The Watch – Part 99:

We met Oliver in the middle of the hallway, standing just before a closed door.

‘I tried opening this door, but it is either very stiff or locked. I reckon it’s the latter,’ he said, looking at the door up and down, studying it to try and find a way of opening it. I didn’t know how I was going to start the conversation off that will eventually lead to asking Oliver if we could take a copy of his video. I guessed that the most logical reason would be to explain that we can use it for research purposes for our project, which means the best way to start this conversation is to ask the question first before explaining why we asked it. Why am I so nervous to do this? I was about to waste no time and get it out in the open, but Oliver prevented me from doing so as he suddenly rammed the door with his shoulder, breaking the locking mechanism inside the door, forcing it to open.

‘There we go,’ he said, raising his touch up to see what was behind the door. Turned out, it was a staircase that leads to the floor above. The room at the end of the stairs must be the room we saw above our heads yesterday. The one with the hole in the floor.

‘You may not want to go up there,’ I said worried for Oliver’s safety, not only because of the hole that he could fall through, but because the stairs don’t look that sturdy either. He lifted his foot and placed it gently onto the first step, steadily increasing the weight until he was fully suspended by his foot on the step.

‘Seems fine to me,’ he said before stepping onto the second step.

‘That first step may be fine, but the rest look like they’ll collapse under the smallest of weights,’ I defended my worry. I looked at Amy, who looked at me with the same expression of, ‘we should do something’, but neither one of us knew what to say or do to prevent him from climbing those steps. He was really determined to see what was on the upper floor.

‘I’ll let you know what’s up here,’ he said, pulling his camera out and setting it up to take pictures. A couple of flashes later and he was on the second to last step before reaching the end. The steps creaked and cracked as he walked gingerly up them. At least he wasn’t running up them by taking two at a time. Amy and I couldn’t do anything except watch him climb. Then he stepped onto the final step and lifted himself up. The floorboards sounded like they would snap at any second, but he didn’t seem to worry about it. He acted confidently as if he knew they wouldn’t break, even though he clearly has absolutely no idea what will happen. He waved his torch about excitedly

‘You should have a look up here,’ he called down. ‘This is quite a mess.’

‘We’re good,’ Amy answered as Oliver took a few more pictures. I walked into the room that was directly below the one Oliver was currently in and saw him standing just beside the hole, looking down.

‘What do you think would have caused this?’ he said.

‘Probably a combination of woodlice, rotten with dampness from the rain, old age,’ I reeled off, ‘which means you shouldn’t be up there for much longer. It could give way at any moment.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said as he stepped around the hole. Dust rained down from the floorboards above. ‘OK,’ he said after a minute or two, ‘there doesn’t seem to be anything significant up here. I’ll come down.’

‘Good,’ I called. Oliver descended the stairs, relinquishing Amy and I of our worry. Of course I would have been able to save him, but you know the reason why.

‘Right,’ Oliver said, ‘I don’t know what else I will be able to get out of this building apart from what I can find on the internet. What about you two? Find anything important for your project yet?’

‘Quite a lot actually,’ I said. This is it. This can be the start of the conversation that I can lead in with to ask the question.

‘Good,’ he said quite pleased. ‘I’m going to go home then and take these pictures and add them to the research that I have already found and start writing up a report,’ he said.

‘That reminds me,’ I said. ‘We were wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, if we could take a copy of that video and the pictures to help with our project?’ I asked quickly.

‘Sure you can,’ he said simply. ‘I was about to ask the same question,’ he said. Why was that so hard to do? ‘You can come back to my place and I’ll E-mail the files over to you,’ he said.

‘Awesome,’ I said.

‘Guys,’ Amy’s voice came from the room that I just came out of. I was surprised with myself that I didn’t notice her disappear like that. Even Oliver, who was standing opposite me turned around with a look of surprise that he had missed her walk off into the other room like that. It goes to show that even in an abandoned building such as this one, you can still be unintentionally quiet. ‘You should have a look at this.’

As soon as I stepped over the threshold into the other room, a loud snap originated from above and echoed around the entire station. It seems that Oliver’s weight had helped gravity win the fight.

The wood started to shift slightly downwards, colliding with other bits of stray wood, sharing their strength to try and stay upright for as long as they could, but it just wasn’t enough. I could hear something breaking above and immediately knew what it was.

‘Amy, we need to get out of here,’ I called through. Her attention towards whatever she found broke as she looked up when she heard the movements of the roof. Kicking herself into gear, she cantered from where she stood towards me and Oliver, who were getting ready to make a very fast exit, but the force generated by her running body was too much for the floor underneath, and the boards broke and her foot fell through. She was now stuck. My heart was racing. The roof broke some more. The weight of a load of beams lying on top of one another was too much for one beam to handle and a deafening crack above indicated that it had snapped. It was only a matter of time before it came down on top of us, and there isn’t a Universe where I would ever leave Amy alone and save myself. Oliver, looking up and getting very nervous, decided that he wasn’t going to stand here and wait for the building to collapse on top of him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, scared before running out of the building. I let Oliver go. I wasn’t going to distract myself with his actions. There was only one way Amy was going to get free and that is by pulling her foot out of the whole, leaving her shoe. I ran forward, just as scared as Amy was.

‘Grab my arms and I’ll pull you out,’ I shouted, adrenaline running powerfully through my body. She reached up and grabbed my arms as tight as she could and I grabbed her as tight as I could, and with all my strength, I attempted to pull Amy out of the hole. It was no good, her foot was jammed between two sharp pieces of wood. Both our hands, sweaty with nerves and adrenaline, slipped out of each other’s grip and I fell backwards, landing hard onto the floor, making it buckle and snap in many other places. I sat upright, taking a look at her foot. The wrong move could result in her ankle getting cut and all manner of problems could stem from there, but I refused to give into those thoughts and forced my brain to hurry up and come up with a helpful solution. I looked around the room for anything that could help and found nothing. The roof was only moments away from coming down. I’m surprised that it’s taking as long as it is. I know that’s a dark thought to have, but that extra amount of time, if used wisely can mean life or death. Another beam snapped, making me jump.

‘Is it possible to take your foot out of your shoe?’ I asked.

‘Not in this position,’ she said. ‘I don’t have enough leverage to pull myself up with.’ The floorboards around her struggled to maintain Amy’s weight and snapped. She sunk lower. Amy’s screams echoed around the building, terrifying the living daylights out of me. I’ve never been this scared before in my life.

‘Has that helped in any way?’ I asked already knowing the answer and that it was a rather stupid question in the first place.

Then the roof gave in to gravity. The final beam snapped, sending the roof plummeting onto the floor above. Great dust clouds exploded into life, making the visibility horrendous. I started coughing as the dust particles came to rest on the inside of my throat. Our clothes were caked in dust and bits of rotten wood. My eyes were stinging as I tried blinking away as many particles as I could. My heart was beating so fast it was as if it was trying to beat as many as it could before it couldn’t continue any longer.

Then the rotten and broken floor above received the entire weight of all the beams and other bits and pieces of the roof all at once. What was left of the floor broke down, getting ready to bury us underneath. Everything happened in slow motion. Thousands of thoughts flew through my head all at once. There was only one way we were going to get out of here…

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)