When I opened my eyes, I was sitting against what seemed like a wall. Everything was dark, and everything smelled and tasted of chloroform.

Where am I...?

What was I doing...?

Let me think back...

I was doing my morning routine, and then I went to school. The usual, right? Then I was going to work, but I was stopped because I saw... ah! There was that girl's body, and her blood...! The picture came into my mind so clearly. That horrific scene... that poor girl... Oh my gosh...! Wait! Kiana...! Where is Kiana?! I immediately sat up straight. "Kiana?!" I yelled, my voice echoing throughout the room. I looked around, however it was too dark to see anything. Wait. I immediately started searching for my black bag, knowing I could use my phone's light to see in this room. However, it wasn't here... Damn it, whoever brought me here has a twisted sense of humor.

I let out an annoyed sigh and stood up, holding onto the back wall so I wouldn't fall. "If anyone can hear me, make a noise!" I yelled, kicking the back wall.

"Hmm..." Huh? That was a groan, and it seems close by too. I kicked the back wall again. "Ugh... stop...!" I heard the person groan again, the voice sounded feminine.

It sounds really close by... wait. Are they in the same room as me? I put my hand onto the wall and let out a deep sigh. I guess we'll find out. I cautiously guided myself along the wall so I wouldn't trip I made it about halfway across from where I was sitting until my leg felt something, and I would say it was most likely their leg.

I cautiously reached my hand down to what I believe was their shoulder and made a gentle touch at it. They're warm, so they're alive, and it's not the same situation as Miss Abigail Hess. I made a small frown. Once I figure out what's going on and get out of here I'll give you a nice burial, I promise...

"Hm?" I immediately took my hand off them, once I realized they started to wake up. "...Hello...?" The person murmured.

"H-Hey... do you know where we are?" I asked.

"Hm? Where we... are...?" The person's words dragged out. "Oh. This is new." They sounded surprised.

Huh?

•••

So, what I've learned so far about this person is: Her name is Holly Richmond, she's nineteen, and she's pretty nice, but there are only three issues here, I don't have a 'full' description of her, and we don't know how to get out of here... and the third issue... We don't know where HERE is.

"Miss Holly and Miss Jamie."

"W-What was that?" Holly asked, very nervous.

"It sounds like a video recording on a speaker of some sort." I answered her, just as worried.

"The ceiling above you will come down and crush you immediately, and neither of you will get out of here alive, unless you can find the key that opens the door in this room. The time limit is seven minutes." Then the speaker went off.

"S-Seven minutes..." we both repeated in a whisper. What? That's unbelievable... I was actually hoping I couldn't hear at this very moment. This has to be a very bad joke... right?

"C-Come on! Let's hurry and find that key!" Holly yelled.

"Y-Yeah...!" Why is it so dark? Why the hell are they trying to kill us?! I thought. What did we do wrong?!

"You search the east and south side, I'll search the north and west side." She said, I couldn't say anything to that, I just made a silent agreement.

I started touching at the ground to see if I could find anything. Come on, some sort of clue, something?! I started checking the wall, hoping to find something, anything?!

Suddenly something sharp cut my left hand and fell on the ground.

Clink.

"Ah! What was that?!" Holly asked, her voice sounded hopeful and echoed throughout the room.

"I-I don't know, m-maybe a clue...?" I answered.

"Three minutes remaining." The speaker told us.

"Even if it was just a clue, let's hurry and pick it up!" I heard Holly come over to my side and start searching for what I accidentally dropped, and I kneeled down and started searching for it as well.

When my hand grasped something small again I made sure not to let it go this time. "I found it again! It feels like..." I had to feel around the object. "A key!" I yelled with hope in my voice.

"Two minutes remaining." The speaker said.

"We need to find the door!" Holly yells. "I'll go right, you go left!" Just like before I made a silent agreement, too anxious to actually say anything.

Like before I need to go along the wall, but faster. Come on, come on... Holly and I will get out of here...! I thought, assuring myself. I want to see my family and Liv again! Holly is going to see the people she cares for too! And... Miss Abigail Hess I'll give her a proper burial. "Ah." I felt a handle. "Holly! Over here!"

"Coming!" I heard her respond.

"One more minute remaining."

I tried to feel around for the place that cut me, that's where I have to put in the handle. There! I put my nail where there was a hole in the knob. That's where I need to unlock the door.

"Thirty more seconds remaining."

Please work with me! Please...! Ah...! Then my dark blue eyes widened when the first thing I saw was the door opening and light appeared.

"We need to move!" Holly yelled.

"...Gah...!" I let out a gasp when I was pushed onto the metal floor, Holly running out behind me.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to push you, I just didn't want to get turned into a pancake." She joked trying to lighten the mood.

I sat up, my legs at my chest, my arms around them. Right now, I couldn't laugh, I couldn't even think, I just wanted to... I just wanted to... I just wanted to cry...

"Oh, I'm so sorry..." Holly said, she kneeled down wrapping her arms around me, which surprised me. "I didn't mean to upset you." I shook my head, showing she didn't upset me. This is too much. Why in the HELL are we here? Where even is HERE? "Hey... everything will be okay... I promise... plus you have me right by your side, right?" She pulled away with a small smile.

"...Liv..." I whispered, before covering my mouth. This girl isn't her. They don't even look alike at all, and now that I think about it... this is the first time I've actually seen Holly, since the room was dark. Pretty medium length strawberry blonde hair, her skin tone is rose beige, and garnet red colored eyes. She's very cute.

"Hey, are you okay? Can you stand?" She asked, standing up, holding her hand out to me. I nodded grabbing her hand, when I grabbed it and stood up, her eyes widened.

"Ah! Jamie, your palm is cut...!" The other female said, a little bit of my blood dripping onto her hand.

Oh right... when I was sitting on the ground I completely forgot about my hand and how it was cut by the tip of the key. "It's fine... It's just a little bit of blood." I mumbled.

"No, no, no! It's not fine! We need to heal it quickly! Oh...! At times like this I wish I was carrying around my first aid kit!" She said, she then bit the tip of her thumbnail, trying to think, however she seemed to have come up with an idea quickly. "Oh! I know." She pulled a pink ribbon out of her pocket.

"Huh?" I mumbled, before she wrapped it around my left hand.

"It's not a bandaid, but I hope it does for the time being." Holly gave me a grin.

It's weird... Holly has this kind of warm, sunshine glow about her, and it just made me want to smile back, even in a situation like this.

"Thank you..." I said. "Anyways... where do you think we go from here?"

The strawberry blonde haired girl scratched her temple with her index finger. "Beats me, but maybe we'll walk around and we'll find something? That's usually what happens for me!"

She really is a happy-go-lucky type of girl, huh?

•••

"Ah, elevators..." Holly said. "But... one only has an up button and one only has a down button..." Looking at the silver metal elevators, she was right. The left elevator had a blue button with a white arrow above it, it pointed upwards. Then, beside the elevator right next to it there was a similar blue button but the white arrow below the button, and the arrow was pointing downwards.

Let's see, this looks like a fifty-fifty choice type of thing. I put my hand to my chin. "Well, I don't think it would be smart to split up." Holly nodded in agreement. Hmm... how should we go about this? I internally questioned. We'll need to think carefully... I think it's also best if we're highly cautious... if we were to go onto the upwards elevator it could take us all the way up to the ceiling and crush us... Then the other elevator could drop us down into a pile of spikes- er- something like that... I'd like to think one is the right choice... but both could be dangerous at the same time... Yet Holly suddenly cut me off from thinking.

"I think we should go on the upwards elevator." Holly said, looking at me with a smile, pointing to the left elevator.

"Huh?" I said in disbelief. "Why?"

"Look above, on the corner of the wall." She then pointed next to it, in the left wall corner. "There's a security camera, with tape on it."

"Yeah, and...? That probably just means it's not working." I said.

"Jamie, if you take a closer look at the tape on the lens, what letter does it form?" Holly asked.

"An...'X'...?" My words dragged out.

"And an X marks the spot!" The girl said with a smirk. I gave an internal sigh. It's a dumb analysis, but it's an analysis. This woman is quite... something.

It took me a moment before I smiled. "Alright, let's try it." We stood in front of the left elevator, about to press the button. "Wait a second..."

"What is it?" She asked.

"If the security camera was on the left side, doesn't that mean we should go on the right elevator? The down one." I asked, looking at her, a bit confused.

"That's exactly it!" Holly said. Huh? "By putting a camera here, they'd obviously think we'd go to the opposite side! Which means we go to the same side! At least, that's what I believe!" Oh, she's saying it's a mind game.

"Okay. We'll try this." I told her, giving another internal sigh. However there's a fifty percent chance we might die...

I closed my eyes for a moment. Please, I don't want to die, I want to see my family and best friend again. I still need to finish school and give Miss Abigail Hess a nice burial... I then opened my eyes, looking to my left, only to see Holly giving me a caring smile.

"We're going to be okay, and I'm right here if anything happens." She said, and I nodded.

I looked forward, and pressed the upward elevator button, and once the doors slowly opened... I took a step forward...

...And the floor collapsed. I fell down what was not an elevator, but just a hole. I was too flabbergasted to scream. I'm going to die! Was the only thought I could process. I closed my eyes, and wrapped my arms around my head, embracing for a hard impact with the ground.

However,  the impact wasn't hard at all. Huh...? Am I on some type of mattress or something? and Holly came falling right next to me. "Woah...!" I heard her say, surprised, her garnet red eyes were wide.

"...Yeah... woah..." I repeated slowly in a whisper, still quite shocked. My arms slowly came down from my head and I let out a deep breath before getting up, and standing on the floor, Holly doing the same. "So, where are we now?" I questioned.

"I don't know, but it seems there's only one hallway here, we might as well leave-" Holly got cut off when we heard shouting.

"Well it's not as if YOU are any less suspicious YOURSELF sir!" A person yelled.

Holly and I looked at each other, wide eyed. "There's more people here?!" The garnet red eyed girl said, surprised.

"It seems like it..." I replied, however... I already knew the answer beforehand, since Kiana had already gotten kidnapped along with me. I remembered so clearly those people covering her mouth after I tried to push her away... Why couldn't I do better? I shook my head. No. Don't get distracted by guilt now. "...Let's hurry and see what's going on..." Holly nodded and we started running to the end of the hallway.

The first thing I noticed when we went to the end of the hallway made me feel relieved. There was a girl with walnut brown shoulder length hair, linen hex colored skin, and the same black school uniform that I was wearing. She was paying attention to what the group of people were talking about. I was so happy, she looked unharmed, and at this moment the only word I could think of saying was her name. With no hesitation I immediately yelled, "Kiana...!" I ran towards the girl and that seemed to catch everyone's attention. I saw her head turn to look at me, her aegean blue eyes widened, there seemed to be relief written all over her face.

"Jay...?!" The girl yelled, running towards me. She wrapped her arms tightly around me and I wrapped my arms firmly around her.

I felt so ashamed, being unable to protect her. She shouldn't have been caught up in whatever this was... "Are you okay?! Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, I'm such a bad big sister!" I said. She shook her head.

"I'm okay! And no you're not! You were checking on that girl, you didn't know this would happen..." Kiana said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, nodding, we finally let go of each other and I looked back at the group of people who silently stared at us, "...but who are all these people?" I quietly asked her.

Kiana just shrugged, hugging my left arm tightly. I could tell she was nervous. "I see, so Miss Jay, am I correct?" A male spoke up.

"Actually, my name is Jamie... Jay is my nickname." I answered the older male, who had seemed to be in his early to mid-twenties.

The male had a pale ivory skin tone, his eyes have a pretty golden mix with a tawny brown color, and his hair color is hickory brown too... to sum it up.

"Jamie?" I looked back, seeing the strawberry blonde haired girl. I didn't realize Holly had caught up to me and was tapping my right shoulder.

"Ah, sorry, I was a bit dazed." I mumbled.

The male speaking to me had nodded. "Your nickname? Ah, I see, sorry about that. Anyways, Miss Jamie, I'm assuming you and this younger girl know each other?" He said, pointing to Kiana. Well no shit, what do you think that whole scene was about? Is what I wanted to reply with, but I just replied with something calmer.

"Yes, we're sisters." I said, trying my best to force a smile in a situation like this. "I'm Jamie Spencer, and her name is Kiana Spencer."

"Hm? Alright then, she wouldn't tell me her name. In fact, no one here would tell me their name." The male told me.

"Oh..." was all I could reply with. I looked around at everyone. Including myself, Kiana, and Holly, there are ten people, five females, and five males from the looks of it, and out of the males, two of them seem to be children... just how cruel are these people?

"Well, as I was saying it's not as if you're any less suspicious." One of the females spoke up. Ah, it's the voice from before. We turned our heads to a woman with long ink black hair, who had seemed to be in her early twenties. "You won't tell us your name." She glared at the male with a fierce intensity in her cherry red colored eyes. "I think it's only fair you go first." She crossed her limestone skin colored arms.

"Alright, I guess that's fair." The male smirked. "My name is Cyrus Ellis."

"What's your occupation?" The long black haired woman asked.

"Hm? Why do you want to know? I thought only my name was important." Cyrus said.

"I'm going to be straight forward, I don't trust any of you. Especially not you. Now, give me your occupation." The woman said.

"I will, once I at least get a first name from you." He said with a shrug. "Let's call this a trade off."

I glanced downward to Kiana, who was still gripping my arm, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was. This isn't going well. Before looking back at Cyrus and the woman.

"H-Hey! Let's try and calm down now!" Holly quickly said, her hands waving in an up and down motion. "We're all in the same situation! So we should at least try and be a little more subtle about this!" She explained, stepping in between Cyrus and the woman. "Alright! Take it away, Jamie!"

Me?