Take Me Home | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Two

[ unedited ] - beside is how I pictured Eli to look, and the song below it is from the movie soundtrack of 'Bedtime Stories', which was what I listened to while writing the bathroom scene and honestly, i think it fits perfectly with them, so check it out~ 

So this was how it felt to die. 

   Or, how it felt to feel like you were about to die. With complete darkness making you feel like you've closed your eyes, and running footsteps frantic about the power outage. I stood in my place, frozen in utter shock and becuase I didn't really know what to do. 

  Where the hell were the floodlights? The emergency generator? Didn't grocery stores -- or any stores for that matter -- have an emergency plan? So far, all I was hearing were hushed whispers and footsteps and Eli's voice calling out my name --

   Wait. 

   "Eli...?" It started out as a croak, an insignificant croak in the middle of the dark. Then, I tried screaming louder for him, and in a few seconds, I could hear footsteps coming way, which would've been terrifying for a girl who had an allergic reaction to horror movies, but since I could smell Eli's suffocating cologne, I was pretty much safe. 

    He was stumbling around in the darkness, "Vienna? Y-you there?" 

 "I'm here," I squeaked. 

    "Um, Vienna?”

  “Yeah?”

   “Do you still have my iPod?" 

        "Y-Yeah, why?" 

  "Pull it out, quick," he ordered with a frantic voice that clearly matched my panicked emotions. I did what he asked, and clicked the Home button, instantly slicing through the dark with a white-hot beam of light. 

   And in that beam of light, I saw Eli's shadowed face only four inches away from mine, the shadows making the contours of his eyes look murderous. His eyes, darker than even the blackest of black, stared at me in surprise and maybe relief. Jolting, I stepped back on impulse, clutching my heart and dropping my Ruffles bag. 

   "Don't do that!" I scolded. Why was my heart pounding so fast? 

   "Sorry," he said softly, backing away and keeping his eyes down.  "I couldn't really see where I was going, if you haven't noticed: the power went out." 

   "Yeah, no, I didn't really notice," I told him offhandedly, just as another clap of thunder broke apart into rumbles above the roof. 

       I held the iPod as our only source of light, and soon, one of the workers found us in the glorious snack aisle. She was the same woman from the only open cash register, and she was clutching a flashlight, looking a bit frazzled. 

   "Oh, my, I'm deeply sorry for this inconvenience, you guys," she apologized. In the shortage of light, I noticed she couldn't have been more than two years older than us; a college girl. 

     "It's fine--" I was about to say, but Eli broke me off.

 "When will the power come back on?" 

    Marie the Cashier frowned. "I'm not really sure... My boss closed up for the evening, and I signed up for the late night shift, but I had no clue... I really thought we had generators or something," she said breathlessly, "But all we got are some flashlights in the back." 

      When she saw that our only source was Eli's fading iPod, she led us to the back of the store to look for more flashlights. On the way, the store just got ten times more creepy. Rain hammered the windows and it was clear now that we were the only three in the Safeway store. To say that I was petrified was an understatement, but when I glanced at Eli, his jaw was tightened and his fists clenched.