On the Run - A HermitCraft Fanfic

Chapter 13

I was still shaking. After seeing X like that I was scared. What were they planning to do to me? Cub had taken me to his office. I was to stay here until he came back with somebody who could take me to my 'chamber' but I knew he was just planning on putting me in one of those horrible cells. I couldn't let that happen.

I was sitting on the edge of Cub's desk and swinging my legs and waiting for the Vexes to come up when it hit me. They were gone. Now was my chance.

I slid off the desk and walked to the door of the office. It had a glass window in the middle so I kneeled and stuck the top of my head over to see the outside. Humans were walking by. Or what looked like humans, but they all had the same white suit that Scar and Cub wore. That meant they were probably employees.

I sighed through gritted teeth and turned around to sit with my back to the door. Only then did I notice the vent in the top corner of the room. It was pretty small but then again I had been malnourished for the last 20 years.

I stood up and walked over to it, and of course, it was too tall for me to get to. I had to drag a chair over from Cub's desk to be able to reach it and undo the screw holding it into the wall. I used a pencil to get them out and almost dropped the vent cover at how heavy it was. I floated off the chair and gently placed the cover on the ground before standing back in the chair and putting my arms into the small hole in the wall.

If I could just get my shoulders through them the rest would be almost smooth sailing. My wings would rub against the roof of the vent but the position of my feathers would minimise friction.

I stuck my hands to the sidewalls and pulled myself up to the point that my torso was being jabbed by the edge of the wall. I squeezed in and managed to get my stomach and hips through. How stupid I would have looked if Cub had walked in to see flailing legs sticking out of his wall.

I pulled myself through and relaxed when I felt my feet were fully inside. Then I started to drag myself along the floor of the vent and through the inside of the building.

I kept going until I came across something I forgot I would encounter, the lift shaft. I looked down to the never-ending abyss and gulped. I would have to jump in top of the lift when no one was inside and get in through the emergency exit trapdoor.

So I did just that. I waited for the lift to come to a stop at the floor just below me and carefully jumped onto the roof. There was a small bang and I heard the footsteps inside stop for a second before presumably shrugging it off. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and felt the lift start to move.

Instead of moving down, it went up. I was watching as the ceiling got closer and was going to crush me between the cold metal lift ceiling and the wet roof. I lay down and spread myself out like a star and closed my eyes.

Then it stopped and there was a ping. I opened my eyes to see the roof was right in front of me. Any higher and I would have been squashed like a bug. My breath got quicker and heavier, I had to squeeze my arm around to my face so I could cover my mouth with my hand to shut myself up.

There was another ping and some humming before the lift started moving down again. I turned around so I was lying on my stomach. I waited for the lift to stop and the person to get out and carefully stood up to open the trapdoor and climb into the lift.

I made a loud clank as my feet hit the floor and I hid behind the wall of the lift so nobody could see me at first glance. Slowly, I poked my head around the corner and saw nobody about to come into the lift. Then I pressed the button for the bottom floor.

The doors slid closed and I relaxed. I slid down the wall so I was sitting on the floor and stretched my legs out. So much had happened in only a few days and it was so much to take in. This was the first bit of silence I had in a while.

My mind wandered to my friends at the house and more particularly, Mumbo. He was trying to get back to us and help. I wish he had got to us. The feeling of him picking me up in his arms and carrying me away to safety is all I need right now. For him to hold me close and tell me it's all going to be ok.

The lift doors opened and broke me out of my thoughts. I once again poked my head out and saw only the crystal eyed vexes again. I assumed they were to lose in whatever state they were in to be able to stop me but I still wanted to be careful.

I slowly flew just above they're head height and landed when I got to X's cage. The music had stopped playing and X was curled up in a ball, rocking back and forwards, in the corner of the small room.

"X. Xisuma. Xisuma I'm here, it's ok your safe." He didn't move, not even turn his head to me. But he was mumbling something. I looked down the corridor at all the other vexes and saw that none of them was looking at us or had heard me flying down here. So I banged on the bars in desperation and made any small attempts to get to X.

And it bent the bars apart the smallest bit. I squared myself up sideways and saw that just a little bit more and I'd be able to slip through and get to X. So I kept whacking the bars with everything I had, which granted wasn't very much but a little strength over a long time achieves big things.

Luckily the vexes were so into their jobs and the screams were so loud that nobody notices the bird who sat comforting a mumbling warden in his cell. I could hear what he was mumbling now and it was the lyrics to the song. Then I realised why he was ignoring me. He couldn't hear me. His hearing was so captivating that audio played for long enough would be stuck going through his horns, which one of had the tip of snapped off now and the other didn't have a single spot that hadn't been clawed at. The poor warden couldn't hear anything except the same destroying song over and over again.

I sat next to him and was holding his hand whispering to him all the things I wished Mumbo would be here to tell me. I rubbed my thumb on his hand like a caring mother and I felt his hand twitch. I looked up at him and it felt like he was looking back. Then I got my hopes up.

He was still murmuring but not just the song anymore. There's was other words out in like my name or 'help' or 'make it stop'.

So I stayed by his side and pulled him away from the corner he was in. I leaned all of his weight against me and pulled my wings around us to make a sort of shelter. The light spots that came through the feathers would have been beautiful in any other situation as they danced along with our faces.

I leaned my head on him as he was still muttering, but more clear than before. X was speaking in sentences now and it wasn't as much of the song. Then I had a thought that hadn't occurred to me before. How would I get X out if he was in this state? I couldn't walk him out and I can't fly him out because my wings are still damaged and can't do long distances.

As I was racking my brain trying to come up with a solution there are footsteps. I didn't think much of it and assumed it was a vex going to work. But when the one set of footsteps turned into multiple then the panic set in. It was Cub and his guards coming to find us. He must have realised I wasn't in his office.

I clutched X and prepared for the grabbing and trying to tear us apart. Poor X was so confused as he couldn't properly hear the footsteps. As they got closer he started to hear them and we both sat in fear hoping the inevitable didn't happen.