Chapter Text
September 5th 2017
Rufus
11:50 AM
I love you. The words kept racing in my head. I was trying to sleep, but the fluttering in my chest made me a little too uncomfortable to fall completely. I didn't know what time it was, I didn't care. I was with him, and he was with me; I thought he was, anyways.
I started hearing clanging in the kitchen a few moments later, and my instincts sparked to life. I scrambled up, and clutched where Mateo was (Except he wasn't). No no no no no! I thought, he wasn't supposed to leave the bedroom, much less the bed. My blood was pumping fast, and I scrambled out of Mateo's room and into the kitchen. I found him, staring at me with a confused expression on his face.
Sheepishly, he looked towards me, and back at...a tea kettle? Was he making tea? I shot him a nasty glare that screamed 'Don't. Do. Anything'. He held up a hand and backed up. I walked slowly around the room; something was off. It was dead silent between me and Mateo, I could tell he was ready to die. I wasn't.
Hsssssssss.
Something was definitely wrong. I took a long breath through my nose, the air smelled off, and I became lightheaded. I quickly understood.
"Don't turn on the oven," I ordered, grabbing Mateo and moving him away, "There's a gas leak in here, we need to get out."
Mateo's eyes widened in fear, and he started moving slow. It was a little infuriating watching him cautiously step around. At this point I assumed that we were going to die of gas inhalation if he was going to go this slow.
"Mateo, I don't think that your rubber shoes are going to start a fire," I said, watching him. He gave me another fearful glance, and I shut up.
We made it out of his apartment, and moved slowly, slowly down the stairs.
When we made it to the bottom, I couldn't think to do anything but call 911. I asked the operator to send a firetruck, praying that there wouldn't be police officers as well.
I held Mateo close after that, making sure we were close to the apartment complex. His breathing was quick and erratic. Though I could feel his anxiety, I was honestly just happy he was still breathing. We were gonna ride it out to the end.
Soon the firefighters arrived- and thankfully no police officers. The captain jumped out of his truck, hose at the ready. He regarded me in confusion.
"Where's the fire?" he asked. I stammered.
"Well...there isn't any?" I replied. The operator hadn't asked for a reason, she just sent a truck, "I wasn't sure who else to call. There's a gas leak in there."
"Oh. That's alright! Jones, grab the gas masks would ya?" he called back to his team. Before walking to evacuate the building, he stopped near me and Mateo, "Looks like you two escaped death, narrowly."
That made me snap back into reality. We were going to die. I lifted my phone and clicked it on...
12:02 AM. What...? What? I looked to Mateo, he was staring at the screen. First thing I did was screenshot my phone and upload a picture to Instagram, captioned with a question mark and #EndDay?
The second thing I did was call Pluto, specifically Malcom. It picked up almost immediately.
"H-hello?" Malcom answered. He was obviously expecting Peck to call him to tauntingly say I was dead.
"...Hi," I replied. Everyone was silent.