"I think we should take the elevator," I said nodding towards it. "I don't know where it goes but maybe we can find a way out of this world."
"What brought us here anyway?" Tina asked as we moved toward the elevator.
"I don't know," I said shaking my head a bit. "It depends on if we were physically brought here or mentally or spiritually if you prefer."
"Why would you say mentally or spiritually?" Tina asked as we stepped into the elevator. "I know that I have a body and can feel things. That seems pretty physical to me."
I scan the buttons and seeing that there no numbers or letters on them pressed one at random. When the doors closed I responded with, "Because it's simpler to move the mind or spirit of someone across worlds than it is to move them physically. It wouldn't take as much energy either. Don't get me wrong it might be that we were moved physically. We don't have enough evidence to say for certain."
"What about what you were wearing and the clothes I had with me that you're wearing now?" Tina asked evidently having decided that we were brought over physically.
"It could be that whatever brought us here used some type of psychic echo to create new bodies and clothes for us," I said tapping my foot a bit. I was growing a little anxious with how long the elevator seemed to be taking. The weird thing is that I couldn't feel any motion.
"So we're dead then?" Tina asked sounding horrified.
"That is one possibility but not the only one," I said with a little sigh. "It may be that in the real world we're in a coma or maybe our bodies have other minds in them. We won't be able to be certain until we have the chance to get back."
The elevator doors finally opened but by the look on Tina's face I could tell that neither of us liked what we saw. What we saw looked like a hotel hallway but it was in ruins with a good chunk taken out of one end. "Maybe we can get back to the white room," Tina suggested sounding scared.
I looked at the buttons and noticed that they were getting really grimy quick. The metal was rapidly losing it's shine and was rusting. If this was happening on the inside of the elevator then the same thing was probably happening on the outside of it. I grabbed Tina's hand and dragged her out of the elevator. She was so startled that she didn't offer any resistance. That was a good thing since we had just cleared the elevator when it suddenly plummeted down the shaft and made a horrendous crash at the bottom. "Fuck!" I nearly yelled. "That was too close."
Tina was standing there with a shocked look on her face. Finally she said, "We can't get out of here now."
"Take it easy," I said trying to calm her down. "That wasn't the only way out. The stairs are probably still intact so we should be able to take them. We may be able to climb down using sheets or maybe debris if the stairs are out. There may be handholds on the side that we can use to climb down also. So we have a few options to get out of this hotel."
Tina smiled and said, "I don't know if I'd have the strength to climb down the side."
I giggled and said, "I'm not sure if I'd have the strength either so the stairs better be intact or at least stable enough that we can use them."
"I wonder what happened here," Tina said looking at the gaping hole. A few building could be seen beyond it and they looked like they were in the same condition as the hotel. "Do you think we have to worry about radiation?"
I shrugged and said, "It's a possibility but I don't think we have to worry about that. There's animal tracks in the dust on this carpet." I pointed to the tracks I had just noticed. "If there are animals here then if there is radiation it must not be that bad. Animals do seem to have a bit of a keen sense when it comes to these things."
"Those tracks look human," Tina said pointing at a set of tracks that led into one of the rooms. "Do you think there's someone else here with us?"
"Maybe," I said looking at the tracks. There was one set of tracks leading from the gaping hole to a room but no human tracks coming out. If there was someone else here perhaps they could tell us where we were and what had happened here. I went over to the door and knocking I asked, "Hello anyone in there?" Instead of someone answering the door swung open apparently on it's own. Or maybe it wasn't closed properly and my knocking opened it. Either way we looked at each other and with a nod we went into the room.
The room itself was in shambles. The curtains looked like they had been shredded by some type of animal. The bed was turned over and the mattress slashed down the middle with all the stuffing pulled out. The dresser was missing all of it's drawers and the mirror above it was broken. There was a TV on it's side and there was a gruesome picture burned into the screen. The picture was of a nude little girl being spitted and there was a nude woman turning over a low fire in the background. I had hoped that it had been from a movie but then I saw a cooking channel logo on the screen. It made my stomach churn to think that it was real. The only reason I didn't grab something and smash the TV or throw it out a window was the fact that it still could have been a movie with a fictional cooking show. I turned away from it and saw Tina over by the dresser holding something. As I got closer she said, "Look at this. These appear to be almost brand new."
My heart skipped a few beats as I saw what was on the dresser and what Tina was holding. They were a pair of watches and little disks. "Well that explains why the human tracks end here," I said my voice quavering a bit.
"How do these explain that?" Tina asked looking puzzled.
"I had started a story branch featuring them," I said picking up the other watch. "The story branch is called Cyber Disks. What you do is wear the watch and put the disk in the top then you're transported to the cyber world." I picked up one of the disks and continued with, "If it's a blank disc you get to create your avatar but if it's not then you become the avatar that's on the disk."
"Let's use them," Tina said the excitement evident in her voice.
"We have no way of knowing beforehand if these are blank or already have an avatar on them," I said trying to sound reasonable.
"I know but that's what excites me about it," Tina said almost jumping up and down. I thought she was barely resisting the urge to do just that. "Besides I think that maybe the people here had used these watches to escape from whatever happened. Maybe we can learn just what happened if we find them. Maybe we can find out why we were brought here. I think someone left these for us to use since there are two of them."
I could see her point and I had to admit that I was kind of excited at the prospect of diving into the unknown. It would be interesting to see the cyber world and see if the disks are blank or not. I had an idea of the kind of avatar I wanted if the disks were blank. It was true that the people could have fled into the cyber world to escape whatever had happened here. Would they really know what had happened though? Tina was looking at me with an eager expression on her face. She was going to go into the cyber world whether I was going or not. I didn't relish the thought of being alone here though. Of course it could be some sort of trap which made me hesitate. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that two Cyber Disks were in this room at this time. Did someone know that I would recognize them and make fake ones to trap us? Finally I made my choice.