Chapther 21, A Red Slide

~Hannah~

They had been extreamly lucky. The grey stone cylinder-like building reached high and the windows - which she would rather call holes - were covered with bars.  Probably iron. Not to mention how many of them there were. The whole building had a cruel feel to it; so obviously it had to be a prison. Of course, Little Ellie wanted more evidence before "deciding on an opinion", but Arbel seemed to ignore her so they were now thinking of it like a prison. “Wouldn't hurt to try'”, as Arbel had said. Strangely enough, Hannah and Lil' Ellie hadn't even raised their voices against each other. Hannah strongly suspected little miss Feeling Changer had something to do with it, but if she had she didn't show it.

At the moment they were in an alley so narrow they had to stand in a line like kindergarten kids. They could only hope nobody would see them. It would be so hard for that nobody, though, with them standing in a dark alley dressed in white clothes and all.

"Do...do you think there are guards in there?" She heard Natalie say somewhere in front of her.

It's a prison. Why wouldn't there be?

"Wished Charlotte was here." Arbel sighed.

When they had walked - run - in, a certain somebody had pushed Hannah in first. She knew why. So she and teeny weeny whiny Ellie didn't see each other.

Stupid necklace.

He deserved it, anyway. They hadn’t stolen anything. The holy saint Ellie wouldn’t in a million years and more.  

"I wonder if there's anythin' important on the other side of the wall" Arbel said, "Imagine if we somehow rammed it and got straight into the guards' bathroom."

"Maybe I can p-punch through the wall?"

Hannah had forgotten the shy, little angel could enhance her physical abilites. Her impression of Natalie just didn't match that power.

"Seriously? You'll just be a hinderance with a destroyed hand."

Didn't come out as she wanted. Natalie actually looked hurt. She had meant it as a nice thing. Nobody would profit from her hand getting broken or becoming, literally, a piece of meat. It would hurt like nothing else, too. ¨

Hannah glanced at Eleanor, who just glared at her. She didn't want to know what Arbel thought.

It was meant as a nice thing.

"...That's true." was all Arbel said, "Wouldn't it be better to just jump up? And just, well...um...break the bars?"

She smiled at Natalie. The kind that warms one’s heart. The kind Hannah had problems with; the best she could manage was a sneer.

"I-I can try..."

Right after the answer Natalie had jumped up to the nearest window above Arbel's head and grabbed its bars, which was still at least another Arbel up. How could she break them without making too mush noise? They didn't have any weapons. Too bad the angel didn’t have Wilma’s make-a-weapon-of-anything-power.

They could only see her butt now. It didn't look too bad, she guessed. Really, what was Natalie doing? Her body just kind of swayed back and forth.

A groan was then heard from above the butt. Natalie's legs were pointing almost straight out from the wall now and her face was visible between her tighs. She had a bar in her mouth. A bar.

"Should she really have that thing in her mouth?" Eleanor asked.

The bar came falling down and Arbel caught it.

How did she do that? Without a single sound?

Two more fell down the same, though Arbel missed the last one and almost got knocked out. Then Natalie jumped down and landed with a loud 'thud' followed by a groan. Hannah stronly suspected that if they hadn't been surrounded by walls, Natalie would've been on the ground.

She looked up. The hole slash window didn't look big. Not. At. All.

"What did it look like inside?" Little Ellie said.

"Empty..."

"Think you can pull us up, or somethin'?" Arbel looked up, "Maybe jump up with us on your back one and one?"

"Um...Well...I can try..."

The following minutes consisted mostly of Natalie being unsure of if she could or not, Hannah and the others saying she were and then discussing who was going up first. Eleanor seemed to be the lightest, and that was that.

After being 'carried up', hung on to dear life to the edge of the hole, squeezed through it, getting scrapes and inevitable future bruises on the hips and then being helped with a somewhat safe landing by the people who was lifted up before her. In Hannah's case, Eleanor and Arbel.

First, she noticed they weren't in a prison cell. Fortunately. Then she noticed something smelled so sharp it made it hard to breathe at first. She though it maybe came from all the doors in the slightly curved corridor. Or maybe the torches were made out of some seriously bad wood. But there were no torches. And the wooden doors had no keyholes and no visible slots against the floor.

"Doesn't it smell funny?" Arbel said as she and Eleanor helped Natalie through the so-called window, "Like sour milk mixed with grilled meat?"

Puke smelled better.

"I hope that girl is here," Eleanor voice was muffled under her hand.

Hannah wanted to cover mouth and nose too, but not when Ittie Bittie Ellie did it first.

"Which way?" She said instead.

"Man, I wish Charlotte was here." Arbel sighed, “Or a dog. A dog would be great.”

"Leslie, my golden retriever” Eleanor said while looking at Hannah, “has an excellent sense of smell.”

What did Hannah care about their dog?

“Anyway, let’s just go where the smell is fainter.”

"Yeah. That's easy to know." Hannah answered.

Eleanor just glared at her

"Let's just go right." Arbel said tiredly, as lay her hand on Hanna's back, pushing her infront of her.

The longer they walked, the clearer it became they hadn't chosen the way Eleanor, or anybody,  had wanted. Rotten, like something had died.

Their steps echoed, sounded as if the sound traveled through the walls. Hannah swallowed. She didn't remember much from that other time, but she wasn't scared. Not at all. Not at all. At all. No. It couldn't smell this bad and be good could it?

The only sound was the echoes of their steps. Did They really know they were in this world as Natalie had said back then at the gallows? Could They have followed them here and be waiting for them behind on of the doors? Maybe They had a staff room. Where They heard their steps. Maybe They were getting ready to fight. No way the angel could know, right? Arbel had believed her, though…

"Maybe they're havin' lunch?" Arbel whispered.

Or maybe They didn't. Maybe They were out looking for them.

They reached a staircase; made out of stone like everything else. It went through both the ceiling and the floor. It was wide, as well. All four of them could probably walk next to each other.

"Up or down?" Arbel asked.

Her voice wasn't shaky.

No one answered. Finally, Natalie, of all people, said:

"Y-you c-c-can decide..."

Arbel placed one foot on the stair and looked at it. Than moved her hands to her temples and rubbed hard.

"Let's go up." She said while breathing out, "If that girl was kidnapped and dangerous, she should be upstairs somewhere, right?"

They nodded.

If the guards had a staff room it should be downstairs. The teachers always had their downstairs.

"Well. I-um-I guess I should check it out?"

"Sure."

Hannah felt relieved that Eleanor's voice was cracked like a puzzle.

Arbel began to walk up, slowly. She kept looking both up and down and then her head gradually disappeard as she continued walking upwards.

Then she almost fell. She stared at them with scared, wide eyes and her finger against her mouth. With her other hand she cluthched the stairs and gestured with her head that something was up there. She began to climb down, backwards, on all four as slowly as she seemed to be able to.

"What?" Hananh hissed.

"What d'you think? There were frickin' people up there."

“…People?”

Hannah's chest began to hurt, but she tried to keep her face neutral. She glanced at Natalie, her hand clutched over her mouth and her eyes looked like saucerers.

"So what're we're going to do?" Eleanor whispered, "Fight them?"

"What else should we do?" Hannah answered. “Hide? Where do you think that’d be possible?”

"Not hide! Go down, maybe? Do you honestly want to fight them? How're you're going to do that? The last time we did it didn't exactly go well!"

Hannah followed her glance to Natalie, who didn't meet their eyes.

"But can't you get your thick-headed brain to understand that the girl probably is upstaris? You can't honestly think 'dangerous' people are placed downstairs!"

"Excu-"

Arbel put a hand over her mouth.

"They're walkin' towards the stairs!"

"Did they hear us?"

"Don't tell me they saw you!

"W-w-what should we do?"

"Seems like you get your fight, after all."

"Oh, shut. Up."

"How 'bout I make them have to really, really need to go to the toilet? It'll be just like when Wilma and I..."

"Eleanor can turn into a guar..."

"I don't know how they look like!"

"Hannie. You can turn the stairs into some kind of slide, right?”

She hadn’t planned this.

“You can, can't you?"

"I don't...no, well."

She was too slow, too powerless. She couldn't, she wasn’t fast and sometimes it didn't even work.

"You can!" Arbel said, "You’re faster now! We’ve all seen it. When they begin walkin’ down, you do it!"

"But..."

The steps were very close now.

"Let's do a frontal attack?" Natalie said.

Hannah stared at her. Of all people...If Arbel had said it...

“Even I can’t say differently.” Eleanor said.

“But I-“

 They all began to stare at the stairs. One foot, one leg, two feet, three feet, two pairs of feet and two pairs of legs.

Should she risk it all with the slide or let the others do something? Slide or something else? Sinkhole? Buried alive. Or they’d go down a floor and who knew what’d happen…

Their thighs got visible.

Arbel moved. Hannah grabbed her arm. Slide-sink hole-what-what-what…

Hannah and a woman’s eyes met. The woman was going to scream and let everyone know and Hannah would be weak and they would all-

“What are you gonna do with that rock? If you throw it I’ll tell the teacher! Heh, I thought so.”

She stretched out her arm, a clear picture of that red slide she had liked, she shut her eyes as hard as she could and then the woman went “eek”. Hannah opened her eyes, arm still out stretched, and she made eye contact with a chocked man. Neither of them had fallen. Then his eyes slowly dropped and he tried to keep them open but soon he was on his knees and leaned against the wall, the woman as well.

 Hannah turned to see Arbel look past her. She had both her arms stretched out and had a look of total and challenging concentration on her face. Beside her Natalie looked like she would be able to sprint at any second.

She looked at the guards again.

They were sleeping.

At first she didn’t understand, but one moment later she did. Fury over took her senses. She had done what they had agreed to do, wasn’t that enough? Did somebody else have to butt in just to be sure? Didn’t they trust her? Just because she had had a tiny moment of weakness?

Somebody panted. Hannah turned around.

Arbel had her hands on her knees. She, Hannah, had failed, she realized. Completely. The man and woman hadn’t fallen, she remembered. It hadn’t been much of a slope, had it?  Arbel had had to exhaust herself to fix Hannah’s mistake.

“Arabella?” Eleanor said, “Are you okay? What did you do?”

Ellie had her hands half stretched out to Arbel, like she didn’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry.” Hannah whispered to the ground.

“You don’t have to be.” Natalie whispered back.

She didn’t need pity. Not hers.

“They didn’t fall.” Arbel said, “I had to do somethin’.”

Yes.

“I could have something by myself, you know.” Hannah said without looking at her.

“Sure.”

It wasn’t sarcastic. It didn’t come with a smile. It wasn’t even angry or grumpy. It was simply said.

Sorry.