"Hello?" she called out, wondering if anyone could hear her, then recoiled in disgust at her childish actions. As a child, she had called out many, many times "Can anyone hear me?" and gotten no response. She knew that no-one would hear her, yet she couldn't help herself.
He was curiously doing the rounds of the outside of the concrete building when the faintest wisp of a voice echoed out to him. He frowned, ducking towards the windows to see if anyone was there.
No one. "Hello?" he answered.
Stella jumped back, a little surprised. A faint voice called out, "Hello?" Reverting back to a childish state, and not only feeling like one, but acting like one as well, or at least how she acted when she was a child. "Please, I just want to get out of here," she begged. Her voice was more mature now though.
Alexis froze, listening intently. His face paled and he started running his hands up and down the walls of the building, searching for a weaker spot that he could freeze out. "Miss, are you underground?"
Stella drew back from the walls of the building she had been leaning against. "Underground?" she repeated. "How would I know? I…" she couldn't finish her sentence. What she'd started to say was that she'd been under since a child, but her throat unexpectedly closed up.
The sound was cut off. Cursing under his breath, Alexis lay a hand on the softest part of the wall he could find. Slowly icy cracks spread from his hand and in a splintering web along the wall.
A small part of the wall crumbled, just big enough for him to crawl through.
The echoing of the wall crumbling startled Stella, and she let out a little yelp. "Hello? Who's there?" she called out, just on the borderline between scared and, well, not scared.
He did so, following the girl's voice. "Keep talking, Miss! I'll follow your voice!" He found himself standing in a LED-lit stone corridor, branching off in all directions. "This place is a damn maze," he mumbled.
"Who's there?" she called out again. It'd been so long since she'd heard another's voice that she wasn't sure she could trust herself to determine the gender of the person who walked the halls of the building. She thought it might be a male, but she wasn't sure.
"My name's Alexis," he called, turning left to follow her voice.
"Alexis," she mused aloud. "W-why are you here?" she asked. She'd lost track of the days, months, years perhaps she'd been in here.
Alexis frowned, walking down yet another steel lined corridor, leaving a thin trail of ice along his way so they could get out. "You're stuck underground. Not only is it right to help, but it's also a hell of an exciting day." Her voice was only three walls away now, three turns more…
She made a face. "Underground? I… I thought… I heard…" Stella trailed off, her thoughts spiraling around a central idea - confusion. The voice was getting closer now, she could hear the footsteps echoing around.
"I had to climb in through a hole in the wall and jump down into the hall. That qualifies as underground to me."
A few meters away he could now make out the glint of steel bars. "What's your name?" he asked her, running up to her cell. It was dark for him to see anything about her, but he could make out her silhouette.
Stella heard his footsteps rushing up to her cell. Glancing suspiciously at him, she asked, without answering his question, "You're not one of them, are you?"
"Them?" he asked, stepping closer. "No, I don't think so. I'm a loner." She was still hidden in shadows, and her voice sounded hoarse and unused. He walked up to the lock, trying to put the pieces together.
"Good," she replied wearily. "They haven't been here in ages, and I hope they're rotting in hell right now," she spat the word 'hell' bitterly.
(I am so sorry! School has started up again so my timing might get weird)
Theo frowned. That's a lot of anger. "I'm going to try and get you out. Can you come closer, guide me through what you know about this cell?"
(That's fine! I can relate!)
"I've tried, and failed so many more times than you can think of. They've gotten smart now, and won't come here anymore. They're reliant on robots to 'assist' me," she replied solemnly, but came closer into the light, letting it illuminate her face.
Alexis froze. She was gaunt, thin and pale, and Alexis's heart twisted at the sight of such a miserable looking girl. But that wasn't what scared him. "Your…" He stared, mind going a mile a minute. "Your hair…"
Stella stepped back, taking several steps at a time, tripping over her feet even, until she felt the comforting feel of the concrete wall. Her eyes were wild with fear, he was a newbie, one of them, wasn't he? He had lied to her. "Nevermind, I never should've…" she spat bitterly, unable to finish her sentence and turned around to face the wall. To her astonishment, tears started falling down her cheeks. The first time in forever someone came to visit her, and they lied to her, pretended they were just an ordinary person. No, of course they had come from the company, probably on their own accord, else they wouldn't've had to break in.
"Wait!" Alexis shouted, caught in the frenzy of the moment. "Come back, please. I've just never seen anyone like you," he attempted to tell her calmly, but his voice shook.
"No," she shot back fiercely. "They're always one of them. Always. I can't trust anyone anymore."
He sighed in frustration. "Look, miss, seems to me I'm your only hope. So how do I prove to you that I don't mean you harm?" he asked bluntly, threads of ice criss-crossing his hands before disappearing into his skin.
Stella shakily slid to the ground and clutched her legs together. "You don't know what they've done," she whispered, her voice quavering.