Chapter Text
We walked out the double doors and down the hall until we got to a big door. We opened the door which lead into a room with the lights turned off. When we turned them on, we saw that we were in a room with a big window covering one side of the room. The window was covered by a thick curtain.
I pulled back the curtain to see the other side. The other side of the window was dark, but the light from behind us was bright enough to see inside the room a little. I looked around the room. It seemed to be the padded room that Jack was talking about, but something was off about it.
The room was covered with white pads on the walls, but some of the pads had claw marks on them. I tried to see further into the room, but I couldn’t see anything much. I did see something move. I looked around the room that I was in. There was a small white table with a white chair and a microphone that was connected to speakers in the other room.
I turned on the speaker and spoke into it, “M-Mark is that you in there? Are you ok?”
I saw something move again. I saw a wire, that I didn’t see before, move too. The wire seemed to be connected to another speaker in this room. The scientists seemed to be communicating with him. Suddenly, a voice was coming from the speaker.
“Who are you? Why is Jack behind you? What did you do!?!” A very masculine voice asked. I could hear the panic in his voice.
I looked back at Jack and whispered, “What do I say?”
He whispered back, “I’ll talk to him.” He gestured me to give him the mic, so I did.
“Mark. She asked if you were ok. Are you?” Jack asked.
“...” No response. Mark was silent and we couldn’t get him to talk.
“Mark… please… we need your help.” Jack was starting to cry.
“Fine! I’ll answer your stupid questions! I’m Clara. I’m YouTuber that was captured and locked a room for who knows how long by the scientists. Jack’s here because I heard him being tortured and I was horrified by what the scientists did to him. HAPPY!?!” I yelled at Mark. I was tired of waiting for him to corroborate with us.
“I guess,” Mark said quietly.
“Are you ok, Mark? Did they hurt you?” Jack asked with tears still in his eye.
“Yes. They hurt me, but I’m fine. I can endure the pain.” Mark said plainly.
My frustration turned into concern. Is Mark really ok? He sounds very different than when he was last on YouTube.
I wanted to see him, so I tried the door that was beside the window. It was one of those latch door things that are on classroom doors. It was locked, so I looked around the room for the key. There were a few file cabinets. I looked into the bottom drawer, but there was only a few papers and notes about Mark’s behavior. I ignore those and looked up at the top drawer. The keys were in there, so I took the keys and ran to the door.
“What are you doing?” Mark asked, a little aggressively.
“Clara’s opening the door,” Jack answered he seemed a bit confused.
“NO!!! WAIT!!!” Mark shouted at me, but I heard him as soon as I opened the door.
By the time I could process what he said I quickly slammed the door shut. Mark screamed in agony. I was shouted, but I was more alert than when I saw Jack like that. I quickly ran over to the mic and started talking to him.
“Mark! Oh, g##! What did I do! H-How can I help!?!” I yelled.
Mark grabbed a rag that was beside him and put it on. He wrapped it around his eyes, so maybe the light hurt his eyes. Well, that made a lot of sense.
“The scientist must have done something to his eyes before they locked him in there. His eyes must still be sore. Am I right, Mark?” I explained to Jack and asked Mark.
Mark got up from the ground and picked up the microphone and said, “Yeah. But I’m going to stay mad at you.” He then scowled at me.
I was a little hurt. “Fine. I’m ok with that, just don’t stay mad at me forever. Ok?” I asked Mark.
“Sure. I don’t care.” Mark said.
I felt like he was rolling his eyes at me, but I couldn’t tell because of the blindfold.
“That wasn’t the best first impressions I’ve seen, but it was a nice save,” Jack said to me.
“It’s a good thing that I watched you guys on YouTube before this or else I would have hated him by now. I’m the sort of person to hold strong grudges with people that I don’t like.” I said to Jack.
“Heh heh...yeah” Jack laughed nervously.
He didn’t want to bare the thought of me wanting to leave Mark here. When I realized my mistake, I felt really bad.
“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean it, so just forget that I said anything.” I apologized.
Jack smiled. Then we both walked into the padded cell to help Mark get out because he couldn’t see.
“Thanks, Jack,” Mark said as Jack lead Mark out of the room and while I held the door open.
We walked out of the room and then the second room. I kept thinking about how I just wanted this nightmare to end.