Finally. Angie immediately ran over and grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the closet. She went over to the "bathroom" and quickly changed into them, making sure to not having any of "Poppy" left on what she was now wearing. Running back out with her new clothes and bandages, she checked on Jordan, concluding that he probably had a concussion, but there was nothing we could do for it down here. She wrapped a bandage around the open wound, and wiped the blood that'd been trickling down the side of his face. Once she finished, she planted a kiss on the side of his face and gave him a hug, silent tears trickling down the side of her face. This was hard on all of us, and I didn't know how much long it would be until we went down from ten to nine of us left. Three of us were down already, and me, Jeremy, Jordan, and Lily were all wounded. Chris was still fine, and I intended to keep it that way.

"What now?" Nix didn't really care, I'm guessing he's just bored, "no I'm serious, I'm sorry, I've been a dick, I just know we need to get out of here."

We all looked around, surprised at his change of attitude.

"Think about it like this, if we can all work together, maybe we can break down the door. The longer we wait, the less of us there will be to help get out. We have to move quickly. Plus, Henry still has about 6 hours left on his timer. By the time it's over, it'll be late tonight, and we'll probably need to get some sleep. We also don't know when the next "game" is, and we need to be prepared this time." We all stared, shocked, at Nix. He wasn't usually the type for big speeches, and he never wanted to do anything but sit around and wait for death. Everyone looked around the circle, and got up to look for anything to get us out.

We'd been looking for about two hours now, and the most we could find was a few more sewing needles, some pebbles, and what looked like a shark tooth?  This stuff didn't seem to be able to help us get out of here. Maybe we could use the table.

"What if we use the table to break down the door?" Ray seemed to have read my mind, as he asked if the table would be any help.

"Good idea," both Jeremy and Heather pitches in, smiling lightly at the coincidence of agreement. We all walked over to the table, everyone grabbing a section to life it up.

"One."

"Two."

"Three." We all lifted up, but to no avail. Again, we all grabbed the table and pulled. Nothing happened. The table wouldn't budge. Jeremy knelt down, making sure not to mess up his leg, and tried to see if anything was keeping the table down.

"It's bolted to the floor," he informed us.

"Shit," I muttered under my breath.

"Holy shit! I'm telling you the devil wants to kill us all," Chris screeched from next to me, "Get ahold of yourself," I heard her mumbling from beside me.

"Hold my hand. It'll be fine," I looked at her, giving her a reassuring smile.

She looked at me, "I'm ok, don't worry about me, I'm fine."

"Stop telling me you're fine when I know you're not," I whispered, softly, but stern, "you don't need to hide from me, Chris. It'll be ok."

She finally let her guard down after that, tears streamed down her eyes, "I'm scared. I don't want to die down here, I-I want to g-graduate. And g-go to college. I w-want to get m-married, and see m-my brother again. There's no escape from this place, and I don't know w-what to do a-anymore."

"Hey, we're gonna get out of here, ok? Do you trust me?" She nodded, sniffling, "then believe me, you're not dying down here, not on my watch." I held her tight, letting her sob into my chest, motioning for the others to continue looking for options of escape. Nix patted my back as he passed me, giving me an encouraging smile. I like this Nix much better than the old one. Once Chris had calmed down, we went back over to the group. Nix motioned me over to the side.

"I'm um, I wanted to apologize about how I was acting earlier. I've actually got a pretty rough home life too. If you ever have anyone you need to talk to, I'm here for you Man, ok? And if you ever need any help at home, you know where to find me. I used to have a little brother, he's um, h-he's," he stopped himself, clearing his throat, eyes glimmering, "he's not around anymore, but if you ever need anything, especially with your sister, I'm here." I patted his shoulder, glad that he'd said that.

"Thanks Man, that means a lot," I told him, sincerely.

200 minutes. Henry had 200 minutes left of "smiling" until he could final break it. Lily was worried about him, but he kept on a brave face, not wanting anyone to worry. We've all given up on looking for a way out. We know whoever locked us up down here is smart, and crazy. They're not going to leave something out in the open for us to get to.

It was getting noticeably colder down here, something that was odd for September. Jordan and Angie were huddled in the corner, trying to keep warm, and holding onto each other like they're life depended on it. Lily had her head leaning onto her brother's shoulder. It looked like she was asleep, but maybe not. Heather had gone to the bathroom again, she was having a hard time. I would be worse than her if I'd been here for a few weeks. Nix was looking through the closet trying to find something for all of us to eat for dinner. Ray and Jeremy were both laying on the blankets, Jeremy asleep, while Ray stared blankly towards the ceiling, deep in thought. I smiled, looking towards the two, and my eyes trailed over to Chris. She was sitting on the floor, picking at her nails, a habit she does when both bored, and anxious. I walked over to her, and put an arm around her. Trying to reassure her of having someone watching over her. As long as I was here, she'd be fine. I stayed like that for a little while. Just keeping an arm around Chris. We didn't need to talk, just having each other's presence was reassurance of a little bit of hope.

Henry's timer was almost up. He had about an hour left to go.

"Hey, why don't we try to get to know each other. I mean we've got nothing else to do," Ray suggested. We all turned to him and shrugged. Jeremy was now awake, his head resting on Ray's shoulder. We got up and formed another small circle, feeling de ja vu from earlier that day. There wasn't really much to talk about, and we were missing someone.

"Has anyone seen Heather?" I asked. Getting a response of heads being shaken I looked over at Chris.

A/N: thanks so much for reading. It's two AM right now. Yayyy *sarcasm* I love y'all so much. Don't forget to comment and vote. This means so much to me. Let me know if you're enjoying.
Eliza Schuyler Hamilton 💙💙