21 Things To Do While Stuck in a Walk-In Closet

(1) Seven Minutes in HELL

Alexandria Shields

CHAPTER 1 Seven Minutes in HELL

My new closet-mate filled his cheeks up with air and released it very slowly as his hand fell off the handle. No… I started to think. No, don’t stop calling him! He’ll come back! He’ll come- OH MY GOD HE’S NOT COMING BACK!

I felt my stomach slowly start to twist into a horrible pretzel of dread. I was about to start gnawing at the shirt in my hands. To say I was panicking would be an understatement so huge your mind couldn’t even comprehend it. Ohhh myyy GODDD!

Was it just me, or were these walls closing in? Holy crack THE FREAKING WALLS WERE CLOSING IN!

The boy looked at me and smiled a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry,” he told me, perfectly at ease, “he seems like an idiot, but he’ll send someone for us sooner or later, otherwise we can just call for help.”

And somehow, I paused my spaz-attack, watching him as his calm brown eyes locked on mine, trying to share his tranquility with me.

It would seem ridiculous to be freaking out when he was so unflustered… And it wasn’t like walls closed in on you in real life anyways. Just in movies. And nightmares. Freaky nightmares. I felt my body slowly relax on its own. Miracle of miracles, I tell you.

He smiled again. He was a couple inches taller than me, and, from the looks of it, lightly muscled. It was hard to tell whether he’d dyed his hair blonde or it was just naturally like that…his eyes were brown, and so were his eyebrows and his roots… But then again some natural blondes were like that too. Oh well, it wasn’t like it mattered what the natural color of his hair was. But damn, that smile…

…really made him look like a lady’s man.

Then again, I didn’t know him, so I shouldn’t say what he “looked” to be or not.

His free hand went to his pocket while he took a few steps toward me. I wasn’t sure how to react. Is he going to recognize me? Should I conceal my face? I was on-edge. My Katniss wig somehow suddenly felt like it looked really, really fake.

“I’m Nate,” he told me with a smile that oozed with helpless charm, “my real name’s Nathaniel, but I’d prefer if you called me Nate.” It may have just been the adrenaline messing with my brain as it left my system, but was that...a sparkle I saw at the corner of his mouth when he smiled? What was he, a friggin' cartoon character?

Nate… I responded on instinctive routine, “My name’s Al-” I stopped. Dammit. Dammit. Dam- What did we fuh-reaking say about names, Alex?! My mouth closed slowly. Now what?

Inside my head, I saw his calm, freakishly sparkling eyes going wide in horror. I imagined him losing the composure he had so easily kept up. I imagined him slamming against the door, yelling to be let out, pressing himself against it to keep as far away from me as possible.

Or maybe I just had an overly negative imagination.

I hesitated too long with the second part of my name, I guess, because one of Nate’s eyebrows rose in cool amusement. “Nice to meet you, Al.” he greeted me facetiously.

I licked my lips, hating that stupid X sound in my name. Come on, think. “It’s Allie.” I told him, not confident of my answer at all.

That smile of his remained on his face as he removed his hand from his pocket and held it out to me. “Then it’s nice to meet you, Allie.”

What could I do but stare at his hand? This may sound stupid, but I couldn’t remember the last time someone held their hand out for me to shake. It’s not that I didn’t remember how – after all, it’s in the name: “hand-shake” how hard is that? – but, I guess I figured I was going to somehow almost-mess-up again like I did with my name a second ago.