This choice: Let it play out to see what happens • Go Back... You stand there trying to figure out what to do for a good minute or two. It'd be so easy to walk up to him and tell him what's going, that you think the plan is a bust and to just dip out for now and wait for another opportunity. But then your phone buzzes as you receive a text and your eyes go wide when you see it. It's from Caleb.
coming into the library now
i'll try and be quick
But Caleb's right here in front of you, right?
wtf are you talking about
i'm looking right at you
are you outside
because i'm in the parking lot right now
Though you wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility you don't think that Caleb is fucking with you. This was mostly his idea so why would he pretend he's not even in the library yet? That leaves only one possibility... oh shit! That means it's the real Gordon just a few yards away from you. You suddenly hear a grunt and see him begin to shift, turning in your direction. More quickly than you've ever done anything, you duck behind the row of books and out of sight, peeking out to see him go by and not ducking back out until he's disappeared from your range of view. Breathing a sigh of relief you had back over to the table where Mansfied and Lisa are sitting.
"So, you finally get your pacifier and calm down," Mansfield laughs as you take your seat.
"Geoff," Lisa exclaims as she smacks him on the arm.
"C'mon babe, I'm just messing with him. Right Prescott," he states as he makes noises as if sucking on a pacifier. Maybe when Caleb, the real one, comes by you can convince him to make Mansfield suck on his fist.
But you decide to just play along for the moment and laugh it off. "Yeah, it's just a little bit of friendly ribbing," you say while glancing around, "shame I'm no good at it myself."
So the three of you get back to studying and you become more agitated as Mansfield does little things to grate on you. He moves a little closer to Lisa, leans in a little more to examine things, puts his arm around her to encourage her. All of this he does while throwing the same smug, douchey smirk at you every time. You're about to lose your mind and write the whole sorry plan as a failure when finally you see Caleb, and you're sure it's him because he's wearing clothes different from what you saw Gordon wearing, come stomping over. His face is crimson, his eyes practically emitting fire.
"Jeez, wonder what he wan--" Mansfield starts before Caleb grabs him by the collar.
"I got business with this prick. If you don't wanna be eatin' liquids for the rest of the year I suggest you get your little faggot ass out of here."
Mansfield gets the hint and nods causing Caleb to set him down. "C'mon Lisa, we should probably get going," he states.
But as he reaches for Lisa, a meaty gorilla hand grabs his wrist. Tightly. "Your girl ain't goin' anywhere. Your friend here had to run his mouth to my girl so she wants a little message sent," he then looks at Lisa out of the corner of his eye and smirks. "And she gets to be the one to deliver it to the rest of the school."
"You can't let him do this, Geoff," Lisa exclaims. "You're not going to, right?"
But by the time she's finished speaking Mansfield is already making a scramble to the doors. "Oh this is gonna be great," Caleb says as he advances on you and stares you down. He then casts a menacing grin towards Lisa. "Watch closely, 'cause I'm gonna show you something special," he says. "Then you can go run and tell all your friends about it, especially Eva. She'll get the message quick."
Caleb raises his right hand up and for a moment you flinch... until you see something buried in that catcher's mitt and you realize that so far Caleb has been using his left hand. Then, with blink-and-you'll-miss-it speed, Caleb swings the mask over and jams it onto Lisa's face. No words are exchanged, appearances are kept up, as you wait for the mask to finish. You're not sure how long it is but the mask does finally emerge so you're quick to snatch it up and Caleb, to continue keeping up appearances, snatches you up and hauls you off to the bathroom where he knows nobody will dare to enter having just seen that.
* * * * *
"What the fuck took you so long," you demand somewhat angrily.
"I had to hide for a bit," he explains. "I saw Gordon coming out so I couldn't let him see me. I waited a few minutes until I was sure that he was gone."
"I was there for like fifteen minutes," you complain.
"Yeah, I saw. It was fun watching you squirm," he smiles.
You want to sock him but the two of you fight enough as is so he'd probably kill you, inadvertently or not, if you tried anything. Instead you just take a look at the mask and are able to see a vague image of what looks to be Lisa's face floating above the surface. So this is it. You could put this on and you'd have Lisa's body all to yourself to play with. Or Caleb could put it on and... you feel a stirring at that. Besides, would he even be willing to do something like that? Still, the anticipation is killing you.
"Alright, hand it over," you say and hold out your hand.
Caleb eyes you oddly. "Hand what over," he asks.
"You know what."
"I don't know shit, dude."
"The sealant," you say in an annoyed manner. "The shit we need so we can put the mask on."
"You're not gonna but it on here," he states.
"No shit! But I'm going to need it for when I'm at a place where I can," you tell him.
"Well... fuck, I don't have it," he says. "I forgot to stop by the school to get some."
"We don't have..." you trail off and place a hand to your forehead. "Well, we got what we came for so we should just head back to the school and we can take care of that," you tell him. "Lisa will be gone anyway so she'll assume I probably got my ass kicked."
You slump against the wall at that but Cale picks you back up. "Well maybe this'll help you," he says optimistically.
"How could this possibly help me," you ask.
"Well, think of it like this," he explains, "you mouthed off to Chelsea Cooper. You stood your ground and took a beating from Gordon Black. Meanwhile what'd Mansfield do? He pussed out and fled to the hills leaving his girlfriend at the mercy of Chelsea's angry boyfriend."
Your mouth hangs open in realization. "Shit, you're right," you say. "I got my ass kicked but I look like the braver party. Mansfield looks like a coward. Lisa will be disgusted by him and want to comfort me instead. Maybe this wasn't a failure of a plan after all."
* * * * *
As you're walking out to your cars you suddenly notice Caleb freeze up. "Hey, what's going on," you ask him but get no response. Instead he dashes away to the side and quickly out of site behind the side of the building. You hear footsteps and turn to face them and stare wide-eyed in horror at what sent your friend scurrying: Gordon Black, the real Gordon Black, is making his way towards you and looks none too pleased.
"Well look who I ran into," he says in a voice that's scarily calm.
"Oh, uh, hey... Gordon," you say nervously as you feel like you're on the verge of pissing yourself. "What, uh, what brings you around?"
"Just looking for a book," he says and with that he's close enough to reach out a giant hand and grab you by the collar, dragging you towards him and off the ground a bit. "It's a book about how some skinny little twerp mouthed off to a girl way above him and got his shit kicked from here to Keyserling by the girl's very pissed off boyfriend."
"That's... I've never heard of that one," you try and quip but that just pisses him off even more.
"Smash cinder blocks with my head? Oh no, I'll be doing it with yours," he tells you before pulling you in closer. "You're gonna be lucky if you ever make it back to school," he growls, "You know that, right?"
In desperation you begin flailing, trying to escape Gordon's grasp. He seems to find this funny though because he starts laughing at the sight of it. But that laughing stops when you kick out and, inadvertantly, manage to land a direct hit right in the balls with your foot. Gordon may be as large as a bear and strong as an ox but anything with testicles has the same basic weakness so he drops you to the ground and doubles over at the blow.
You hear the mask clang to the ground and quickly scoop it up. You should make a break for it right now while he's recovering. You could probably make it... right? Well "probably" is the key word there. Your scrawny and not particularly strong so while you managed to hurt Gordon that's only going to be temporary and he'll recover from it quick enough. If you want to make it past him you'll have to hope your kick was stronger than you'd expect, otherwise he'll grab you and you may as well start telepathically sending funeral arrangements to your friends and family.
You do have another means of escape, though: the mask. While you might not be fast enough to get around him, you would be fast enough to get the mask onto his face and knock him out. Then it's just a matter of waiting around for it to re-emerge, pick it up and you're home free because he'll be out for another few minutes while he recovers. The problem, though, comes from the fact the mask isn't sealed. If you put it on Gordon it'll absorb his image too and you're not sure what would happen if you sealed it up and put it on. Would you come out as some unholy hermaphroditic child of Lisa and Gordon?
Besides, you'd gone through all the trouble of getting the mask of Lisa so you're not sure if you want to risk fucking it up when you maybe have a chance of getting past Gordon and too your truck before he recovers and Hulks out on you. So do you save the mask and make the gamble? Or do you play it safe and sacrifice Lisa's mask? indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |