[chapter three] shelly's epilogue [virtual world dw au]

Instructions

[Chapter Three - Cocoa] Ever since the incident on the Christmas floor, Flyte and Cocoa had been living on bonbons and any other scraps of food they could find. Well, not quite living, more like surviving. Her optimism slowly started to fade away, but she tried to stay hopeful every day. There was a way to survive through this, right…? Currently, Flyte was out scavenging through floors for food. Cocoa insisted she would be fine on her own here. Usually she would want to help him, but today she ‘wasn’t feeling up to it.’ Flyte didn’t complain, though. He probably didn’t want to throw her right into the ‘face of danger’ that he’s always warning her about. All he was doing was getting water from the kitchen, what could possibly happen? Besides, she had something she wanted to do today and he would just prevent her from doing it, ‘it’ being running away from their little base. The last hope they had was to get Vee to add them to the virtual world, or to at least find someone safe enough to stay with that could help them. Maybe someone like Astro or Brightney? They’re both very nice and very smart. She kept that in mind as she made her way to the elevator. She wasn’t planning on running away permanently. If her plan didn’t work out, she would return back home like nothing happened, no harm no foul. When Cocoa got into the elevator, she realized that she didn’t even know what floor the virtual world trio resided on. ‘Ummm… Didn’t Rudie say it once?’ she realized, then strained her mind to remember what Rudie said back when he broke into their base. ‘It was one of the lower floors… Not floor 5, that’s where we were… Not floor 6…’ After a while, she came to the conclusion that they had to be on floor 4. If they weren’t, she would try floor 2 or 3 next, seeing as those were the other most viable options. The elevator went down to the floor she selected, smoothly and soundly. Cocoa always wondered how the elevators in Gardenview were still functioning after all this time. Someone had to be repairing them, or at least running maintenance on them… The elevator door lifted open and Cocoa walked out, looking around. She didn’t quite remember this floor, but who knows? This could be their hideout. There was a room that looked like a meeting room, different colored chairs scattered about around a long, rectangular table. A whiteboard with some doodles on it was at the end of the table, and it looked like it had been used pretty recently. That’s a good sign. When she walked inside, she noticed some supplies were on the floor. Another good sign. …Probably. “Hello?” She called out, walking forward but stumbling over on something. She managed to catch herself before she hit the floor, looking down to see what caught her foot. It was a strange black box with buttons and a screen, although the screen had a thick crack webbed across it. ‘Oh yeah, that’s a walkie talkie.’ she remembered, picking it up. ‘Why’s it on this floor though?’ she thought, looking around. ‘I thought that Vee and her friends didn’t have walkie talkies?’ Cocoa sighed, continuing to walk forward. She can’t start doubting everything, she has to stay optimistic. She hadn’t seen them in a while, after all. Maybe they were new. Maybe she was just being paranoid for no reason. But, as she turned the corner, she stopped dead in her tracks. The low growl of a twisted was rumbling right in front of her face, close enough she could feel its breath. “Pebble? What did you find?” said a voice from behind Pebble. Although frozen by fear, she tried to step back, but stumbling onto the ground in the process. Dyle stepped out from behind the monster with a look of morbid curiosity on his face. “Hm? What are you doing here?” “I-” she stammered, but her throat was caught by panic. “Are you lost?” he asked, despite knowing the answer. Yes, she was lost. If this wasn’t the ‘face of danger’ Flyte warned her about, then what else could it be?