Garrett / Reader - Part 3
The man heard you scream, the sound chilled his core and made him fear the worst... but then the scream was followed by a cry let out by the creature and it sounded like it had been whimpering in pain. He went through the options quickly in his mind; A) you had gotten hurt or B) the creature had gotten hurt and after a blink of an eye he came to a conclusion: you had most likely attacked the creature with the stake that you loved so much. The man was actually quite proud of you because according to the noises he had heard, you had managed to do real damage to the creature, which was something that he had not managed to do himself. "There clearly is more than meets the eye" he thought. You were a possible threat even though previously he had not seen you as such.
The man recoiled from his thoughts and climbed immediately back to the level of the sixth floor using a narrow metallic maintenance-slash-escape -ladder that was bolted on the back wall of the elevator shaft. It was running all the way from the highest floor to the basement and a therefore it was a possible route out. However he had heard the creatures climbing up somewhere under him but fortunately the elevator had stopped between the third and the fourth floor when the electricity had been cut off and it operated now as a some kind of block between the monsters and him. However there was still a five-meter drop to the roof of the elevator from where he was standing.
- Hey woman! he shouted. The creatures knew already where you were so there was no point to whisper anymore. You stared into the darkness as you tried to figure out where the voice was coming from; it was distorted and echoing all around which made navigating in the total darkness even more challenging. It was so dark that you couldn't see the walls, the floor... you couldn't even see your own hand, but maybe it was for the best because you could feel that they were both slimy from the creature's blood.
You tried to wipe your hands to your jeans but it was impossible to get them properly cleaned like that, without water and soap, and therefore you stopped instantly when you heard the man calling you. You couldn't believe it; the man had not ditched you, however you immediately suspected that he had either felt sorry for you and this pity had made him to turn around or he had come up with some more sinister plans for you. The man called you again, not by your name because he didn't know it but by calling you "woman".
- Where are you? you asked with a shaky tone as you tried to find the right way in the total darkness.
- In the elevator shaft! the man shouted and continued by instructing calmly "Feel the walls, there are metallic panels on the both sides of the sliding doors." You extended your hands and groped the darkness around you. Finally you touched something... a wall... concrete... you walked few steps forward and kicked a stair. "Damn it" you cursed because you almost fell on your knees. You would have fallen if you had not managed to grab the railing just in time, however your slippery hands almost failed you again. "This is the wrong way" you mumbled to yourself and turned back, keeping the concrete wall at your arm's length at all times. Finally you felt a metallic panel and a button, you moved forward and suddenly your hand was met with nothing but air.
- Good, I see you. the man said and instructed you to take two small steps sideways along the edge so you would end up standing in the middle of the open doorway.
You felt the edge with your foot, in order to get an idea of your surroundings and grabbed the side of the sliding door with your extended arm just to make sure that you were not going to lose your balance and fall over the edge by an accident. The whole situation was making you nauseous as well as dizzy; you were able to see the never ending elevator shaft in your mind, to imagine it so vividly that you actually "saw" it, so you didn't really have to see it. You heard the creatures getting higher in the stairway, slowly but surely and you knew that you were running out of time. The apartment building had been occupied by squatters for some years and they had dragged old furniture out from the apartments to the corridors to block the bailiffs from evicting them. These barricades had slowed you and the man down and you had cursed them at the time but now they were slowing down the creatures and you had never been more thankful about anything in your life.
You tried to ignore the creatures for now because you knew that you had to concentrate on the instructions that the man would give you; he after all was your eyes in the darkness and without him you could basically throw the towel in and call it quits. However every time you heard metal screeching or the creatures talking to each other, your concentration was disturbed and you kept glancing at the direction of the noises despite the man's best efforts to tell you not to pay any attention to them now.
A silence again. You kept staring into the darkness, hoping to see anything, just to get a confirmation that the man was really there, however you couldn't even see your own hand as you groped the air in front of you. Finally the absolute lack of any light source become too much for your brain to handle and therefore you started to see random shapes and colors playing in front of your eyes, making you even more distracted and dizzy. There was no way to escape them; you saw them when you had your eyes open and they were still there when you closed your eyes. The shapes where there due to the lack of visual stimulation so the brain had started to create its own images to fill in the gaps.
- I need you to be brave and a little bit insane now. the man spoke calmly.
- What? you gasped immediately as a response.
- I need you to reach out to me... the man said, paused for a second or two almost as if he had been trying to find the right words to suggest something dangerous in a way that would convince you to do it. Then finally he bluntly added "...And jump" because there was no better way to put it. Besides it was not exactly the time and place to be eloquent, there was no time for that now and the place didn’t exactly inspire anyone to be sophisticated with one’s words.
- You're insane! you whimpered and almost lost your balance when you shifted your foot on the edge a little, kicking a glass bottle by an accident. You heard it roll over the edge and after a moment, no longer than blink of an eye yet still feeling like an eternity, shatter into small pieces somewhere below which confirmed to you that you were standing on the edge of an abyss.
- Careful now. the man spoke with a calm voice, following your reactions and monitoring constantly your deepening and somewhat paralyzing despair. He knew that he would need a miracle, perfect negotiation skills or total authority over you to make you do such insane stunt; it would be a challenging trick to perform even if you could actually see something and now in total darkness it would be twice as hard and terrifying. But the man knew that in order to get you to do it, it was imperative that he maintained a certain level of coolness in his presence. However keeping calm was getting more challenging by every passing second and soon it would be impossible altogether.
- Calm down and listen to me. he said and watched you closing your eyes for a moment and taking one deep breath; you clearly wanted to survive and it was obvious that this was not your first time in a tricky situation. Someone else would have surely curled up into a ball and given up already. You however did not give up without a fight. You went through the situation quickly in your mind; you had to do it, there was no other way. Besides, if you should die tonight, you rather died giving it all you got than just giving in to the fear. Besides-besides, if the options were to die falling down into the abyss and being tortured and fed upon by a group of vampires, you would take the door number one. Therefore you nodded and opened your eyes, trying to appear as calm as possible because it was the key to the survival and because you didn’t want the man see you panicking, it would be so embarrassing since you were supposed to be this… brave and tough vampire hunter.
- There is a ladder on the back wall of this elevator shaft. he started and paused. "Okay" you sighed as a response. "I am reaching out for you and I will catch you when you'll jump" he explained calmly although now you could hear that he was getting increasingly nervous. That was most likely due to the fact that the creatures were closing in not only from the stairway but also from the elevator shaft, below.
- But I can't see you! you cried, your tone filled with desperation and fear. Yes, your courage kept failing you constantly and your best intentions to keep cool and collected couldn’t stop the panic spreading like a virus and taking over your mind even though you tried to fight it. You wanted to believe that you will survive, you wanted nothing as much you wanted to survive and to walk out from this trap… but your chances of doing so were getting slimmer by every passing moment that you kept arguing as well as delaying.
- Do not worry about that. I see you perfectly. the man replied and then added reassuringly "Besides, you know how strong I am. This is child's play."
- I can't. you whimpered and shook your head, trying figure out where exactly the man was at; was he directly in front of you, or a little bit to the left-or-right perhaps? However it was very difficult to orientate yourself because there were constant echoes messing up with your sense of direction.
- You can and you must, woman. the man stated with an assertive tone. "I see you and I swear you can almost reach me!" he said with a smile on his face because he suspected that he would sound more reassuring like that. "The distance between our fingertips is five, maybe ten inches, twenty max!" he added with a tone that made it sound like it was no big deal at all.
You squeezed your hand into a tight fist, sinking your nails into the sensitive skin of your palm as you tried to gather the scattered bits and pieces of your courage. You told yourself over and over again that there was no other way and you had to take the necessary risk. “You have to, you must” you mumbled to yourself and groaned from frustration because the decision was so damn difficult to make. “Listen to me, woman” the man said with a firm tone and then continued with the same assertiveness. “I get it, but there really isn’t time for… that” he said. You stopped mumbling to yourself immediately and replied “Okay.”
- Okay. I will do it. you said and cursed in your native language.
- Good. Now... the man spoke, paused and then continued calmly "You must take a step back and take a boost-"
- What? you exclaimed instantly, cutting the man off.. “Yo-you said that twenty inches max!” you cried and inhaled sharply.
- Just do it! the man commanded with a firm and demanding tone.
The harshness of his voice shocked you a little so you decided to do exactly what he said. You took two steps back, measured the distance a couple of times and then took a deep breath. "Ready?" the man asked, hoping that this would work. The reason why he had asked you to take a boost to back your jump was that actually the distance between the edge of the sixth floor and his hand was more like two meters instead of that “twenty inches max” but he had not wanted you to know it. This piece of information he had wanted to keep from you because he was completely sure that if you knew, you would never do it. The man ask himself silently why on earth was he wasting his precious seconds by trying to save your ass, but there was something about you that was keeping him there even though it made the odds of his own survival even worse than they were. Perhaps it was a feeling of being indebted to you since you had saved his life during last night… or maybe it was his old-fashioned upbringing that made it impossible to abandon a damsel in distress. Perhaps a mixture of a bit of everything.
- Ready. you said and rubbed your cold, slimy and increasingly sweaty hands together twice, just to warm them up a little. Just as you were taking those two steps, the creature that you had attacked a moment ago returned, grabbed the hem of your coat and caused you to stumble, but it was too late to back down now since your kinetic energy was pushing you forward, over the edge into the elevator shaft.
- Shit! the man cursed and reached to grab your hand as you lost your footing and fell face down into the shaft accompanied by a panicky scream.
- Gotcha! he said when managed to catch your wrist with the help of his inhumanly quick reflexes. You gasped when you felt a sudden pull that almost dislocated your shoulder and for your relief you were no longer falling. The moment of relief however was shortly lived because the uncontrolled jump had created a kind of a swinging motion which caused you to hit your head to the back wall of the elevator shaft.
Everything went black for a moment… even blacker than it had already been before.
- Hey woman, you need to put your foot on the ladder. the man said since he noticed that you were not really doing anything but just hanging there. He however did not get any response from you and suddenly he realized that you had most likely hit your head and were currently more or less unconscious, but still he kept talking to you and urging you to find the ladder, repeating the same over and over again and constantly glancing at the open doorway that led into the sixth floor. He was holding onto the ladder somewhere between the sixth and the fifth floor and the elevator was somewhere between the fourth and the third leaving a drop of approximately three meters from your feet to the roof of the elevator.
- You're slipping! he said and tried to get a better grip from the sleeve of your jacket, however it was all slimy from the creature's blood and little by little your hand slid lower and lower.
A terrible ringing sound, echoes, the man talking to you. Excruciating pain on the right side of your head.
Little by little you gained consciousness and for your horror you realized that the man was just barely holding onto you. "I'm slipping" you said and unintentionally wiggled slightly as you remembered the talk about the ladder. You tried to find the footing in the dark but it was getting impossible since you were falling into a state of panic and this time there was no way to talk you out of it. "I'm slipping!" you cried when you felt your fingers letting go of his one by one. "Grab the ladder!" the man shouted but just as he did, you slipped away completely and then you were gone. He watched you fall for a time that felt like a half of an eternity and then hit the elevator's roof like you had been just a lifeless doll. You shook from the impact and then stayed there laying on your back, completely still.
The man climbed down instantly and checked your pulse by placing his hand on your neck; you were alive but the right side of your face was covered with blood which made the man quite certain that you had gotten rather badly injured. Just how badly? There was no way of knowing now and since you were still alive, he couldn’t just leave you to either bleed to death or to be clawed by the creatures. He saw a creature trying to reach the ladder from the sixth floor and another getting into the elevator shaft from the fourth floor, attempting to lower itself on the elevator’s roof from a somewhat small opening. The odds were really stacking up against you both, although you knew nothing about this.
The man kicked the creature that was about to come aboard from the fourth floor and his forceful kick managed to break the creature’s neck and kill it… or stun it at least. He noticed a crowbar laying partially under you and he decided to use it as a weapon against the other creature that had actually abandoned the ladder and jumped down on the elevator’s roof instead. When the creature landed heavily with loud thump onto the roof it caused the elevator shake a little and to slide down roughly half meter, making a terrible screeching noise as the metal cabled grinded against the breaks that were keeping the elevator from falling all the way down to the basement.
The man swung the crowbar and tried to hit the creature’s face but it dodged and managed to kick the man instead. He was thrown against the back wall from attack’s brutal impact but despite the sharp pain that followed he neither dropped his weapon nor passed out. He however got momentarily immobilized due to the pain. This did not go unnoticed from the creature and it used this window of opportunity gladly. The creature squatted down right beside you and ran its finger along your cheek. It licked the blood off his finger and growled from excitement. Finally the man regained his ability to move, completely unnoticed by the creature, so he grabbed the ladder to maintain his balance and then swung his weapon again, this time hitting the creature to the back of its head. There was a loud cracking sound, the creature whimpered and after hitting it few more times, bashing its brains in, it was dead and laying partially on top of you.
The man rolled the creature off from you, stood up and started to hit the metallic wires with the crowbar. He wanted to damage the brakes so the elevator would slide down, all the way to the basement and crush every creature below it in the elevator shaft. He kept hitting the breaks and then the elevator started to move, slowly at first and then slightly faster, gaining speed gradually. At this point you regained consciousness and opened your eyes. You saw sparks being scattered all around as the metal got grinded against metal, forcing the elevator down with an increasing speed. The man noticed the sparks so he knelt down, bent over you and sheltered you as much as he could; you were badly injured as you were and you didn’t need any burns to top everything off, besides there was no way of knowing what would happen when the elevator reached the basement; would it take the impact? Would the metal frame bend and break? Would the metal wires come down from the ceiling?
You felt like you had been sinking down. The elevator was speeding up and the creatures beneath it were screaming as they were crushed by it one by one, unable to escape their gory fate. The man lifted your upper body up, holding you in a tight embrace just before the elevator crashed into the basement. There was a large cloud of dust, rumble, sound of metal bending and twisting… and then silence. For a moment you didn’t dare to breathe because you were constantly waiting for something more to happen; perhaps the basement floor was going to give in and you would continue falling forever. The man was still holding you firmly but surprisingly gently against his chest and after some minutes of complete stillness he lowered you down to lay on the floor.
- How are you feeling? he asked softly, keeping his hand on your jaw and brushing your cheek with his thumb softly.
- Cold. you managed to answer with a barely audible, fragile tone. The man traced your shivering lips with featherlike brushes, almost as if he had not been sure if he should have been doing so or not.
- Does it hurt? he asked with a concerned and deeply worried tone, shifting his eyes from your eyes to the injury on the right side of your forehead. You however were unable to give him an answer because you were now shivering so violently. “Alright, try to keep still” he said and made sure that there were no creatures sneaking around and getting ready to attack. His attention shifted back to you instantly when you started to cough the dust out from your throat, every cough making your body twitch and sending terrible waves of pain all over your bruised, shattered body. Finally you stopped coughing and fell back on the dusty roof to lay completely still as you focused on reestablishing a steady breathing rhythm while the man caressed your cheek with slow strokes, trying to calm you down and soothe your aches.
- I can see you. you spoke shakily, your voice sounding exhausted and broken. The man immediately realized that there was a tiny amount of light pouring in from a garage door that had been ripped open by the creatures.
- I’ll get us out of here. the man said and stood up. He jumped a couple of times to make sure that the metal frame that had been partially crushed by the impact, contracting the height of the elevator car’s structure to half of what it used to be, was stable and then squatted on the edge of the roof and jumped down to the basement floor. You turned your head to see what the man was doing but there was a terrible, sharp pain every time you moved or even attempted to move any part of your body. The pain was radiating everywhere to your body from the open wound on the right side of your forehead and the loss of blood was making you dizzy as well as nauseous.
- Give me your hand, woman. the man said and reached to pull you out from the rubble. You had not tried to move your limbs yet because you were scared that you had cracked your spine and got paralyzed from your neck down. Your body felt so heavy, so exhausted and faint that at first you were unable to move your arm at all, making you increasingly terrified that you lost your capability to move for good. You screamed in frustration and then finally you managed to gain control of your limbs. You felt the dirt and debris with your fingers, slowly sliding your hand towards the man, every action draining your strength completely. Then the man’s strong hand grabbed yours and pulled you cautiously, very slowly away from the wreckage.
- I will get you out of here. he said, emphasizing the word “you” in a kind, almost affectionate manner. “Woman” he added with a relieved smile as he lifted you into his arms, staring into your eyes intensely, like you had been the only thing that mattered or even existed.
- It’s (Y/N). you corrected, making the man chuckle a little. “My name is… (Y/N)” you repeated with a tiny smirk.
- Very well, (Y/N), I’m Garrett. he said and started walking towards the garage door, carrying you like the most precious thing in the world, extremely careful not to make your injuries any worse.
However one of the creatures had run back to the factory to alert the rest of the group. If you thought that the danger was now over… you were terribly mistaken.