Crossroads-Book 1

•Chapter 9•

\Alexis\

"Ha! Ha! Ha! That's enough!" I yelled.

Everybody went quiet.

"Alex, you looked so stupid. What the hell?" Lex said, giggling.

Soon, they all started another round of laughter.

Suddenly, we all heard a sound, like a metal box falling down from a height.
Everyone went silent again.

"Holy Reina, where am I!?" A raspy male voice shrieked from a room close by.

"Should we hide?" the other girl, Maddie, asked.

Lucy started walking forward.

"Lucy, where are you going?!" Maddie whisper shouted.

"I'm going to hide somewhere else," she answered, glaring at me before walking off into the darkness
.
Personally, I was fine with that.

Lucy came to Cedarwood High in Tenth grade. From, the start, Lex and I became enemies to her. She didn't like the fact that we got most of the things we wanted. There was a particular incident that happened one time and it definitely made her hate us finally. I didn't really hate her at first, but after a while she just got more unpleasant by the day and then I just decided to ignore her.

What I was bothered about was this other girl, Maddie. I've never seen her before. Maybe, she was an old friend of Lucy's who just moved to town.
Um
She was average heighted and she had blonde hair that fell on her shoulders in a short wave. She had striking blue eyes and faint freckles on her face.

I was a little confused about her friendship with Lucy, since they were like complete opposites.

Lucy was nowhere to be found and we all stood there in the dark. There was a window nearby and I could see the moon glowing as it hung from the dark sky.

The moonlight illuminated the corridor where we stood a bit and I could see the others' faces faintly.
They all looked terrified, tired and shaken. I was tired as well, since it was late.

I walked off into the darkness. It was still raining and I could hear the clattering of the rain on the roof.
"Hey! Alexis," someone called from behind.

I paused and turned around, staring off into the darkness.
"Yeah?" I asked.

"Where are you going? Can you even see clearly?" I figured that it was Trevor talking.

"Does any of you have a phone here?"  I asked.

"No," they mummured.

"I do but the battery just died," Maddie said.

I breathed out, "Exactly."

"I want to go out and find someone who'd help me call someone from home," I said, "then, they can drive us all home."

"Alex are you crazy?" Lex shrieked. "You can't go out in this rain. You'd just get lost!"

"Yeah, Lex. But, the rain doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. I don't want to sleep in this building tonight so I think I have to go out and find help. It's not a big deal," I replied and walked off, groping my way through the darkness.

"Hey man, I'm right behind you," Trevor said.
Soon, I realized they were all following me.

We hadn't gotten that far when we heard a whisper.

"Hey."

We all jumped.

"Lucy?" Maddie asked.

"Yeah," she answered and turned on a flashlight. "You should all follow me. The guy we heard, he's close to the entrance of the building. The direction you're heading will lead you straight to him so we need to take another route."

"What other route is there to take us out of this building?" I asked.

"There's no other route I know of. I don't live here. But I was thinking we should wait for the guy to leave the building or at least the room he's in. Then we'll sneak out. I called a friend to come pick us up-" Lucy said.

"Wait. Hold on. I have a different idea. I was gonna go out in the rain and look for help-" I started.

"But, dude her idea totally makes sense. I mean, we wait 'til her friend calls and tells her he's outside, then we wait till that guy is out and we sneak out and go home," Trevor said.

"Yeah. You would have called for help if you had a phone right? That's what Lucy did. Problem solved," Maddie said.

"Yeah," Lex agreed, "besides, how would you have sneaked past that guy? You don't know who he is or if he's dangerous so..."

Okay, why was everyone supporting Lucy? I knew she had a great idea, wow, just answered my question. But I just didn't want to listen to her.
I didn't know why I was stubborn like that.

"Suit youself. I'm still going with my plan," I told them.

"Alexis," Lucy said, pointing the flashlight beam straight at my face. I sheilded my eyes and looked away. "Stop acting like you're always right and stop doing stupid things all the time."
I sighed in frustration and walked off.

"Anybody coming?" I asked.

They all stood still, staring at me.

I walked away.

I didn't know where they went. I wove my way through the columns of boxes until I felt the wall vibrate.

Then I  heard the sound of footsteps.
They were running.

Was the guy chasing them?
I kept walking through the darkness until my eyes caught the flicker of a light.
The light was coming from a room nearby.

The door was open. I walked in and when I did, I was surprised by what I saw.

The others already got into the room before me and they stood still, like they were holding their breath, staring at the opposite end of the room.

I followed their gaze.
Lucy had her back to a wall.
Her hands were by her side and she stood perfectly straight bu she was struggling to move.

Not far in front of her, a man wearing a robe stood with his right arm outstretched toward her.

"This is impossible..." he said to himself.

"The kingdom of balance was destroyed long ago, yes. But, ankor, how...?"

Then he noticed us standing behind him.

He turned to us in a flash, his iris glowing red.

I heard someone gasp.
"What the hell in wrong with your-" Trevor started but before he could finish his sentence, the guy stretched out his arm towards us.

Immediately, we flew backwards.
We hit the wall with such force that boxes fell down in recurring crashes.

"Ow," I grunted, trying to move.
I couldn't.

I tried to move forward but I was stuck.
I looked over to the others. We were all in the same position that Lucy was in. Our backs flat on the wall with our arms at our sides.

It was as if a magnetic force was pulling me back, pinning my head and legs to the wall.

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Woah! What the hell is going on now?

I dunno what else to say so...how's your day?

~Ash