Escape

After getting through that last floor, our situation seemed to calm down. We still had to deal with the shifting geography of the building, or climbing around the tree branches that seemed to be growing everywhere, but nothing was actively trying to kill us. Even Arkady started acting a little less like an jerk. I only had to expect a few condescending remarks over the course of the day instead of an unending stream of them. He’d even started including Sky beating that tree thing to death into his collection of stories, which means we finally get the occasional break from him talking about himself. Although I noticed he seemed to double the number of things she kills with each retelling.

 He even occasionally let us talk during story time. I’d never imagined Arkady being interested in people other than himself. A lot of his conversation felt like he was just going through the motions of making small talk, but he did seem genuinely invested when Sky talked about her early days with the Boss. Which surprised me, since all those stories were things he should have already read on my blog. I asked him about that, and his answer wasn’t really what I’d been expecting.

A: “Two reasons. One, it gives the impression of empathy and investment in her wellbeing.”

D: “Why would you care about that?”

A: “I’ve generally found it to be a smart idea to stay on the good side of people who have shown themselves capable of bashing skulls in. The second reason is that I can get more information through body language and tone than I was just able to get through text alone.”

D: “That still doesn’t explain why you of all people would suddenly care about something that has to do with another person.

A: *Shrug* “The two of you have managed to become significantly more interesting in the time you’ve spent away from your usual slave roles. Interesting enough to make me a little curious about the mysteries behind that girl. I can’t be the only one to have noticed how different her story is from the rest of you proxies. Maybe if I figure out the reason why, it will explain why threatening her is so effective a tool against Slendy.”

It may have been a weird and twisted sort of interest he was showing in us, but it felt like an improvement. Which only made what followed feel worse.

We’d been climbing stairs, as we often spend our days doing, when we saw something I’d begun to think had stopped existing. The roof. It was still several floors up, but when we looked up the stairwell, we could see a definite end to our climb. I just froze when I saw it, fully understanding the implications of it all.

A: “Well, would you look at that. Still a bit too high up to reach just now. But we’re almost there! Let’s rest up for now, and then tomorrow we can get a fresh and early start on your deaths’!”

He threw down his bag in a space between two branches, and then sat down. I’m fairly sure that he intentionally made sure his two remaining knives were displayed quite prominently when he sat, as an unspoken warning. After that talk earlier of him being interested in Sky’s history, the sudden reminder that he still intended to kill us was jarring. At least his decision to rest first gave us time to think.

Usually, Arkady makes sure to go to sleep after Sky and I have. In the past, that wasn’t really a necessary precaution, since all the immediate dangers of this building were generally worse than the possibility of being killed at some vague time in the future. That was no longer the case. I pretended to sleep, and once I saw Arkady nod off, I got up. As quietly as I could, I woke Sky up, and gestured that we were leaving. I didn’t have any sort of plan where we would go beyond getting as much distance as we could between us and Arkady. We’d deal with the problems of the building trying to murder us when that came up.

Of course things couldn’t go like I’d hoped for. Sky and I were slowly walking toward the door out of the stairs when we heard Arkady’s voice behind us.

A: “Aw, come on, at least do it right. You’re supposed to wait a few minutes before you leave to make sure they’re really asleep and not just pretending as well.” *He already had a knife out, and was walking toward us.* “I really had hoped that threats of violence would be enough to get compliance, but it looks like that wasn’t the case. Oh well. Guess we’ll just reschedule the murdering part.”

I think the most frightening part about him getting closer was that he wasn’t making any effort to look threatening or intimidating. He was walking towards us so casually, that it almost seemed impossible he planned to kill anyone, up to the point where he grabbed me and threw me against a wall.

A: “Well, time to get started.”

S: “Get away from her!”

While Arkady was throwing me, Sky had broken off one of the branches growing through the floor, and was holding it like a club. Blood was spurting out of the broken end of the branch down her arm, but she was clearly trying her hardest to ignore it. Arkady lost all interest in me as he turned toward Sky.

A: “Well, would you look at this. Have you finally decided to try and stop me? I’d say you must have a death wish, but given I’m planning to kill you regardless….” *He started walking toward her, twirling his knife between his fingers.* “Can you really do it? Do you really have it in you to attack me, knowing what horrible consequences may come?” *He stood just a short distance from her, towering over her small frame* “Can you?”

Sky was shaking so hard I thought she was going to drop the branch. Then she closed her eyes, screamed, and swung it at Arkady’s injured arm. He hissed in pain and dropped his knife, which I took as an opportunity. I grabbed Sky, and we ran out the door. I could hear Arkady laughing behind us, but he didn’t seem to be chasing us. That didn’t stop us from still running as fast as we could.

Since then, Sky and I have been wandering through the building. My first thought was that maybe we could make it back to the first floor and try getting out through there, but it’s hard to do that when the rooms and stairs don’t lead to where they should. Even though we’ve been trying to go down, we somehow seem to still be getting closer to the top floor. Which isn’t an ideal direction, but at least we’re not accompanied by Arkady as we go up.

But until the situation changes, it seems like we’re going to keep walking through the building. I’ll post if anything major happens.