InsaniKey

The next few minutes became a blur of clumsily throwing cold water at the hole in the wall, exhausting several fire extinguishers, and forcing the strange metal tent Jake had fashioned out of renovation scraps from the third floor into rapidly melting plastic. It quickly became impossible to tell where the wall ended and the hole began.

“I’ll crawl through and pull the metal out of the other side so you guys can get through!” Ashley shouted.

I yelped in pain as the sharp metal edge of the beam cut into my shoulder while I pushed it through the plastic as hard as I could. It felt like I was playing tackle football with a razor blade, even after taking my shirt off and covering my shoulder with it. Jinxx’s hands were bleeding, Andy’s leg was sliced vertically, there was blood, melted plastic, and burned chair shards everywhere.

Ashley stood up on the other side of the wall and yelled at us to stop pushing the metal tent and get through the hole as fast as we could.

I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I heard him yell the words

“…stop pushing….”

“…..not enough metal….”

“……….the gap is melting…..”

His eyes shot mine a look of panic at the other end of the wall. Jake and Jinxx made a mad dash through the tunnel as the metal began to warp slightly under the weight of the plastic.

“What’s over there?” Andy laughed.

We saw Ashley mouth the word, “NOTHING.” But the sound didn’t reach us.

Andy and I sat on the grass looking out at Ashley through the thick wall.

I texted, “See you in a few minutes.” To Ashley.

“What should I do?” He wrote back.

“Wait there for us?” Andy shrugged.

I looked at him. “Do we really want to do all of this again?”

Andy leaned against the wall, laid back and carefree as ever with a knowing grin on his face. “Fifth time’s the charm.” He started walking back to the hotel. I followed him to the parking garage, we stood at the electric fence.

Ashley stood on the other side of the wall and waved his bandana in the air.

Andy and I crouched down into an official starting position.

“Last one to touch the wall goes through the hole last.” Ashley texted.

“Your legs are longer.” I glared at Andy. “This is bullshit.”

“Yeah? Well you’re closer to the ground.” He glared back.

When Ashley dropped his bandana we took off running toward the wall, my hand hitting the glass an arm’s length after Andy’s did.

“SONNOFA BITCH!” I screamed.

Andy dropped to the ground, laughing. I stood angrily for a second until I realized we were both about to wake up and have to do everything all over again, neither of us had really won.

Tears poured out the corners of my eyes from laughing so hard. I looked up and saw Ashley sitting on the other side of the glass, head down.

“Hey Andy.” I called out.

“You’re a dick!” He beat me to it.

When my eyes opened everything was blurry. I couldn’t figure out where I was.

Notes

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