Tethered Twins

Emmie Keyes

I ran down the hallways with Rex and Rufus by my side. For now they were free of Tobias’ mind control, the blocking device in my pocket keeping them at bay.

From behind us we heard a crash as the double doors were smashed open by Vlad and his brother. They were coming for us.

“Where can we go?” I asked Rex.

“No idea. Just find an exit,” he coughed in exhaustion from the running. “You should leave me behind. I can’t do this with one lung.”

“No,” said Rufus. “I’m not leaving you bro.”

I agreed. We reached the end of a corridor with a large spiral staircase. “Up or down?” I asked.

We started heading upwards but were forced to stop due to a high locked gate. There was no way around it. We dashed back down the stairs and now we could see them again, Vlad and his twin closing in on us. The only option was to head downwards.

The stairs took us underneath the building into a dimly lit sub-basement area that stank of musk and was riddled with mould and decay. Hundreds of rows of books were stacked around us onto large shelves that were held in place by glass doors, many of which had been shattered leaving many more books strewn across the floor, their spines broken and their pages torn and covered in mud.

Suddenly Rex stopped running. He lent over holding his chest in agony. Through gritted teeth he let out a scream, unable to contain the pain any more. “Run!” he shouted to us, knowing that the orange eye twins were right behind us.

I ran back to Rex. I wasn’t ready to let him go. Rufus and I tried to carry him by placing ourselves under his arms but we weren’t strong enough. The three of us collapsed to the side head first into a large bookcase.

The bookcase had become weak over the years and it started to give way, and then fell over tumbling in the opposite direction to us.

As the bookcase fell we helped Rex to his feet and ran away from the falling books, huddling close together in order to protect him. My face was pressed in close to Rex and I thought about how much he had helped me. I kissed him on his cheek and told him to carry on.

Then came the screams as one of the falling bookcases landed on Vlad and his twin, trapping them to the floor. This was our opportunity.

“No!” screamed Tobias. The last two lights in his room started to flicker and he could feel himself losing control. “I will never let you go! You will always be my greatest experiment.”

He tried to force Vlad upwards again but it was no use. The orange eyed men were trapped.

We were free to escape.

The fallen bookcases had exposed something else as well. At the far end of the room was a large doorway. It looked like it headed in the direction of the building entrance. If we were lucky there would be a staircase that could lead us right back outside.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Rex found his footing again and walked slowly to the exit. We did our best to help him but it was clear he’d done some damage to himself in the escape.

“We’re almost there,” I tried to reassure him, although I had no idea what we’d do once we got outside.

We pulled the two doors open and saw the two steel doors of an elevator. Looking behind me I could see Vlad starting to rise up from under the rubble.

“There’s no other way,” I said, pushing the elevator button. The doors opened instantly, like it had been waiting for us, and we stepped inside. I rapidly pushed the close button in a panic whilst we could see Vlad running towards us.

The door finally started to close with Vlad mere footsteps away. Just as we thought we had escaped and the doors were centimetres away from each other they were stopped by a knife which stuck between them. I instinctively kicked the knife away and the door thankfully closed.

Vlad banged on the door in anger and we could hear him screaming as the elevator moved.

It was that movement that told me something wasn’t right. It felt like we were going downwards not up. I looked at the panel and saw a button had been pressed for the lowest level; B6.

I turned around to ask Rex why he’d pushed the button but the answer quickly became apparent.

His eyes had returned to a dark orange. I looked at Rufus and his eyes had done the same. I could no longer hear the soothing hum of the blocking device. R&R were back under the control of Tobias.

I backed up towards the door as Rex walked towards me. I frantically pressed a button for the Innocent blocking device to come on again but it did not. It was out of power.

Rex grabbed me and held his arm around my body, forcing my body to rest against him. Rufus snatched the blocking device from my hand. He threw it onto the floor and smashed it under his foot. He then found the one in his own pocket and smashed that too.

“You can’t escape,” said Rex, as the elevator made its way down to level B6.