Assassin - Open to critique

[leiawolfe]

Chapter Five

She breathed deeply, in and out. My brother's in there, she thought, and pressed her ear to the large white door. Nothing.
She waited there for a long time, staring at the door and the gold plate above it. Then, suddenly she heard something.

First, there was a slight whirring sound, like a machine that's getting ready to start up. Then, she heard footsteps on what seemed like tiled flooring. And then... a faint screaming sound. A scream that sounded like it was coming from her brother.

Emma gasped, but quickly clasped both her hands over her mouth so whoever was inside couldn't hear her. She felt like banging on the door as loud as she could so the people inside could hear her, but she did no such thing. Just this once, she was going to be patient.Or scared, let's say. A small part of her mind smirked. But then... What? Scared? You're not scared, are you? Who are you then? Emma Clarke, the girl who was afraid of opening a door and rescuing her brother. Is that it? Is that who you want to be?

At one point she just couldn't bear the thought anymore, and she decided faintly what she was going to do. I can do this, she thought, although there were still parts of her that contradicted that. She stared at the chrome-coloured door handle for a long time, feeling a horrible case of déjà vu from the moment just a few minutes ago, and looking at the way it made her face look strangely blobby. Come on, Em... her mind whispered. Come on, come on, come on..
Emma pressed her hand to the long doorhandle and, slowly but surely, she turned it to the right. But it didn't open.

She jiggled the handle for about thirty seconds, still not believing that the quarantine door would be locked and they wouldn't do that to their prisoner.
She sucked in a sharp breath, now more worried than ever. Why have they locked the door why have they locked the door why have they locked the doooooorrrrrrr, her mind screamed.

[Ranger of the North]

dun duN DUUN! :p

[leiawolfe]

Chapter Six

Emma knew that panicking wasn't going to do her any good, however stubborn she usually was. She needed a key.. or some other way to get in...

She placed her hands on the thick wooden door and patted on and around it for any sign of...what? Difference? A magical key lodged inside the wood? The emperor or at least the people inside the room would have the key, wouldn't they? Then she remembered her own house and its keys. One belonged to her mother and father, the owners of the house. Another belonged to she and her brother in case their parents weren't home, and the last one... a spare key.

There had to be, there had to be. If the scientists in the quarantine room lost the key they were holding, then they would have a backup. Well, hopefully anyway. And knowing the workers at Lithium's palace, they'd probably lick him clean whilst being feasted on by red ants than get in any sort of trouble with that ferocious being. But where would they hide such a thing? It would have to be somewhere close to the room, but also outside of it in case they needed to get in... And then she saw it.

The label plate, she thought furiously. How could she not have guessed? There was hardly anything belonging to each room from the outside. She looked at the thin rectangular sheet of gold metal and thought, reading the word quarantine over and over again. She realised that the plate was screwed onto the patterned wall with small golden-coloured screws and that the key would most likely be behind the plate. But she would need a screwdriver to unscrew the plate from the wall to get to where she thought the key was...

She immediately started to rummage through her pockets to find anything she could use instead. She found a half-eaten Malteser which she popped into her mouth, a small rosella's feather, a sticker of a character from The Lord of the Rings, a plastic sharpener and a blunt pencil.

YES, her mind shouted, and she jumped up and down on the carpet, as well as making a very strange sound like a sick lion trying to roar.

[leiawolfe]

Chapter Seven

She plucked the pencil and sharpener out of her pocket and started to litter the floor with pencil shavings until the pencil tip was sharp enough to draw blood on her finger when she pressed firmly. I can do this, her mind whispered. I can do this.

Just then, she heard another faint screech of a voice that sounded like her brother. Although it sounded younger than him... as if he were just a mere, defenceless ten-year-old and not a fourteen-year-old, a year older than her.
The sound made her flinch away from the panel, but she got back on track soon enough. Carefully, she inserted the sharp pencil into the minute hole of the almost-invisible top-left screw, gold against gold. She twisted it to the left, but that only made it tighter, she realised. She twisted the pencil to the right and, soon enough, after several seconds, it unscrewed and popped off. Now she only needed to unscrew the top-right one and it would swing back, revealing the key. I think.

With trembling fingers and sweating palms, she repeated what she did with the other screw. Slowly, as she twisted, the plate became looser and looser from the wall, and soon enough, it flipped down, the top of the metal shape facing the carpet. And also on the carpet, after she heard a small clank noise as it fell to the floor, was a rusty key, its dazzling silver paint peeling off. It had curved edges and in the rod, it had something engraved in it, but it was too small for her to read it. In a striking movement, as quick as a cobra lunging toward its prey, she picked up the key and inserted it through the keyhole. She was familiar with this routine. Twist the key through the hole. Don't let it be like the one the burglar stole, her mother had always told she and Caleb if they were coming home and their parents weren't back from the farm.

So she did. She grimaced and flipped the key in a sideways motion, hearing the familiar click as the door unlocked. And suddenly there was silence. She couldn't hear the constant hum of the machines anymore. She couldn't hear the clanking of footsteps on expensive tiles anymore. And she couldn't hear her brother's voice...

Emma yanked the door open with all her anger, all her hatred. And then she saw the three scientists in long white lab-coats, stained with strange substances and reeking of an odour she couldn't recognise. And in the middle of these three adults was a metal frame with what looked like red lightning bolts connecting to... her brother. "Caleb!" She screeched, realising that he was almost unconscious as if they had drained all the energy from him. There were several cords connected to various parts of his body and his arms were being stretched out with some sort of metal machine so that more cords could be fitted to him.

The boy opened his eyes. "Emma?" he said in barely a whisper. "Emma, is that you?"
For some reason, this brought tears to her eyes. To see one of her best friends, regardless of how much they'd fought, to be strapped up in quarantine, being experimented on, being drained of his energy...
No. Her mind interrupted fiercely. There were other people here and maybe she'd have to fight to get him out of here. And if that was what she needed to do, she'd do it. And just then, the scientists turned to face her, their expressions unreadable.

[Ranger of the North]

Ooh, they defy ‘lefty-loosey, righty-tighty’ — that's sneaky! 0,0

Poor Caleb ):

[blackbird.]

hello! this is such an interesting story and concept - excited to find out more about what's going on and the setting of the story. i hope emma is able to break her brother out and get to the bottom of everything c:

[leiawolfe]

hello! this is such an interesting story and concept - excited to find out more about what's going on and the setting of the story. i hope emma is able to break her brother out and get to the bottom of everything c:

Ah, thank you!!


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I will be writing chapter eight either tomorrow or Saturday ^^
UGGHHHHHHHHH I was writing so much today for Chapter eight but it got lost!!!!!!!!!!!!