See you in Spain

I went past that door and walked down the dark hallway which led me to an empty well lighted room. It displayed a map on the wall and the door behind me instantly closed when I stepped in.

I turned around looking at the door surprised. I signed sincerely for what awaited me and moved my eyes back to the map until the same robotic voice emerged from nowhere. "See this map, Alexander? It's the city's map and you have one minute to memorize it. Good luck."

"Excuse me?!" I asked, raising my head slowly to where a mounted speaker was attached close to the ceiling. "Why would I waste my time doing so?"

"First, because I JUST TOLD YOU SO!!!" He screamed. "Second, because you will thank me later for it. Oh! And by the way, I will start the countdown. When one minute passes by, the exit door will begin to close and toxic gas will be released, and because we both don't want you to die this kind of painful death, I advise you to get the hell out of here before that happens. Deal? Let's begin."

"No!!! No, wait!!! I will never be able to memorize all of it in just one minute!!!"

"Of course you can. You are capable of a lot of things Alex, but you just don't know it yet and I will help you rediscover yourself. Don't worry." He reassured me before laughing. "Owww!!! Just look at me finally being a good friend!!!"

I stayed silent thinking and asked the question that was bothering me ever since I met that guy. "Did we know each other?"

He stopped laughing and a few seconds passed before he answered. "Let's just say that our paths had crossed before. Stop the small talk and let's get our game officially started!!!" The crippled announced and the room's lights dimmed with a digital countdown starting.

"HEY! That's not fair!!!" I grumbled and ran to the wall where the map was hanging to have a better look at it. Scanning the map left to right, I placed my hands on my head, yelling every cuss word I know. "Shit!!! Shit!!! Shit!!!... That's impossible... Fuck it!!!"

While reading the map like a lunatic, I heard the same voice coming out from the speaker. "Times up, Doctor!!! Time to run!!!"

Suddenly, there was the sound of gas leaking from the ventilation hole accompanied by an intoxicating smell, and like he promised, the exit door began to close slowly, leaving me no choice. "He wasn't kidding." I whispered, covering my mouth and nose with my shirt's collar.

Deciding on staying for a few more seconds, I kept reading that map over and over again until a furious voice interrupted me. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU STILL DOING?! LEAVE NOW!!! OR I'M SENDING ONE OF MY MEN TO DRAG YOU OUT!!! STUPID IDIOT!!!"

"Okay, okay I'm leaving... no need for insults." I muffled, running to the door and laying on my stomach to crawl under it.

When I was finally on the other side, I stood up and looked in front of me to be greeted by another dark creepy hallway. "Are you kidding me?! Where the hell did you find this building?! Horror movie aesthetic.com?!" I yelled, irritated.

I strolled tiredly to the end of the corridor and reached a room illuminated by a yellow-orange light. In the middle of the room was a closed basket. I walked carefully closer. The temperature of the room was very elevated and I started to sweat. "What is he trying to do now? Bake me alive?" I asked myself, coming closely to the basket and opening it. The sight of a huge snake waving its tail and menacingly hissing in my face greeted me. I was petrified.

I closed the basket and ran to the door at the speed of light, screaming in a high-pitched voice that I'm sure no one would have believed it was coming from a grown-up man.

"Fuck!! Fuck!! A huge ass snake?!!! That's what he chose!! Holy shit!!!" I kept screaming, pressing my left chest, trying to stop my heart from bursting out.

"Glad you made it, Alex. Let me warn you that there's a Boa in that basket." Said the mechanical voice from another speaker.

"NO SHIT!!!"

"You're not a big fan of snakes?" He asked with a hint of sarcasm.

"I was never on good terms with animals in general, especially the crawling ones. I assume you already know that."

"Excellent. Then you won't mind putting your hand inside the basket and retrieving what you'll need to continue your quest."

"I would rather eat glass." I answered without second thoughts.

"Oh? Really? I thought you wouldn't be the kind of selfish person who would prefer to sacrifice the lives of half a million people just for their comfort. I'm disappointed." He announced in a sad voice.

"Half a million?! No. You are NOT seriously going that far!"

"Of course I am!!! You know what they say: Go big or go home."

"You're insane... you can't kill all these people just like that..."

"That's why I'm counting on you to stop me from doing so."

I exhaled deeply, taking one step at a time, my eyes not leaving that basket. Standing in front of it, I reached for the cover, my hand shaking. "Don't worry, Alexander. That's a Boa. It's not venomous. It usually swallows their prey."

"Thank you for sharing that piece of information with me. I needed to know that. The fact that it can swallow my arm with no problem instead of biting me makes me feel a lot more confident." I mocked.

"You're welcome." He answered.

I turned my head, glaring at the speaker and lifted the cover-up. It's like that damn snake was waiting for me because I barely had any time to react before it charged towards my face and I barely dodged it, taking a few jumps backwards.

"Okay. Listen you nasty piece of shit! I hate you and you obviously hate me too. Now that we made our feelings for each other clear. I am going to invade your personal space and you won't fucking dare to swallow my arm. Understand?" I lectured and it answered me with a hiss.

Walking back to that animal, I saw it ready to jump on me again but this time, my reflexes kicked in and I grabbed it by its neck - if we can call it a neck. "That was a bad move." I whispered to myself, looking into its demonic eyes.

The huge Boa attacked me back by wrapping the rest of its long body around my arm, squeezing the hell out of me and then, tried to go for my neck.

"Squeeze my arm as much as you like. I'm not letting you go, you motherfucker."

Grabbing it harder and farther away from my face, I reached for the bottom of the basket and took a small book out. "AM I FIGHTING A GODDAMN SNAKE FOR A FUCKING MANUAL?!?" I screamed, throwing it aside.

I reached for the Boa's tail with my second hand, trying to loosen it up but failed miserably because it only made it crush my arm harder. A sharp pain struck me and I saw my arm turning violet-red. "At this rate, I'm going to lose my arm." I panted.

Fighting to keep the blood flowing to my fingers, I looked into its eyes again and had an idea. "I-I know a woman... with eyes... scarier than yours..." I told it, stabbing its eyeballs with both of my fingers.

The snake made a painful sound and let me go. I grabbed it and threw it inside the basket, sealing it.

I walked to the door, picked the manual up and sat outside the room, looking at my violet arm. I couldn't move it and just trying to do so was torture. Then I glanced at the manual, it was about bombs.

"Fuck..." I cursed, standing up, breathing heavily, and sweating from every pore of my body. I Continued travelling down that interminable hallway and I stopped when I noticed a cell phone in the middle of my way.

Bending over to pick up the phone, I felt something grabbing both my legs with a clicking sound "What the..."

"That's the end of the road, Alex. Now, time to get to the good stuff. Oh... a piece of advice, the cell phone is attached to a neck strap, put it around your neck and grab the manual tightly."

"What do you mean... the end of the road?..." I asked and felt a force pulling my feet.

I landed on my back and was dragged, pulled by my legs very quickly. "HEY!!! HEY!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! STOP THIS!!!" I put the cell phone around my neck in panic and began to squirm, trying to release my legs. In an instant, I found myself being dragged toward an opened window.

"Window... there is an opene window... WINDOW!!!" I yelled, before being thrown outside the building. I closed my eyes, my hands on my face waiting for my fall but it never came.

Opening my eyelids slowly, I found myself hanging from the window upside down from my legs, four hundred feet above the city. "No...no...no...no... Why are you doing this?!" I asked on the verge of having a heart attack.

"Don't panic, my dear Alex. You are going to need a good vision for your next mission." Intervened his voice, coming from another speaker close to the window.

"FUCK YOU!!!"

"I expected you to be upset. Anyway, allow me to explain what's going to happen now. See this manual? That's an easy guide to disarming a bomb and that's what you're going to do."

"YOU EXPECT ME TO DISARM A BOMB IN MY CURRENT POSITION?!"

"Of course not. Let me finish. You will call the number on your phone and guide them to disarm the bomb before it goes Boom!!!"

"What...? Whose number is that?" I asked, looking at the screen.

"Take a guess!"

"...Ezra?"

"Close enough. It's that old man's number. Now all you have to do is convince them to go stop that bomb or you'll witness the downfall of this pretty city."

"Wait... Wait!!... I don't know where the bomb is!!!"

"Of course you do. You saw it on the map. Good luck my friend. I hope to see you soon enough."

"Don't leave me here!!! Wait!!!" But he didn't answer back. "How do I always get myself in these kind of situations." I whispered while reaching for the cell phone and dialing the number.

"Yes?" Answered Roy.

"Roy!!! Roy!!! It's me, Alex. Listen, I'm in big trouble and I need your help. Please."

He went silent for a few seconds and I heard Ezra asking if they found me, he answered her before coming back to me. "Where are you boy? What happened? Who took you?"

"I don't have much time to explain but to make it short, the crippled kidnapped me and we had a little chat about what's going to happen, I fought with a Boa, and now I'm hanging upside down from the window of a twenty levels or so building and I need your help to disarm a bomb that will blow up half of the city." I explained quickly in one breath.

I heard him exhaling a deep breath tiredly. "I'm not even going to ask what you mean. It was nice meeting you. I'm hanging up now. See you in the afterlife."

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?! GIVE ME THAT!!!" I heard Ezra yelling and snatching the phone. "I don't care about all this shit you just said. I want to know where the bloody hell you are. I'll come and get you."

That's bad. If I tell her where I am, she will surely come here to save me without caring that the bomb will destroy the other half of the city. What should I do...?

"HEY, IDIOT!!! ARE YOU STILL THERE?!"

"Yeah... Ezra, you can't come and save me. The bomb will go off before we get out of the area. The only way is to stop it." I lied.

Remembering the map, I'm too far from the bomb. The probability that it reaches me is close to impossible. I feel bad about lying to her but I have no other choice.

I waited to hear her voice, her answer came almost instantly. "Fine. Tell him where it is." Roy's angry voice of disapproval reached my ears but she didn't argue back and handed him the phone.

Surprisingly, that crippled guy was right and I was able to remember every detail of the map. "The bomb is put in a statue."

"Are you kidding? There are like ten statues in this city!!! Be more specific, son of a bitch!!!" He yelled.

"The name of the statue was in Romanian. I can't remember it."

"Great..." he mumbled.

Come on. Come on. I have to remember something. Anything.

"Horse." I whispered.

"What?"

"A horse. I remember reading a word and I'm sure it meant 'horse' because I had a patient from Eastern Europe with equinophobia."

"Horse? Do you mean the statue of Ecvestra A Lui Carol?"

"Yes! That's it!"

"Do you have any idea how far this place is from where we currently are?! How much time do we have left?"

"I...I don't know..."

"ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME?! WHAT IF WE GO THERE AND YOUR LITTLE TOY BLOWS UP IN OUR FACES BEFORE WE EVEN GET THE CHANCE TO STOP IT?!"

"Wait. He loves games, he must have left me this information somewhere."

I took the phone off my ear and tried to lift my other injured arm that was holding the manual. It hurt like hell but I didn't find anything written on the papers that could help in knowing how much time we have until the bomb goes off.

Bringing the phone back to my ear, I remarked numbers changing on the screen. A timer. "Found it. You still have twenty-eight minutes."

I heard him shouting Ezra's name before talking to me. "This crazy bitch just left. Damn it!!! We will barely have enough time to reach the location, so you better be right." He hung up and I was left with a beeping sound.

Meanwhile, I'm still hanging upside down from the window from my ankles, blood flowing to my head, numbness in my legs as well as my arms, feeling dizzy.

"Now I understand why he hung me up like that. He wanted me to lose it so I'm incapable of helping them with the bomb. This guy... what's wrong with him?" I talked to myself.

Twenty minutes have passed by when the phone rang again and I picked it up, Roy's voice yelling in my ear. "We found that godamn bomb of yours."

"That's great. We still have seven minutes to stop it."

"No, It's not great!! The bomb was put very high on the statue and as you know, I'm too old to pull these kind of stunts, so guess who will play bomb squad!!!"

"She can do it."

"Let's hope so or we're fucked." He answered and called Ezra to catch the phone.

"Hey? Are you still hanging from the window?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"Hang in there, doc. Tell me what to do."

I tried my best to open the manual with one hand while holding the phone with the other. "First, open the cover carefully. Do you have anything that can cut the wires?"

"I'm going to use my teeth."

"What?! No, you can't!!! It's electric!!! You're going to bust it. Use a knife."

"Fine." Answered Ezra, asking Roy for a knife. Waiting for her to open the cover, my headache and dizziness were weakening me.

"Cut the thick yellow wire and be careful not to move or touch anything else." I begin, and after a series of instructions, we get to the last part.

"We still have only one minute, doc. Hurry up. Roy is fighting with some officers that want me to get down from up here."

"Yeah... yeah... Now you should... arghh" I grumbled when a violent pain in my arm stopped me from speaking.

"Hey!!! What's wrong?! Are you okay?" She asked, worry evident in her voice.

"I-I'm fine... NO!!!" I yelled after the phone slipped from my hand, gone skydiving when my arms became too weak. "NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! THAT CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!! ONLY ONE WIRE!!! JUST ONE!!! SHE'S GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF ME!!! FUCK!!!" I struggled in the air, throwing the manual too.

My eyes were beginning to water and I was waiting to hear the sound of the explosion. But nothing happened. Instead, I was pulled back inside by the same force that threw me out and the mechanical cuffs on my ankle opened, freeing me.

I stood up slowly, trying to process everything. "She did it?... She did it!!!" I yelled with excitement, running out of the door trying to find the exit.

A few minutes later, I was out of the building and I headed for the first taxi I ran into. He took off after I asked him to take me to where that statue was. On our way there, I saw the silhouette of a woman yelling at an old man, impossible to miss, and hastily stopped the taxi.

"Ezra!!! Ezra, you're okay?!" I called and she turned around stunned with eyes wide open. She ran towards me, jumping to my neck, and wrapping her arms around me like a chain. At that moment, I forgot she was a psychotic killer. She was only a woman relieved to see me well and so, I clasped her so tightly we were nearly one person trying to take my pain and stress away.

She let me go, looked at me and scanned my injuries, frowning. "Did this fucker hurt you?"

"N-no... I'm fine. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to communicate with you because the phone fell. How did you?..."

"The most important question here is, how did you say you were close to the bomb area when you just came from the west?" Roy walked closer to us. Ezra looked at him and then at me with shock.

"Y-you lied...?" She asked, her voice shaking when she realized what he meant.

"I-I I didn't have any other choice. If I told you... y-you wouldn't..."

"SHUT UP!!!" She interrupted, screaming, rage in her eyes replacing her soft look from earlier. "HOW COULD YOU?!... YOU... YOU WERE WILLING TO SACRIFICE MY LIFE WHILE YOU WERE SAFE SOMEWHERE ELSE?!"

"He... the bomb was going to kill half a billion people because of us. I couldn't just..."

"WHO FUCKING CARES?!" She walked closer to me, delivering a strong blow to my guts and kicking me to the wall, trapping me with her arms on both sides of my head, the same ones that were hugging me a moment ago. "I WAS WILLING TO SACRIFICE THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD FOR YOU!!! AND YOU WERE GOING TO LET ME DIE FOR PEOPLE YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!" She growled, punching the wall beside me before turning around and leaving.

I tried to run after her but Roy stopped me. "Leave her be. You won't be able to talk to her while she's like that."

"I-I had good intentions... I swear." I mumbled, sliding down the wall slowly.

"I know. Any normal person would have done the same. It's human nature to save the bigger number." I didn't answer, putting my head in my hands. "Anyway... It wasn't a real bomb, so no harm done."

"WHAT?!" I asked, nearly jumping to my feet.

"Yeah... when we lost touch with you, that dumbass Ezra freaked out and cut both wires. Nothing happened, only a sarcastic message saying 'See you in Spain' was displayed. He was just playing us."

I looked at him blankly and a realization came to my mind. "He wasn't just playing with us... he had another purpose."

"Which was?" He asked with curiosity.

"To create a conflict between me and Ezra... Fuck!!! He knew I was going to choose to save those people. I'm so dumb!!!" I cried, bumping my head into the wall in frustration.

"Well... he succeeded." He sighed, looking in the direction where Ezra went.