My Trip To Nowhere.... - Chapter Nineteen

I stifled a gasp.

No… that can’t be… this must be his Other-Half…

“I’ve got some matches, where are you?”

But… didn’t I knock him out?

“Tom?” this time someone else said it.

I could feel my heart pounding so hard, and I did not dare to breathe. I prayed for Nicky and Josh to stay asleep, or if they woke up, to not move or make a sound.

Suddenly, someone tripped, and fell over me.

“Ow!” she went.

“Oof!” I went.

“Found him!” she went.

“Quiet Allison!”

“Whats going on?” I heard Nicky say in the dark.

“Oh, so you’re here too.” said a relieved voice.

“Rio?” Nicky said. Her voice sounded shocked.

“Tom, where are you? We’ve got matches to light the torch.” Rio said.

“Is it really you?” I managed to ask.

“Of course.” I could picture him smiling slightly in the dark.

“But how…?”

“I’ll explain once there's light.” He said firmly.

I stood up, holding the torch. “I’m… here.” I said.

I heard shuffles, and then I heard the strike of the match. I saw Rio’s face as he lit the torch I held.

The tunnel-like passageway was at once lit with the torch.

“But how did you –” I started.

“I thought you were –” Nicky started.

Rio held one hand up. “I’ll explain. Then you guys will.”

Josh sat up, and looked at us blearily. “Wazzgoinon?” He mumbled.

“How about we all sit together?” Rio said.

I nodded numbly and went to sit opposite Nicky, and he went to sit next to her. I looked around and saw Allison and Richard joining us. He grinned at me when he saw me looking at him, and I looked away at Rio expectedly.

“We – Allison, Richard and I – were caught by my Other-Half, and we were imprisoned.”

I nodded.

“Richard and Allison were knocked out by the guards who surrounded us. We fought to get away, but we were outnumbered. We were dragged into a room, and we were locked in.”

“Then how did you get away?” I asked.

Rio smiled his small smile. “When Richard and Allison finally came around, we planned to somehow trick one of the guards who would usually come in to check on us to let us out. We complained that we needed to stretch out legs because we were so stiff.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Richard chuckled. “Yeah, it was a lame excuse, but hey he fell for it.”

“So we were let out, then we imprisoned that guard into the cell we were locked in.”

I smiled to myself. We had done this before.

“And when we walked out of the room, we walked into another room…” he frowned slightly, and said, “…where we found our Other-Halves sprawled on the floor, knocked out cold.” He looked at me.

I grinned. “Yeah, that was us. We were caught too by your Other-Half, and unfortunately Richard’s and Allison’s Other-Halves were with him.”

“Interesting battle” Rio said, smiling.

I shrugged. “We managed to get away, and steal the keys off your Other-Half.” I glanced over at Nicky who was smiling at me.

“You should have seen him,” she said.

Rio grinned at me. “So then we made out of the room, and… well, ended up finding you guys.”

We all sat together in silence for a few seconds, smiling at each other in relief. I suddenly felt safer. We had Rio back. And Richard. And Allison. We were all back together. But then -

“A very interesting story you got there… Rio”


TO BE CONTINUED…