Miss Rapusha's dripped blood onto the pristine white floor as she exited the elevator, her eyes locked on the Writer. She clutched her electric swords tightly, her gaze unwavering. Her feet moved silently, closing the distance between them. The Writer's eyes widened, and he pressed his back against the wall, his hands curling into fists.
“Did you plan this?” she demanded, her voice icy, eyes boring into his.
“No…I didn’t plan anything,” the Writer replied, his voice trembling.
“Well, someone let them in,” Miss Rapusha said, advancing closer.
Backing away, he said, “I don’t even know what happened.”
The Writer's eyes darted around the room, searching for an escape route. He glanced towards the kitchen, but she stood between him and the door. The only exit was the elevator, which she clearly guarded. Resigned, he fixed his gaze back on her and stood his ground.
“I don’t know what happened,” the Writer repeated, his fists clenched tightly.
She stopped, her eyes tracing his body. Then she tapped her tattoo, and the swords vanished. Miss Rapusha took a deep breath and said, “If you were in on it, you would have left with the rest of them.”
A heavy breath escaped the Writer's mouth, and he unclenched his fists. Miss Rapusha tapped her tattoo again, and the blood lifted off her body and dress, disappearing into the air. A new pair of red stilettos materialized under her feet, raising her several inches. With the same formal grace she had when they first met, she walked toward the window.
“So how did walk out of the room?” she asked, looking down at the people below.
“Everything happened while I was in the Challenge Room,” he replied.
She looked back at him, raising an eyebrow. “So, the Charybdis were dead when you left?”
This puzzled the Writer. “The what?” he said.
"The metal poles in the ground. They flood the floor, then throw the Charybdis, which electrifies the ground and freezes everyone the water touches," she explained, seeing his confusion. "While you're frozen, they toss in the other poles, the Scylla, into your body, constantly electrocuting you. They can take thousands of lives in a few seconds."
Miss Rapusha moved away from the window. She pressed her finger to her tattoo, and two elegant wooden chairs and a small end table appeared with two glasses of red wine on top. "Join me, darling," she said, sitting at the table and taking a glass of wine.
The Writer hesitated, lingering in the corner, watching her. He considered running for the door and escaping into the lobby, but then he remembered the concrete wall. Where would he go? Even if he managed to exit, the mob outside didn’t look welcoming.
Miss Rapusha touched her arm again, and suddenly, two clear floating footprints materialized in front of the Writer. She took a sip of wine and told him, "Take off your shoes and step in the prints."
The Writer stared at the floating prints, puzzled. Then, with a deep breath, he stepped into them. The prints were absorbed into his feet and disappeared.
"If they come, take off your shoes and you'll be fine," she said. "Now come and sit." She motioned for him to sit beside her.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He walked over, glancing down at his feet, expecting something to change, but they felt the same. He pulled out a chair and sat down. She pushed the other glass of red wine toward him.
"The Sheriff is a wonderful man, but he's an idiot. He was in real life, and he is here too. Everyone is here because they needed money, and Angel Inc. promised a payout with no apparent downside. The real you gets paid while some avatar of you lives in a prison where they're stealing everything you'll ever write. I fell for it, you fell for it, and they fell for it too," she said, pointing toward the window and the masses below.
Miss Rapusha tapped her wrist, and a cigarette appeared in a long silver holder in her hand. It lit instantly at the tip, and she began to take a few puffs. The Writer looked down at his hands, examining his own tattoo.
“What do I do?” he asked, still staring at his tattoo.
“You can stay here, like the Sheriff, and try to live out your days in this luxury apartment, living like some artistic Howard Hughes. Or you can come with me, and we can end this experiment,” she said, placing the cigarette on the table as an ashtray formed beside it. Miss Rapusha stood up and took one more sip of her wine.
The Writer stood up too, though he didn’t know why. He looked into her eyes, but she was already gazing at the elevator doors. He turned to the window, staring down at the growing mass on the street. The crowd was becoming more agitated, with people pushing against the concrete barrier and fires burning in the street. He noticed the old man in the sailor hat still sitting against the building, the same one he had seen earlier. He looked closely at him and saw a white scar running from his nose to his ear. Something about him seemed familiar, as if he had seen him before.
A memory flashed in his mind. He was sitting in a classroom, a young man in a tank top asleep on his desk to his left, sunglasses on, snoring softly. In front of him, a woman in a bright red "Do Meth, Hail Satan" shirt calmly took her seat and opened her laptop. The room was old and made of concrete, now filled with students but still no teacher. A window was open on the far side, and a strong spring breeze rustled some loose papers on the desk in front of him. The Writer looked at his desk, where a laptop displayed a word document listing various authors and their styles:
* Charles Dickens: original word choice, figurative language, unique sentence structure, social themes.
* Oscar Wilde: flamboyant, long and complex sentences, literary imagery, realism and fantasy.
* Mary Shelley: Gothic and Romantic, eloquent prose, complex sentences, descriptive detail.
He glanced up from the screen as a man walked into the room, wearing a grey wool blazer with leather patches on the elbows and carrying an old leather briefcase with papers sticking out. The man placed it on the desk and turned to the class revealing a white scar from his nose to his ear. His face was like the man outside, but younger.
The professor rushed to open his briefcase causing the papers to fly out, caught by the wind blowing through the open window. The professor frantically reached for the papers as they scattered around the room. The Writer, along with several other students, stood up to help, but the professor shouted, “Please sit down!” as he hurriedly gathered the papers and shoved what he could into the briefcase.
The Writer looked down at a paper at the foot of his desk. REJECTED was stamped in red ink across the title “Judging a Book by its Cover: The Super Professor, 78,000 words, manuscript by Dr. Isaiah White”. He looked up and met the professor’s eyes, now filled with sadness. The professor bent down and picked up the rejected paper, his frown deepening.
The Writer was jolted back to the present. Miss Rapusha stood by the elevator, the door open, but the Writer remained by the table next to the wall of windows.
“So, are you coming?” she asked, her hand on the frame of the elevator door.
The Writer moved closer to the window and said, “I know that man,” pointing toward the old man still sleeping outside.
“You probably know everyone. No matter what they say, I doubt you won this place by accident,” she said, waving her fingers around the room. “Now, are you coming?”
The Writer looked out the window, staring at the sleeping man on the side of the road. That man had been his professor, Dr. Isaiah White, but now he was here, trapped in this strange existence. His thoughts drifted to the Sheriff upstairs, locked in his room, and the woman trapped outside the prison cells. All these people had lives before and now they were stuck here, writing against machines for eternity.
He looked back at Miss Rapusha, standing in her formal red dress, looking impossibly composed. Her hair fell in perfect strands over her shoulders, and her rosy red lipstick was flawless. She frowned as she watched him.
“Goodbye,” she said, stepping into the elevator. The doors slammed shut, leaving the Writer alone in the room.