Inescapable Escapism

I pressed my ear against the door more firmly, my eyes fixed on Abbie’s face as I listened. I couldn’t hear anything, though. There was no noise beyond the door anymore. The hushed giggling and voices that had echoed through the corridor minutes ago were now gone. The rest of the cohort, the other kids, were gone. They’d already gone down to the pool, as far as I could tell.

And that meant it was almost time for us to go too. That was the plan. We were going to let the others go first and wait to see if they got into trouble before going ourselves. It was the best option, the safest one, but it also meant more waiting around. That was difficult for me, but not as hard as it had been earlier. I was too excited, too immersed in the world to care. I was barely paying attention to what was happening in reality, and I didn’t care.

Nervousness was still pulling at me, though. I was almost certain that it wasn’t a trap, but that didn’t stop a small voice in the back of my mind from telling me it was. I trusted Rodgers. I really did, but I barely knew him. I’d spent more time with him than Katie and Abbie, but I still didn’t know him properly.

He could have been lying to us. It could all be a set-up, but I didn’t think it was. I couldn’t hear anything through the door. Surely, if it was a trap, I would have been able to. There would have been shouting or alarms or something, but there was nothing. I couldn’t hear anything.

If they’d managed to make it to the pool or wherever else they were going, we wouldn’t have been able to hear them. The dorm rooms were too far away, and the walls too thick. But it would make sense to go check on them first. The pool wasn’t close to the kitchen, our first stop, but we should still walk past it. Then, we’d know for sure.

My eyes darted between Katie and Abbie as I strained my ears to pick up any sound. There was nothing. Licking my lips, I hesitated before speaking.

“I think we should go by the pool before we go to the kitchen,” I said, my soft voice making Abbie jump. “Just to make sure they’re there and didn’t get caught or anything.”

Abbie’s brow furrowed, but she nodded before looking at Katie.

“That’s a good idea,” she whispered. “I don’t hear anything. Can we go now?”

I looked at Abbie, who seemed to be concentrating hard.

“Yeah. I don’t hear anything either,” she confirmed after a few seconds.

I grinned and stepped back, waiting for Katie to open the door. Annoyance flashed through me. I was slipping back into my old habits, I realised. I just expected someone else to make the first move, and then I’d follow them, and that was wrong. I wasn’t meant to act like that in the spy world; I was meant to be confident.

Reaching towards the door handle, I pulled it open and stepped out into the corridor beyond. It was dark. The lights were dimmed, and it was silent. The only noise was the quiet snick as Katie shut the bedroom door. My breathing felt shallow as I started to move along the hallway towards the stairs, keeping my steps as light as possible.

Anxiety danced in my heart, making me jumpy. The faintest noise, the slightest sound, sent my pulse racing. Katie and Abbie were moving quietly too, and I was glad. If they weren’t, if they’d been giggling or talking, I don’t think I would have been able to do it. My nerves would have gotten the better of me, and I would have turned around and gone back to bed.

There was something about the situation that felt strangely familiar. The sneaking around late at night, scared of being caught, was something I’d experienced before. Quite a few times. It felt too close to being back home. If I’d shut my eyes, I’d be able to convince myself that I was there.

It was late at night, and I was sneaking downstairs to get some food. Maybe I hadn’t eaten earlier, or I was just hungry again for no reason and didn’t want to spend another night unable to sleep and too aware of the gnawing ache in my stomach. I had to be quiet. My mom might still be downstairs, and there was no way to know if she was awake or what kind of mood she’d be in. It was likely she’d been drinking; she did most nights, if not all. That made things more difficult. Her mood was hard to predict when she was drinking.

I froze at the top of the stairs, listening hard. I wasn’t back home, trying to make sure my mom didn’t catch me and get mad. I was far away from her, in that world at least. But it still felt similar, and judging by Abbie and Katie’s scared expressions, they were trapped in the same almost deja vu-like state as I was.

That would make sense from what I knew of Katie’s home life. I didn’t know much about Abbie’s and Katie hadn’t actually said much, but I’d seen the bruises on her body. I could see a hand-shaped mark still peeking out from the bottom of her sleeve. They were taking a while to fade.

That explained why Katie looked so scared. Her home life was definitely worse than mine. She was terrified of being hit, not just shouted at like I was. I never really had to put up with my mom hitting me. She’d punched walls and thrown things, but not actually at me. Sometimes, it was kind of in my direction, but things only hit me when they broke, and that had only happened a handful of times.

The plate was probably the worst. That had smashed, and a shard had caught the back of my arm. It had taken so long to stop bleeding. But the glass had been pretty bad too, but that was my fault. I hadn’t realised how far the pieces had travelled when it smashed and stepped right onto a piece. It had embedded itself deep within the ball of my foot, and I’d been limping for weeks.

I probably should have gone to a doctor, I realised much later. About both injuries, really. They were deep and really hurt, but there was no point. I would have needed to ask my mom to book me an appointment, and she probably would have refused. She probably didn’t remember causing the injuries and would have just accused me of doing them to myself. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

But she didn’t really hit me. She didn’t leave bruises on me like Katie’s dad did. Judging by the sheer number of scars and bruises I’d seen on her body, it was a fairly common occurrence.

I glanced back at Abbie. Her eyes were darting from side to side, her expression terrified. I wanted to do something to make them both feel less scared, but I wasn’t sure what. Something came over me; I acted without thinking, reaching out and taking their hands. Katie jumped at the contact, sucking in a quiet breath. Her gaze found mine, and she gave me an embarrassed smile before lacing her fingers through mine, clinging to me.

Abbie hadn’t reacted at all. Worry shot through me as I glanced at her. She was staring down at our hands. Her fingers were limp in my grasp, and I started to pull away, but she stopped me. She didn’t meet my gaze as she gripped my hand almost as tightly as Katie was.

A smile came over my face.

“Let’s go,” Katie whispered, taking the first step.

I hurried to join her, our hands still connected. It felt a little strange to be holding their hands, but I liked it. I was strangely proud of myself. Both Abbie and Katie seemed less worried and distracted, and I think part of that was due to me. I’d broken them out of their thoughts and brought them back to reality. That felt good.

But, at the same time, it made me realise something. I wasn’t sure I’d ever held someone’s hand before. I probably had. Like when I was a kid or something, one of my parents had most likely held my hand to stop me from running off. I didn’t remember that though, and it didn’t quite feel the same.

I’d held Phoebe’s hand before, probably. During a scary movie or something. I couldn’t remember that happening, but it probably had. And I’d definitely done it in other worlds. I could remember that, even if I couldn’t recall anything else from the worlds or which ones they were, even.

We came to a stop again as we reached the bottom of the stairs, half expecting to see a tutor standing there. The hall was empty, though. A sigh of relief slipped from my lips before a shriek split the air. My hands tightened on Abbie and Katie’s, and my head snapped around. There was a few seconds of silence as I debated turning and sprinting back up the stairs before a splash sounded. Laughter followed it, and I felt my body sag in relief.

They were in the pool. It wasn’t a trick. A smile slowly stretched over my face, and Katie let out a giggle.

“Well…” she said. “I guess we don’t need to go and check on the others.”

I laughed, and Abbie joined in. The bubble of fear and anxiety that had been encasing us burst, leaving me feeling dangerously light and free. I wanted to run, to dance along the corridor, but I forced myself to walk. My steps were quick, and Katie let go of my hand to link her arm through mine, grinning at me as she did.

In the back of my mind, a small voice whispered that it could still be a trap. It could. The noise could be a recording, or they could be biding their time and waiting for us to let our guard down completely before striking, but I didn’t care. Everyone else was having fun. I could hear it, and I wanted to join in. I wanted to be carefree and happy, and I could be.

Katie threw the kitchen door open, sending it smacking against the wall with a loud bang. We froze instinctively, looking around and waiting for someone to appear, but no one did.

“Oops,” Katie said with a giggle before walking into the room.

I followed her, looking around the bright room. The stainless steel countertops gleamed, and I found myself staring. I’d never been in the kitchen before. I had no reason to go into it. Our meals were prepared for us and served in the dining room, and over the weekend, they put snacks out for us.

“So… what kind of thing are we looking for?” Abbie asked uncertainly.

“I guess just drinks, chocolate, crisps and stuff like that,” Katie replied. “I don’t really know what they have here.”

“We could just have a look and see what they have?” I suggested.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Abbie agreed. “Where do you think they’re kept?”

I looked around the industrial kitchen again. It was a little intimidating. There were so many cupboards, and every surface was spotless, which made me scared to touch anything. I’d leave a mark or ruin it somehow.

“I don’t know,” Katie said. “Maybe in the cupboards?”

Abbie nodded and started to move towards the nearest one, pulling it open. The frown on her face told me she hadn’t found anything good. Something nudged at my mind. A memory.

I’d worked in a kitchen before. Not in that world, of course, but in others. There was one in particular that I remembered. The cafe, somewhere in America. Before I’d died, I’d worked as a waitress there with that boy. Aaron. The one I wished I could go back and save. There had to be a way. I had to be able to think of something I could do to break him out of that endless loop of watching me, every different version of me, die. I could become Beth again. Beth could find a way to save him.

With a shake of my head, I started to pull myself away from those thoughts. The dizziness stuck to me, clinging to my mind just as the water had as it dragged me down into the depths. I could feel it. The cunning hooks had speared my mind, my consciousness, and were reeling me in.

“The fridge,” I blurted out, causing Abbie and Katie to look up at me in surprise. “They probably keep the drinks in the fridge, right?”

“Oh yeah, probably,” Katie said, looking around. “I don’t see one, though. Am I being dumb?”

“I think they have a walk-in one,” I said, nodding towards the door at the back of the room.

“Oh, duh,” Katie replied. “Do you want to grab the drinks, and we’ll keep hunting for snacks?”

“Sure!”

I walked towards the giant white door, eyeing the handle. It could be locked from the outside. That was probably the only way to seal it. There wouldn’t be a handle on the inside. I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. I was sure of it, and that scared me. I didn’t want to be locked in the icy room, slowly freezing to death and feeling my body becoming numb.

I could already feel it happening. The sensation was starting to leech out of my fingers, leaving nothing behind. They were turning pink and quickly fading to white and lifeless. I tried to move them, but they were stiff. The joints didn’t want to bend. It felt too familiar. I’d been there before.

In another world, that was how I had died. I could recall the agony of it. My breath caused puffs of white clouds to rise up before my eyes, and my body shook. It trembled, and my throat burned. Each shuddering breath hurt. Every single one until the last.

My hand closed around the warm metal handle, and I forced myself to open the door. A waft of cold air crashed into me, and I took a deep breath. It was a fridge, not a freezer like the one I had died in. That was better. It would be harder for me to freeze to death there.

Pushing that thought aside, I walked into the fridge, making sure the door stayed open. My gaze roamed the room, shocked by the sheer amount of food around me. Metal shelves lined the room, and all of them were almost overflowing with food. Rows and rows of perfectly ripe fruit and vegetables had been placed in wooden crates. Eggs, so many cartons of eggs, were stacked to one side, next to a seemingly endless selection of milk and fruit juices.

Finally, my eyes found the cardboard boxes of fizzy drinks on the bottom shelf. I rushed towards them, crouching down to examine them. There were so many options, too many. Coke, diet and regular, lemonades, Dr Pepper, and more. I wasn’t quite sure what to do or which one people liked, which made me want to grab all of them, but I didn’t have enough hands; I wouldn’t be able to carry them all.

But I didn’t need to. One of the boxes was almost empty, and there was another full one behind it. I could load some other drinks into there and then just carry that. It was the best way to do it. A smile came over my face, and I started slotting cans into the Coke box, making sure to get a couple of each one. It was silly, but I was a little nervous about that. Part of me was scared I’d chosen the wrong drinks and people would be annoyed. Or they wouldn’t drink any of them, and that worried me too.

I couldn’t really do anything about that, I tried to reassure myself as I finished selecting the drinks and lifted the box carefully but the built-in handle. The hard paper cut into my hand, but I was able to heft it into the air with ease. The box felt heavy still, of course, but I could lift it without immediately wanting to put it down.

That realisation made me happy. I was getting stronger. Working out and being in that world was making me stronger, and I’d never felt like that before. I’d never considered that I could be strong, but I was excited by the idea. Maybe, if I kept it up, I could have actual muscles one day. Not massive ones, of course, but some.

My mom would hate that. She didn’t like it when women looked too strong; she’d said that many times. It made them look manly, according to her, and no man would want someone who looked like that. That was so stupid, though, and it didn’t really even matter. Even so, my mind went to Duncan. If I did get muscly, how would he feel about it? He probably wouldn’t notice anything, especially not at first. It had only been a couple of weeks, so I doubted that my body looked that different. But if it continued, would he be repulsed by me, like Mom said?

That didn’t really matter, though. I doubted that he was attracted to me, as it was. I wasn’t particularly attractive or nice to look at; I was just… plain. He was probably just flirting with me because… I wasn’t sure. Maybe because we were friends or because he liked my personality, but that didn’t feel right either. My personality wasn’t very interesting either.

“You found the drinks?” Katie asked as I walked out of the fridge, breaking me out of my thoughts.

I lifted the box to show them.

“Yeah. I put a bunch of different ones in here,” I said.

Katie grinned.

“You’re a genius!” she remarked. “This is why you were assigned to every specialism! I wouldn’t have thought to do that!”

I blushed at her compliment. I really hadn’t done anything that smart. It was mere luck that I even saw the box.

“Actually, we should find something to carry these in,” Abbie said, glancing at the small mountain of snacks they had piled on the counter.

Katie spun around, her eyes roaming the kitchen.

“Do you see any bags?” she asked.

“No,” Abbie said after a moment. “I guess we’ll just carry these. Grace, do you think we have enough?”

I eyed the pile again.

“Yeah, I’d say so.”

“Awesome!” Katie cried happily, scooping as many as she could into her arms. “Let’s go!”

Abbie hurried to follow her, picking up the remaining items and rushing out of the kitchen. I walked after them, a grin on my lips.

As we moved through the corridors, the noise from the pool got louder. Laughter and constant splashing came from the end of the hall, and I couldn’t help looking into the room as we passed. Most people were in the pool, playing some game with inflatable beach balls. I hesitated, watching as Derrick grabbed a ball from Sally, cheering triumphantly before quickly being dunked underwater. Sally emerged from the water, the ball clutched in her hand.

“It’s mine!” she shouted.

I grinned, looking at Katie and Abbie, who had continued along the corridor towards the dojo, leaving a trail of dropped snacks in their wake. Part of me wanted to join the people in the pool. It looked so fun, but I wanted to spend time with my roommates, Scott and Seth more. The pool was too loud, too hard to talk. We could always go in there later, if we wanted.

Turning, I continued down the corridor, collecting the items that must have fallen out of Abbie and Katie’s arms. I caught up with them just as they reached the door to the dojo and pushed it open. Scott and Seth were already in there, which surprised me. Seth looked up, his eyes finding me immediately, and a slight smile touched his lips.

“Hey,” he called out.

“Hey!” Katie replied. “Oh, you got snacks too? Nice!”

“Yeah, we just grabbed a few of everything. Wasn’t sure what you’d like.”

“That’s what we did too!” Abbie said.

“Wait, where did you find the bags?” Katie asked as we crossed the floor towards where they were sitting.

I dropped the food unceremoniously on the floor with the stuff the boys had brought before putting the box of drinks down next to it and stretching my hand. The cardboard handle had been cutting into it for too long, and now it stung.

“Oh, there were a bunch on the back of the door,” Scott said, looking up at us. “Did you not see them?”

Katie glanced back at us, her expression confused.

“No?”

“Yeah, I didn’t either,” I confirmed as she sat on the floor next to Scott.

I glanced at Seth before sitting down too, seeing his smile as I took the space beside him.

“Oh no,” Abbie groaned. “We’re going to fail our observation classes, aren’t we?”