Purified Tomorrow: The Mad Awakening - Episode 9

 

Joyce screamed as her hands tried but failed to hold the rope. The knots of the rope around her body had slacked. She grabbed the rope again. Death seemed to draw near and she dreaded the feeling of its cold hand. She kept yelling as she fell until the rope became springy. She sighed and whooped. Everything was still dark. But, she felt lucky . Suddenly, someone swiftly tied a tape around her mouth. Surprised, she struggled for her life, and kicked into the emptiness of the air. She tried screaming. It was of no use. The person dragged her off the soft springy thing.
'No noise.  This is part of the test'.
 She allowed herself to be led away in the dark. When they had walked for a long time, they came out into an open field. The person wore a mask and the same cloth as they. Only that hers was black and not silver. The lady removed her mask to reveal a brunette.
'Welcome to Etyes - Home of Peacemakers', the girl said. 'I'm your handler. You're not to ever tell a soul, not even me, how to get out of the ground. The computer's algorithm here would detect it in your speech and send you somewhere worse'.
Joyce nodded. The lady led the way and Joyce loved that opportunity. Joyce's body was draped in the black oil that filled that place

All episodes of this story can be found here >> https://www.ebonystory.com/story/purified-tomorrow-the-mad-awakening

. Surprised at the beauty of everything, she hoped that the P.I man was right about Carl. The lady pointed to a house that was different from the others.
'That's our stop. Rather, that's your home, along with the others'.
 'What would you say is our essence here?'
'Like every normal human being, we were born to die. Now you can go there', her handler said and stopped. The place looked like an ancient building, tall but incomparable to the luminous houses at the other end.
'Don't Stop' Her handler shouted and pushed her away from something on the floor. They both fell on to the hard rough ground. Joyce winced. Her handler was panting hard against her chest. She rose and stretched her hand to pull Joyce up. Pain surged through her body as they struggled to get up. Her handler groaned.
'These things are not supposed to be active till tomorrow morning', her handler murmured as she tried to balance herself. The ground sort of groaned under her weight. She inhaled sharply and pushed Joyce aside. 'Get away'.
The ground shifted and opened under her handler, who yelled as she was swallowed into the same pit. Traumatized, Joyce crawled and clawed away from the place her brunette handler had just fallen into. She looked up and saw a countdown ahead - ten seconds to door-close. She glanced again at the place her handler had fallen into, and ran with all her might for the uncompleted house. Maybe the next day, she would offend someone to make sure that she returned to the underground to get her handler back. Her handler had just fallen into a ground that swallowed, saving her. The door was closing gradually alongside the countdown. She slid through at the nick of time. Assured that she was fully in the system, she pressed the tracker in her hand, and hoped it wouldn't be a futile effort, hoped she would be the one to get the glory allotted to the case.
                        ***
Carl pulled Iris up again as he watched Regina and Fred pull themselves up the stairs. The top looked nearer now, and the light was receding. Iris was weary and irritated as she climbed the last stairs.
'I hope all these troubles worth our time', Iris grumbled as she stomped the last steps. By now, no sound came from the bottom floors. 'This is all your fault; we could have just Wow'.
Carl who had been waiting to support the panting Fred and the weak Regina looked up. Whatever Iris had seen at the top of the building must really be something great. He ran up the stairs to meet her. If there was light at the top of the stairs, he would have seen her face, but he didn't. Even when he got to the top and saw the darkness, and glanced at her face, the only thing he could see was the darkness that had been gathering round them in the stair. 
'Oh no', he exclaimed. 
'You got something?' Fred said, bouncing up the stairs with Regina breezing past him with the same agility she had at the beginning of their first meeting. They pushed into Iris, who could only moan in frustration because in front of them wasn't a grand building. It was an empty cave. There was no exit at the other end. And if there was any, they couldn't see it because the place was dark. 
'You led us down here', Iris shouted at him.
'You mean up here', Regina corrected.
'Whatever He should have let us pick one of the ground floors. Why did I follow you people initially?'
 Carl could only swallow as he tried to grasp why Sonia had sent them up there when she knew there was nothing up there for them.
'Oh, your precious Sonia', Carl said as he shifted back till his back touched a wall.
'She tried to help us. I might be angry at her, but she tried to help you', Fred replied.
'Don't tell me anything I should have trusted my-'
'Yourself?' Iris said. 'Yourself? Your what? Your senses that never worked since we got here'.
The rest flopped to the ground. Iris kept rambling and he was very sure he would soon give in to his emotion, to reply her in the rudest of way if she didn't zip her mouth. Regina was too weak to even reply any of them. He glanced into the darkness and the only that came back to his memory was how he was in the train that brought them. If this darkness was like that one, then there was surely a light at the darkness, but he just couldn't see how this one would come.
'Does that mean we're going down again?' Iris asked disdainfully.
'Where else?' Fred asked.
'We are returning down there To the bottom, around the fourteenth floor', Regina said.
'Perfect!' Iris bellowed and flopped back noisily into the wall.
'About 14 floors from here?' Exclaimed Fred. 'We're so foolish. But Regina, why do you think so?'
'Didn't you notice that those places were locked with a big note saying "LOCKED"?
Carl traced the wall into the darkness. If they would keep reminding him of how he was stupid to have followed Sonia's plan, he could agree with them through and through. He walked on counting his steps per time. Very soon he would find a place comfortably out of their earshot. Yet, he must take his steps carefully. Even if there wasn't light there, even if he wasn't sure he wouldn't fall into another ditch, he preferred to be away from their rants and ramble. 
Suddenly, he stepped into what looked like a light. The light was dim like a shadow of a real light. It didn't reflect like every other lights are known for. His first step was in a place with light. He wanted to call the others, but it was better to discover it very well for himself than for him to give them a false hope again. He peeped and saw the light. The place was illuminated by the various lights he saw when they first got there. The place was like a minimart. It contained a lot of gadgets.

Read " Grabbing The Hot Gate " by the same author ( Akíntayo Akinjide )

. He entered the light fully. The light didn't reflect on him as if the light wasn't made to reflect. To the right were rooms. Ten rooms in all. Immediately he entered, his name appeared at the second one. And on the first door, the word 'entrance/exit appeared 
The other end of the hall had a small store that contained different things- Cloth, videos, music. Two doors appeared at the other end and on them appeared the words- Toilets. He smiled.
'Guys' He yelled and turned, but he had to stop talking the moment he turned. Standing right in front of him was a glass blockage. The funniest part of it was that he could see the three of them sitting firmly, and on the top of the glass was a timer which read: 
Timer: 5.54. 42
Duration: 1/4 
'When you enter through the stairs door, you can't go back the same way', a computer voice said. 
He rushed to the glass and hit it repeatedly, but all he could see was Iris' mouth rambling, and Fred dejectedly hitting his head on the wall, while Regina laid her head on Fred's shoulder.
'Open this thing', he shouted.
'No exit or entry after initial entry'.