take long for us to come upon a mall. I waited until the last minute before skidding into the parking lot, hoping to throw off the black van, but it easily followed us. "We're going to make a run for it," I said.
I screeched into a parking spot and flung open the door without even switching off the car first. Leonard and I sprinted across the parking lot, weaving in between cars and risking furtive glances behind us to see what the black car was doing. As I watched, a few musclebound guys opened the doors and stepped out, one of them making eye contact with me.
"Faster!" I screamed, my sneakers pounding against the pavement. Leonard and I ran inside, our handcuffed briefcases swinging against our hips and flying everywhere. A few people gave us some weird looks, but I didn't stop running until we reached the food court and had lost the goons far behind us.
"Please, help!" I grabbed onto the arm of the first person we passed.
"W-what's wrong?" She had a toddler in a stroller, and he let out a loud wail as she took a nervous step back.
"Just, please, could we borrow your phone? We need to call the police. It's an emergency!" I was begging her now, whatever anesthesia I had been on wearing off. My mouth started to throb as the reality of the situation started to dawn on me. I had been kidnapped, chained to God-knows-what, lost in a completely unfamiliar place, and now I was finally almost safe.
She hesitantly handed me her cell phone, and I flipped it open, quickly dialing 9-1-1 into the keypad. There was one ring, and then a calm voice came over the speaker.
"This is 9-1-1. What is your emergency?"
"Oh my God, thank God," I breathed out. "My name is Charlotte Payne, and I've been kidnapped. It was just supposed to be a wisdom teeth removal, and then I just woke up in a train, and there's a briefcase attached to my arm, and I have no idea what's--"
"Okay, just take a deep breath," the voice said. "We have your location, and we're sending you help right now. Stay with me, okay?"
"Alright." The moment of calm was interrupted by a loud clang beside me. I looked down to see Leonard banging on his briefcase. "Leonard? What are you doing!"
"We need to open the briefcase," he grunted. He had picked up a rock from one of the potted plants in the mall and was now smashing it against the lock of the suitcase, trying to break it open. "If I'm going to be chained to something, I want to know what it is."
The lock finally cracked, the curved metal piece detaching from the main section. Leonard deftly removed the lock, and opened the briefcase. Inside, lay a single smashed vial, the colored liquid once inside the test tube staining the inside of the briefcase bright green.
"What the..." Leonard stumbled backwards, the briefcase still attached to his wrist. The shattered vial shards tumbled onto the ground, the green drops still clinging to the glass dripping onto the ground.
I felt my chest start to tighten as my vision suddenly went blurry. A faint roaring sounded from deep inside my house. In a moment of clarity, I blinked and saw Leonard drop to his knees, puking all over the ground.
I took a step back, the roaring sound growing louder. I could hear screams coming from around me, but it was as if I was in a dream. Fragmented sentences echoed in my head. Bioterrorist... biochemical weapons... they... they wanted you to open the briefcase... they manipulated your every move.
And as my vision faded to black and I tumbled through the abyss, I managed to say two last words.
"Oh, shit."