The Smiling Sword Chapter 2: Chapter 2: This is Way Above My Pay Grade

Read chapter 2 of The Smiling Sword by IchorX on NovelPedia.

This Is Above my Pay Grade I open my eyes. Then I close them again. This time I open one eye carefully, then touch it to make sure it's open. I poke my eyeball and then spend about three minutes tearing up and holding my face in my hands because poking an eye fucking hurts. I open my eyes again. I do this about 6 more times. No, I'm not blindfolded; I can't feel anything against my eyes - I'm seeing the same thing with my eyes open as I am with my eyes closed, which is pitch black nothingness. Okay, I think. What a nice start. What happened? Where am I… It all comes back to me - the chase, the black spider-men, the kidnapping. Oh God, I was kidnapped. Is this real? Shouldn't this only happen in fucking movies? Nari… oh God. Uhm… well… I'm sure that the Guard will find me sooner or later after Caesar or someone sends out a missing person report. I decide that sitting around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the Guard isn't going to help my predicament, so I feel about on the floor – it seems like it's a cold, hard, natural stone ground, like I'm in a cave. My heart sinks. I have no idea how deep I am, which continent I'm in or anything. Is this real? Something forms in my throat that I can't find the will to swallow, and I suddenly feel like crying. Nuh uh. None of this. I explore further, feeling about in front of me, and then my hand touches something warm and fleshy. I almost jump out of my skin. My whole body's trembling. It's obvious instantly what I've just touched. To be honest, the thought that someone else might be here with me hadn't crossed my mind. Don't know why I thought I was alone, but the other guy doesn't seem like he's awake, at least not yet, but he definitely wasn't dead. While I wait for my... roommate to wake up, I decide to do some more exploring. I'm terrified, sure, and shivering, begging this to be a dream, but I've fantasized about what I'd do if I were ever in this sort of situation before. In my dreams, in my fucking daydreams, not real life. It's cold. I'm hungry, and I wanna go home. I didn't even have breakfast. But I have to stay calm. By measuring using paces and feeling around, I've surmised that I am stuck in a hole in a cave that's of unknown depth, almost perfectly circular, with absolutely nothing in it except one other person and a bunch of creatures skittering around. It's of about twenty feet in diameter, and the walls are rather smooth for a natural cave, with only a few small handholds and footholds the size of ping pong balls. I realize that there is a faint trace of chrona (short for Chronoplasma) in the air, from the occasional small blue spark that flickered out of nowhere and then disappeared. That was when the voice sounds in my head. I'm sitting down to take a rest from pacing around, trying to hold myself together, when suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my skull, like someone was poking my brain with a hot metal stick, and then a voice breaks through into my thoughts. "Loading... registering host. Starting Project Pharo." The pang of sharp pain from the voice droning on inside my head has apparently appeared in the skull of the guy in the hole with me as well, because he let out a sudden cry and then sat up, panting. "W-where am I?" He demands, obviously looking around in fear and bewilderment, although he probably couldn't see a thing. "Are you awake?" I ask. There's quiet whooshing noise as he flings his head around, searching for me. "Listen to me," I tell him, trying to sound reassuring. "We're trapped in a hole in some cave, without any light or food, and we don't know how deep this place either. Please don't do something stupid to make this more difficult for us both." Doesn't exactly help. He drops to the ground and starts hyperventilating, sweating, convulsing, sobbing and generally spazzing the fuck out. If this is a test, whoever designed it is a sadist. Eventually, my roommate calms down, and he tales a few deep breaths to steady hims