The Waiting Room

Chapter 4- Wait

“James?” I repeated, equally as hesitant and slow. I couldn’t really explain it, but something in me felt as if he were about to explode. It was weird since I was accostumed to him being cheery, and everything slid off him. It seemed that that wasn’t the cade anymore. James glanced at me, and sat up, and corssed his legs to support himself. I propped myself up with my hands.

            “Phaedra, we’re not in the Waiting Room anymore,” he let out. I waited for him to get to the point, wasn’t it obvious that we were not in the Waiting Room? “You remember when Johnny told us that you weren’t close to Death?” he asked. I nodded slowly. He put a lot of weight on the word ‘death’. This scared me. Were we dead? He seemed to understand my fear,

            “No, were are not dead. Now, I can’t tell you much because I don’t know more than Johnny told me when I got here,” he warned. I surpressed a gasp. Johnny had been here longer than James had? “He told me that there is a figure here, its name is Death. He’s like the shadow. He went against the rules of the Waiting Room, and created an alternate dimension- the one we are now in,” he paused, and glanced at me to gauge my reaction. “He puts people here to his own amusement, to see if they are ‘worthy’ of living,” James sucked in a rugged breath before continuing, “he makes them undergo mulitple trails to test them. And no one knows why he started it, or why he chooses as he does. The amount of people changes all the time.”

            I choked on my breath, as I heard James’ monologue about the creator of death. It racked me to the bone. I shivered in fear. Trials? What type? It seemed as if that was all James, and seeing his expression, the fact that we were to be tested sucked the emotions out of him. I looked around the room that we were captive we were in, and I screamed as loud as I could. I released my anger and fustration of being a prisoner to the Waiting Room and now of Death. James zoned out and tilted his head up, against the wall, and seemed to breath in my screams and sounds of protest.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked, once I was finished. I looked up at him in a moment of weakness. He looked around at the room.

"I don't know," he said in a dejected manner. This unsettled me more than anything, to hear his voice without his energy and liveliness. Something struck me though, that I hadn't felt in a long time- I was tired. This made me feel vulnerable and human. If anything, it was likea bucket of ice cold reality splashing over me. I was exhausted, yet I suddenly felt alive. I rested my head on his shoulder, and I closed my eyes.

***

I woke up and the room looked a lot less scary and dark. It actually looked inviting. That scared me more. The walls were light and yellow. There was a chandelier on the ceiling and a feast on the table.  I lifted my head from James, who was still asleep. I stood up, walked towards the table, and  sat down. The table was long and rectangular with a dozen seats. There was a whole banquet of food on it. There was jam, honey, sugar, tea, waffles, pancakes, syrup, and a lot of fruit. I sat back, and closed my eyes. I wasn’t tired, I was just letting reaslity sink into me. I was hungry, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. Who knew what the tests were? This could be one. Maybe the food was poisonous. James then woke up and sat next to me. He remained silent. I looked at him,

"What's wrong?" I asked. I was so caught up in the moment, that I didn’t realize how stupid my question was. What was wrong was how we were puppets, and were facing death. But when that question crawled out of my mouth, I was thinking why he was so silent.

"I had a nightmare, it was about Death." he started, he eyed me warily. He didn’t even snort about how ridiculous my question was- like he normally did.

"What happens if one of us dies?" I whispered to myself. I knew I was just worrying myself, if not both of us, and that was why I didn’t intend for him to hear it. He did though.

He looked at me then shuddered, "If one of us dies, then the game still continues. Until you reach the last test,"

Suddenly all the terror, fear, and pain that was built up since yesterday came to me hard and James must have noticed because he murmured, "Phaedra, it's okay. We'll make it out." I looked away and left the table. I really didn’t want him to see me like this, well anynone for the fact. I apreciated though that he had enough courage to state that we would stay alive. It settled me alittle that the James from the Waiting Room could come back. That was my hope, not surviving. I sat against the wall like we had done yesterday. James came around and sat next to me. I looked into his brown eyes, waiting for a sign of relief like the one he had earlier. I kept waiting. Just like I had in the Waiting Room.