Part 29

Alex and I looked at each other, as he had come to stand beside me. "We have to go up," I said. Alex looked slightly worried.

"What if there's a trap at the top? I don't want to get caught with no reasonable excuse as to what we were doing."

He had a good point. What if there were people at the top, waiting for us to come up? It wasn't exactly smart to just race our way up with no clear way out.

"Fine. One of us will go up and see if there's anything there. That way we can have something to come back to. Sound good?"

"Can we at least go to the stairs together? I just want to get out of this space. I'm so done with this whole tunnel."

I smirked. Boy had read my mind, metaphorically. I was also done with this tunnel and wanted to leave everything that happened here behind. I reached down and grabbed his hand, and then broke into a run, pulling Alex with me.

We raced up the first set of stairs, which ended with a platform that led to a second set after a 90 degree left hand turn. We raced up that set as well. At the end of the second set, the walls looked different. They had a silvery metal sheen to them, and there was not enough lighting. I could barely see the hallway in front of me. I turned to Alex to ask what he thought, but he wasn't there. I immediately started to panic. What had happened? Had I let go while racing up the stairs? I mean, probably, but I heard laughing along side me. The kind of laugh that you know has been withheld for too long. The laugh that has the ability to make you feel better. The kind of laugh that you love to laugh to..

I could hear his laugh in my head, and it helped me to relax. I know that no matter where he went, as long as I held on to what I had, he could never truly leave me. So I took a deep breath, and started walking down the hall. As I took a step, a light turned on above me. It set off a chain reaction that lit the hallway with a bright florescent light, kind of like an interrogator's light, and ended with a door. It wasn't a big, heavy, metal door like I was expecting. Instead, it looked similar to the door to my room.

As I kept walking towards it, I noticed things starting to appear on the walls. They were slightly rectangular, with a square portion having colors or... people? Upon closer inspection, I saw that they were polaroids, but not from my perspective. It was like I was looking at selected moments from my life. I expected to be alone in each picture, but the majority of them featured another person. And they were all people that I recognized from the cabin. No matter if I was hiking with the class, talking with someone for a project, on the playground, or in the indoor pool area timing a race. I was never alone. As I kept looking, I noticed that the closer I got to the door, the older I got in the pictures. Finally, the last pictures were of Alex pulling me out of the pool and Kate crying over me. I looked dead in the pictures. I was studying one where both Alex and Kate looked a bit more relaxed when a sudden pain rushed into my head. I felt like I was back under water, with no way out. I collapsed onto all fours, clasping at my throat. Slowly, I tried to breathe, and was relieved when I realized that I could breathe.

I looked up, and the door was looming over me. I could hear slight voices now, but no words were clear yet. My head was throbbing so badly that my vision was starting to fade in and out. I new that I needed to get through that door, but I felt so weak. I needed all my strength to open it, but I had none left. That's when my hand got warm, like it was being held. I started to feel calmer, and all that I could hear was a very familiar voice say, "Come back to us Marie. Come back to me." That's when I reached up and threw open the door, only to be greeted by a blinding flash of pure white light.

***************

When I opened my eyes, I was lying down. I was in a bed with rails that I almost immediately recognized as a hospital bed. I had watched a lot of action/medical shows set in the modern day. I knew what a hospital bed looked like. In that some train of thought, I saw an I.V. attached to my hand. The same hand that Alex was holding. He sat on my right, focused on my hand. He was doing the thumb caress thing, and it was cute as hell. I had to implore all the willpower I had to keep myself from smiling, as the doctor was talking.

"Is she alright guys? The nurses recorded a spike in her heart rhythm."

"She seems to be alright, doc," Alex was saying. "I'm right here. I'll get you if anything changes."

I decided that enough was enough. "You better be able to keep him now that he's here." And the looks of shock that everyone gave were enough to make it all worth it.