Locked Away

Chapter 9

Cory's POV

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It's all over for me. I just knew it. I had been accused twice now, and I had next to no way to prove my innocence. Keemstar had me pinned, and I was defenseless to whatever torture he had planned. He had already told them to find something to end me with. But, at the same token, no one was moving an inch. He repeated what he had said, just in case no one heard him. Someone flinched, but they didn't move all that much. He huffed in frustration, and turned to the "mob" that stood there motionless.

"Well, what are you f*ckers doing? Are you waiting for me to commence the execution?" He asked, getting mad at the crowd's inactivity. "I can't do that without some form of weapon! So, if one of you would be so kind to FETCH ME A GODD*MN WEAPON! How hard is that?!" This time, someone from the crowd asked something.

"Well, what exactly do you want us to bring you?" Max's voice. I was relieved, but that feeling faded quickly when I focused back onto my current situation: I was pinned and waiting for death. I heard Keemstar mumble an "oh my f*cking god" under his breath, as he moved his foot off of me and stamped it to the ground.

"What do think can serve as a weapon!?" He shouted at Max, "I told you, I don't care what it is, whenever it's a knife or rope or both, Just bring me something!"Nobody moved. "Okay, f*ck it," He said, giving up on using the crowd, "I'll just get one myself." He pushed through the crowd to grab an ultimate demise weapon of his choice.

Him not being there gave me the opportunity to run again. But where would I go? This hall was a dead end, and trying to run through a crowd of angry people was almost like trying to run from a pack of wolves when you were wounded. I got up hastily, just as he was returning with a long kitchen knife, and bolted in the other direction. I heard Keemstar shout at me to stop, and that I have nowhere to hide, but his words only fueled me to keep running until I hit a dead end. I looked behind me, only to see everyone running my direction. Maybe they do want me dead after all, I thought. When I whipped my head forward again, I ran right into the false wall. I backed away from it, dazed, and turned to face them: the monsters they were willing to become, and I was their outlet for their wrath.

I was pinned between them and the wall, and there was no way to escape it. Keemstar walked towards me, and all I could do was slide my back down against the wall until I was sitting, and looking at my soon-to-be killer. What scared me wasn't the knife, but rather how emotionless everyone around me looked. I was crying at this point, because of how scared I was. I was pinned, defenseless, and accused of something I knew nothing about. Keemstar placed the knife against the left side of my neck, but didn't move it farther than that.

"Now you right to speak," He said, coldly, "choose your words wisely." I looked frantically at everyone but the one who had the knife. They looked worried, as if they were just realizing what was actually happening right now. I couldn't speak, or think of what to say for that matter. Then he spoke again. "No comment?" he asked. I still said nothing.

"Well, too bad, then," He said, "You had your chance to stall us, but you blew it. Have fun in Hell." He raised his knife off my neck by a few inches. I had two scenarios in my head, both which don't end well for me. The first one, he pulls my arms down and slits my throat. I would grab the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding, but so much blood is coming out that my effort would be in vain. I would collapse, weak from the blood loss, look at my traitors one last time, then shut my eye as I lay dying on the floor. The other, he stabs my arms at the spot where they cross. I would scream in pain, he would pull the knife out of my arm, which would cause them to fall limp. But rather than go for my throat, he stabs me in the stomach. I would try to scream, but have limited success as blood gushes into my stomach, making me nauseous. Then, he'd stab me in the heart, to give me a painful death to suffer through. Again, I'd look at the people I thought were my friends with a hurt look on my face, and my eye would shut as I die.

Keemstar brought the knife quickly towards me, and I quickly put my arms as a last defense against a monster, shut my eye, and braced for impact. Nothing happened. I waited a few more seconds before opening my eye. Maybe he was waiting for me to open my eye so that I could witness everyone's faces as this unfolded. Still nothing. Everyone was looking to my left. Confused and still teary, I look to my left. There were two hands on the blade, but they looked like they didn't belong to the same person. Keemstar looked at the person who stopped his execution plan in confusion. I glanced at the person who stopped the knife, and was shocked to see who saved my life.

It was Ross. He saved me.

"I think we are overreacting to all the things that just happened," Ross said, his voice sounding like a fictional hero who saved a citizen from a bad guy who was harassing them, "We need to come up with a compromise first."

"What the f*ck do you think you're doing?" Keemstar asked, confused and angry.

"Not stopping you," Ross said. My heart sank a little upon hearing this. "But, I'm stopping everyone from making an irrational decisions like this in the near future." Keemstar shot me an angry look, as if telling me that this isn't over without speaking anything.

"Ross!" Max  freaked, "He's armed! He can easily hurt or kill you with Cory! Are you nuts?"

"Maybe I am," Ross explained, "Maybe I'm not. But if we let this stuff slide, who's to say that someone like, I don't know, MARK could be accused and killed? Listen: If stuff like this slides, that cat wouldn't even bother hunting and tricking us, because we'll die more by each others' hands than by that cat's paws and teeth. It would basically get a free meal every day from us. Do we really want to do that?" Everyone clamored about their options. Keemstar stabbed the knife into the wall, and joined in with everyone's arguments. Ross followed a bit after, leaving me to sit there and try to comprehend what the heck just happened. I've seen movies where an innocent is cornered by people who don't understand what is going on, and things almost always never end well for the innocent. So for this to happen, rather than what normally happens...I just couldn't comprehend. Ross approached me after a few minutes of their conversation, and offered to help me up. I took his offer, because as I was being helped up, my legs proved to be almost useless for trying to get up. My head hurt, but I ignored it for the time being.

"So, we finally reached a compromise," Ross reassured me, "You won't be executed. However, you will be on a rather tight 'leash' until we can trust you."

"Wh-What kind of 'leash'?" I asked, realizing that I was still stuttering from the crap that happened like, moments ago.

"You will be assigned a group of three, and if that group is exploring, you are using your code to open a bar code-locked door," Ross explained, "Also, you aren't allowed to leave your pals' field of vision. If you are to break any of these, you will be executed."

"Well, that just great," I said, annoyed, "for someone, more precisely."

"It's the compromise we all agreed on, so you either accept them or not. If you don't..." Ross didn't finish. I shivered as I filled it in. Ross worked way too hard for me to turn these terms down. But at the same time, if I was assigned to Keemstar, wouldn't he try to abuse the terms to get away with murdering me? That thought made my spine tingle.

"I'll accept those terms, just under one condition," I tell Ross.

"Okay," Ross said, "tell me your condition."

"Don't partner me with Keemstar. He did try to kill me, and I'm pretty sure that he would abuse the system if you're not careful." Ross thought on it for a bit.

"Honestly, if I was in your situation, I would've asked for the same," Ross told me, "Consider your condition accepted." I exhaled out of relief. I now had one less thing to worry about.

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm tired. I'm gonna head to bed." Ross said, yawning. I went to my dorm as well, because I needed to rest. It was 12:10 PM now, and a lot of crap went down. I lay on my bed, trying to sleep, only to have the sudden sound of Ian's screams playing in my head, as well as the clearly pictured scenarios. The memory of how he looked at me, and I did nothing to help him taunted me as I tried to sleep. After what felt like hours of torture by my own head, it finally allowed me to sleep, thinking about what I did before all this went down.