Eternal Elements: Chapter 3

May 6 2010 9:56 AM The Netherlands: Amsterdam

It was just another boring day at the office for Alexis, she was staring at her computer clock and could swear it took three minutes before it went from 9:56 to 9:57.

“It must be some crazy clock conspiracy, I’m sure of it,” she said a little too loud and a couple of office girls behind her laughed.

It wasn’t about her though, they were laughing about a celebrity that had landed on a worst dressed page from a third rate gossip magazine. Somehow Alexis always thought that every little laugh, whisper and joke was directed at her. It might as well have been, she would definitely land on the worst dressed list.

She liked to wear bright cheerful colours and wasn’t actually known for matching the right accessories to create that flawless sexy look. Her only accessory was her yellow duck hairclip that was mostly used for keeping her curly blonde shoulder length hair in check. She wore whatever she felt comfortable in, like the pink wool sweater and green ankle length frilly dress she was wearing today. At least those celebrities were good at something, Alexis couldn’t even say she was good at her job. Sure, she could easily be the best if she wanted to, but her job was incredibly boring, even for her standards.

Her computer clock finally went to 9:58. “Focus already!” She slapped herself in her face. “Ouch!” This time she was sure they were laughing at her as everyone from her department was staring at her.

Since slapping herself wasn’t even working she decided to get a soft drink from the vending machine in the nearby kitchen.

She walked up to the kitchen sink and noticed a round digital clock hanging on the wall. “Oh great, my clock is even ahead of time.” The digital 56 just turned into 57. “That proves it, clock conspiracy.”

Her mood didn’t actually improve when her computer clock was still at 9:58 when she returned to her desk.

Just when she had convinced herself that time would go by faster when she would just focus on her work her phone rang ‘do, do doo... yeah-eah-eah, yeah.’ “Hey mom, everything alright?”

“Sure sweetie, I just need you to pick something up from the grocery store after work. You know, they have a new cashier there, he’s really cute and-“
“-Bye mom!” She quickly disconnected, the last thing she needed was her mother trying to find her a boyfriend.

Even though she only tried to help, Alexis had no intention of dating, not ever. It turned out it was a good decision to hang up as her boss just walked out of his office and towards her. No doubt with some more boring papers to file… yippee.

He was a middle aged man with a ruffled moustache and with a belly so large and round that it made him appear to be thirty six weeks pregnant, make that months. “It’s just ten in the morning, and already you’re goofing off?!”

Alexis shrugged. “Actually, it’s just 9:59, maybe even 9:58, not sure how many seconds-“

“-What the devil are you rambling on about this time,” her boss said looking anything but amused.

“Well, just between you and me.” She gestured him to move closer and whispered in his ears: “I think we have a clock conspiracy on our hands.”

His moustache looked like it was about to fall off.

“I kid you not, look at the clock.” She pointed at the bottom corner from her monitor where her clock just turned to 10:00. “C-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y!”

Her boss shook his head. “… right, of course. After dealing with that just file these papers.” He looked at her disapprovingly and walked away. “I just don’t understand you at all miss Winter.”

She grinned as she watched him dawdle away, trying to keep his belly from peeling away the office floor. Everybody already thought she was a crazy freak with no dress sense anyway, at least she could make some fun of that.

She turned her attention back to her monitor and saw the clock was now at 10:01. “Well, how about that, I didn’t even see it move this time.”

Just when she was about to actually do her job she was distracted by a shrill scream coming from the elevators. A barely audible plopping sound could be heard and almost immediately the entire room started to fill up with smoke, obstructing everyone’s vision entirely.

May 6 2010 10:00 AM The Netherlands: Amsterdam

Chaos broke out everywhere, even though she couldn’t see it she heard everyone moving and running, hitting desks, falling and crawling over each other, trying to get away from the smoke. Alexis jumped up from her seat and heard muted gunfire followed by loud terrified screams from her co-workers.

One of them fell right in front of her feet and had a glowing pin sticking out of her neck, she was stunned… by someone. She wanted to panic, but all she could do was smirk in disbelief, surely this had to be some kind of elaborate joke? It  quickly became harder to breath and her eyes started to tear up, she heard footsteps from several individuals moving closer, could it be possible that they were moving in her direction?

She ducked and started crawling over the office floor, away from her desk. No matter where she looked, everywhere unconscious co-workers were laying on top of each other, they all had that strange glowing pin sticking out of their necks. It wasn’t until now that she noticed that the screams and scurrying noises were slowly fading. She feared she was the only one left conscious. It seemed no one was supposed to get out, this did not look good at all.

She just couldn’t understand who would want to target an office building? Who would target her? She paid all of her bills on time, she was never mean no anyone, and as far as she knew didn’t do anything illegal. She was the most boring person she knew. Granted, that didn’t mean much since she only knew her parents, and her perfect sister. And her sister much rather pretended she wasn’t alive than sent someone after her to assassinate her. Her throat started to burn up and she realised she couldn’t hide under a desk forever, her coughing would eventually reveal her, if not sooner knock her out.

Using the elevator was definitely not an option, seeing as that was how they got in, whoever they were. She worked in a skyscraper all the way up on the tenth floor, it seemed impossible to get out. Alexis bumped her head several times without really knowing where she was going, she finally felt something familiar. It was one of the kitchen chairs. She suppressed another cough and looked around. The smoke hadn’t completely filled this room yet and she could still barely make out the sink and cabinets. Above the cabinets she noticed an air ventilation shaft, that might just turn out to be her only escape route. As quickly and quietly as possible she climbed on the kitchen sink and felt her way around the ceiling, hoping to find some sort of hatch or vent. She concentrated like never before, but the only thing she heard and felt was her increasing heartbeat. Her fingers finally felt the rough edges of the vent shaft and she tried to remove it somehow, without making a noise. She heard footsteps coming her way and lost the little patience she had and tore down the entire vent from the ceiling.

The people after her were now alerted, there wasn’t a single moment to lose. She ran against the kitchen table she couldn’t see anymore and grabbed a kitchen chair; used it as a boost and climbed up the vent. All of this took her less than five seconds, not a single activity had ever taken her less than five seconds before.

She squealed when something grabbed a hold of her dress, but it was just a sharp edge of the vent shaft. With shaking hands she unhooked it and crawled through the shaft as fast as possible, without any idea of where she was or where she was going. Every move she made drummed through the shaft, making her very easy to find, maybe even easier than in the thick smoke. Just when that thought raced through her mind the space she had just crawled over was shredded by bullets.

“No way! Real bullets?” She skipped panic and shot straight through to hysteria, making it nearly impossible for her to move forward.

Her hands were sweaty and she kept slipping and she stumbled over her own knees that only seemed to be getting in her way now. Her every move was giving away her direction, as bullets always hit exactly the spot she had just crawled over.
She crawled on aimlessly, the only thought that was able to reach her was why this was happening to her. Of all the people, why her? Why couldn’t she have been stunned like the others? Why couldn’t she be mugged and raped like any other normal girl that was being chased through an air vent?

She reached a cross section that could both be leading her into an early death. Bullets followed her every move, not giving her even a second to breath or think.

Her fear suddenly turned into anger. “Could you at least give me a second to decide which way is going to kill me faster!”

She figured it didn’t matter which way she went and turned right. She placed her sweaty hand onward expecting support from the vent, but instead she fell down.

She broke through the ceiling below her office. Her hands broke her fall, but they still felt painfully tingling when she picked herself up. She dusted herself off and looked around. There was no smoke here. In fact, there was not a single person here. This was usually the busiest floor of the building. As if stunned co-workers and real bullets hadn’t been enough to convince her she was in trouble.

Alexis’ head was pounding and she was still coughing. She noticed a water cooler and held her head under it and drank without taking a single breath. It didn’t help her that much, but it did give her a second to think about her dire situation. She obviously needed to get help, ‘call’ out to someone. She picked up a nearby phone, but it was dead, obviously. Her cell phone was still laying on her desk. She immediately thought about her mother, their last conversation couldn’t have been about her hopeless love life. She hoped that whoever these men were, they were only after her. She couldn’t handle the thought of her parents being in the same dangerous situation as she was in. Abruptly she realised she was standing around, lost in her worrying thoughts. It wouldn’t take them long to find her here either, she needed to stay on the move.

Maybe now she could use the elevator? No, that was a stupid idea, or was it? She ran towards the elevators and tried to push away the sliding doors. Even though she used all of her strength, they barely moved apart. It still created enough room for her to squeeze trough. The elevator was still on the floor above her. She  figured she could use the cables to climb down.

She imitated her gymnastics teacher and said in a manly voice: “Climb up those ropes now young lady, this might save your life someday.”

She remembered how she had laughed at him, saying how she would never actually use robe climbing in her daily life. She couldn’t believe he would actually be right about this. Still, if she had shown any effort in gym class she would have died ten years ago out of the embarrassment her constant failing would have caused.

With the speed of a sleeping snail she started to descent the cables. Every other second she looked up, expecting the elevator to suddenly start to come down. After everything that had already happened that wouldn’t surprise her one bit.

After several terrifying minutes of nearly slipping and plummeting to her death she finally reached the underground parking. She took a couple of deep breaths and pushed the sliding doors away, she peered through the opening she had created and saw that someone had his back turned to her. That person looked an awful lot like a mercenary she thought to herself. Not far from where he was standing another one was talking into an earpiece, probably getting an order to watch out for some crazy girl in a green skirt trying to escape from armed and trained mercenaries. That thought made her feel slightly depressed, but she had made it this far. She would at least try, for once, to do her very best.

May 6 2010 10:31 AM The Netherlands: Amsterdam

Alexis stayed as close to the walls and pillars as possible while she inched her way towards her car. In vain she searched her skirt for her car keys, but knew all to well they were still inside her Hello Kitty back near her desk. On foot the exit was nearly half a mile away. This underground parking garage was enormous and almost mazelike. It already seemed difficult to escape before, without a car it seemed almost impossible. Her little old green beetle was parked nearby, but it stood out, and she feared that they also knew what car she drove. She got on her knees and looked under several cars and spotted the set of wheels she had been looking for. Thankfully she didn’t see any mercenary boots anywhere near her beetle. She always parked her car as close to the elevator as possible because she hated walking long stretches. For once it was actually a good thing she was lazy.

She could already see her car’s rooftop through the windshields from the surrounding cars, oddly enough no one was guarding it. It was possible they didn’t know it was her car, or maybe they never imagined she would get this far. Or maybe her car was booby trapped. Or maybe if she wondered some more they would find her before she even had a chance to find that out for herself. She stopped guessing and sneaked up to her own car, while continuing to stay as low as possible.

She reached for her door and realised she was facing another dilemma, she had no idea how to get inside her car. She tried to doors anyways, hoping against hope she had forgotten to lock them this morning. Unfortunately she never forgot stuff like that, a character trait that was seriously hampering her right now. She pulled out her yellow duck hairclip and stuck it in the keyhole and wiggled it around. She had no idea what she was doing, but it never looked difficult in any of the movies she had seen. Nothing happened and she started to get nervous, she moved the hairclip in every possible direction.

Just when she was about to give up the entire keyhole fell out, causing the front door the click open. Her father had told her that this pathetic excuse of a car could fall to pieces at any moment, right now she couldn’t be happier that her father had been right. With a triumphant look she climbed behind her steering wheel, her satisfied expression quickly disappeared however when she realised she still needed her keys to start her car.

“Oh right, I’m just as screwed now as I was outside of the car, great,” she said sarcastically.

She looked out of her windshield and over her shoulder, but the coast was still clear. She bended over and started searching for the car cables under the steering wheel with her hairclip firmly stuck between her teeth. She found some cables and pulled them loose, but had no clue what she was looking at. It was a hopeless situation. She felt like ramming her head against her steering wheel, but that would just alert the mercenaries, not to mention hurt like hell. Alexis was now biting on her hairclip and got a very silly idea, her hairclip hadn’t failed her yet and she had nothing to lose.

She carefully placed her hairclip in the ignition and turned it with one smooth motion.
Conducted by rattling engine noises that sounded like a bunch of metal objects being tossed around in a washer her car came to life. Alexis nearly jumped out of her seat by surprise and excitement. She hadn’t expected this at all, and apparently she wasn’t the only one.

Just a few feet away from her several armed men came running from behind a pillar shouting and pointing their guns at her. Alexis wasn’t waiting around though, she had already pushed down the gas pedal as far as it could and drove straight for the armed men, who had no choice but to jump out of her way. For the first since the smoke had filled her office building she felt a little hope. She knew this mazelike garage like the back of her hand. That feeling quickly left her as she saw four pairs of lights turn on from camouflaged vans all around her after passing them with her car.

Her old rusty beetle was just barely quick enough to ‘outdrive’ running people, brand new heavy vans were out of the question.
It was almost like she was standing still, the vans that were following her were gaining on her exceptionally fast. She looked ahead and saw a sign pointing towards the exit, and another one pointing further down the parking garage. At the last second Alexis thought that it might come as a surprise if she didn’t drive towards the exit and made a sharp turn which her old beetle without power steering nearly couldn’t handle. She heard the screech from her tires as well as the tires from her followers echo through the garage. The van in the lead had indeed guessed she would drive up and made a wrong turn, the other three vans easily turned and continued to pursue her.

Alexis looked in her rear view mirror and saw that their electric windows were sliding down, guns with silencers came into view. They would drill through her car like a hot knife would cut through butter. Without knowing what was in front of her she made another sharp turn. She couldn’t hear the muted sounds of gunfire, but could see they had missed her because taillights, windshields and tires from other cars were shot to pieces.
She didn’t have time to celebrate her quick thinking, because now she was heading straight towards a square pillar. She nearly tore her own steering wheel off as she tried to dodge the pillar. Dodge the pillar she did, but her turn wasn’t quiet fast enough. She scrapped past other cars and sparks, paint and bits of metal flew past and over her car. She was starting to feel like she was driving in a bumper car. One of the vans behind her wasn’t such a good bumper car. It had no trouble avoiding the pillar, but was too big to bypass the parked cars, it looked like it impaled them when the van slammed against them. Now there were only two more cars chasing her.

She hadn’t even finished that thought or the van that had gone in the opposite direction came driving towards her from the parking floor above them. It must have followed the alternate route completely so that it would meet her, instead of trying to catch up with her. The van drove towards her without slowing down, if they impacted each other she wasn’t even sure if the airbag from the other van had to come out. Alexis on the other hand didn’t even have an airbag, there would be nothing left to find if they crashed. Again Alexis saw a sign leading up the parking garage, she pushed her petal down even further hoping she would make it in time. It almost seemed like the van in front of her hesitated, as if it slowed down for a second. That was all the hesitation she needed, Alexis made the right turn and saw how the other van turned left. It spiralled out of control and landed on its side. 

Now there really were only two more left, but now she was driving up a long curving passageway, she couldn’t evade their gunfire any longer. Pieces of glass and fake leather flew over her head, she was forced to duck and made herself as small as possible without letting go of her gas petal or steering wheel. It was a good thing she knew this place so well, she had to rely on her instinct.
She hoped they had left the curved tunnel behind and peered over her dashboard. She was right, there were no more floors above her, the exit was nearby. She wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to leave the parking garage though. At least here she had some sort of advantage because it was so small and jam-packed with cars. The area surrounding her office building was massive. If she would make it outside it would be nothing more but target practice for them to take her out.

No, she would have to take out the last vans as well somehow. Driving back down again would be suicide at this point. Her car wouldn’t last another trip through the parking garage. She was also sure that none of her pursuers were actually dead. She dared to take another peak over her dashboard and saw an open parking space between two cars. Her tiny beetle would be able to squeeze through, but those bulky vans couldn’t possible make it. Alexis made sure she was driving in a straight line and closed her eyes. If she was off by as much as a millimetre she would slam against the parked cars and it would all be over. She heard the sound of the passing wind but no impact followed, not immediately that was. As she had expected the two vans had blindly followed her and rammed themselves against the two parked cars.
She had lost them all, she was just about to sit up and smile again when she saw that a couple of armed mercenaries had blocked the exit with two more vans. As she drove towards them they aimed their guns at her and started firing. Almost immediately she heard the sound of her tires imploding.

There was no possible way to escape now, but that realisation didn’t make her feel defeated or discouraged, instead she felt a certain clarity and certainty build up inside of herself. If she couldn’t make it out she would at least take as many of them with her as possible. Refusing the lose control of her steering wheel she kept driving forward. Her trusty car just had to hold on for another second, and then it would all be over.
She felt how she crashed against the parked vans; felt her body leave her car, glass cut into her skin as she was catapulted through her own windshield, the heat from the flames from the explosion that followed. She could almost taste the smell of gasoline in the air. The screams from the mercenaries seemed far away, like she was in another room. Her head was spliced into a million pieces… and then everything went dark.
A flash of light suddenly blinded her, she heard voices, was she on the other side? Was this her life flashing by?

She was being complemented by her teachers how she was never sick. Her mother begging her to stay by her side when she felt unwell. Her father asking her to put her hands on his head when he had a headache, it relieved the pain he said. Images of how a puppy that hadn’t been breathing suddenly opened his eyes when she touched it. That dreadful computer that she never had problems with. Her beetle that somehow never broke down. These sure where weird flashes of her life, had she really been this boring that this was all she was seeing?
The flash of light started to dim and she started to feel something, it was warm and sticky. It was all over her skin, she could even taste it. Blood was covering her, but that would mean she wasn’t dead, right? That wasn’t possible, that crash would have killed anyone. Then why was she able to open her eyes, why was she able to see that white light, and why the hell was it coming from her?
Her ears were still ringing and she heard the sound of a broken horn, but she wasn’t laying on the ground anymore. Somehow was carrying her.

“What’s going on?” She didn’t even recognise the sound of her own voice.

“Don’t worry Alexis, you did great, I’m so sorry we were so late, but everything will be fine now.” the voice that spoke to her was even less familiar.

“I don’t… don’t understand?” Alexis said.

“What don’t you understand?” the voice replied.

Alexis felt lightheaded, but otherwise she didn’t feel any pain. It was the strangest feeling in the world. “Everything… nothing.”

The person carrying her chuckled. “Well, you will soon find out that nothing makes sense anymore, so that works out just fine.”