Alice in Borderland: The Cycle Continues

2) Six of Clubs [2] ✭

===Rafferty Bucke===

"Behind here!" I directed as two bullets whizzed past us. We turned right and entered a large network of meeting rooms.

"Let's hide in one of the meeting rooms." Judumai murmured between breaths and pulled me into one, closing the door.

We got behind a desk in the corner and I muffled my wail as a scorpion stung the side of my hips. I pulled it off and crushed it with my foot.

"Why the hell would people have glass meeting rooms? There's no privacy in the first place!" Judumai whispered, keeping a careful eye through the glass walls as the tagger passed our room.

Our bracelets vibrated again. Looking down, I realized with a wave of dread that already, only four remained, and there were still fifteen minutes left.

"At l-least it wasn't the girl. We still n-need to find her."

"Each floor is so massive and presents so much of a threat, so how are we gonna even find the stairwells? I was so busy running that I barely even remember the path we took to get here from the previous stairwell, and that's exactly where the tagger could be."

"Okay, let's just think about t-this with some basic logic." Rafferty closed his eyes in concentration. "Th-The elevator was south, and the stairwell we both took was on the west s-side. However, it was also towards the upper e-end of the west wall."

"It doesn't make sense for there to be only one flight of stairs."

"E-Exactly."

"So if one of the stairwells is on the west side..."

"Then the other i-is most likely on the east side, either across from the west s-stairwell or in towards the southeast, mirroring the northwest f-flight of stairs."

"Hmm... You're right. So I guess either one would work then." He gasped in pain as a spider bit his forearm. "Let's move, if the tagger doesn't find us these bugs will soon kill us."

I attempted to get up but the beating pain kept me down. The waves of pain aligned with my heartbeat, and the corners of my vision deteriorated.

"Hey!" Judumai put my arm around his shoulders and balanced me.

"I-I'm fine I think, let's just make our way to the n-nearest exit."

With his aid, I hobbled alongside him as we slowly left the network of rooms into a more open lounge area. "Hey, Rafferty! That's the elevator. So if your theory is correct, the door to the stairs should be right..."

"Okay, let's m-make our way there." I slapped a spider off my thigh as we turned the corner. "Y-You know, it could be w-way worse. At least none of u-us have been frozen yet."

"Yeah... It could be way worse! Your theory was correct!"

In front of us was the door, the silver plaque labeled 'Emergency Stairs' glistening against the fluorescent light.

"You c-can let go of me now, I feel better."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Slowly, Judumai released me and opened the door to the stairwell. I felt the burn of his stare as he watched me. We made the descent, and stopped outside the door to floor six. "Okay," he braced, putting his hand onto the door knob, "anything could be behind here. Let's just take a moment to mentally prepare first."

I smiled. "Ready as I-I'll ever be."

He pushed the door open, and we were met with an array of lasers scattered throughout an open lounge area.