Getting Out Alive: Chapter 2

When the second bolt of lightning crashed down, the decapitated Uncle Grandpa statue was now completely knocked over. In its place stood a large statue of a rodent looking creature with evil looking eyes. It stood in a triumphant manner, and was standing on what looked like a panicked statue of Uncle Grandpa. Everyone was wide-eyed and silent as we all looked up at the statue. There was something quite unnerving about it. We heard another villainous cackle before a bolt of lightning crashed down in front of us. We all shouted in surprise as we jumped back. When the lightning bolt disappeared, the rat depicted in the statue was standing before us. It had pink fur with patches of black, glowing red eyes, and a strange pink glowing aura around it. "That's enough fun and games, everyone!" the rat spoke. Susie screamed and nearly fainted. I caught her as she was falling and helped her back to her feet. "What is that thing and what's it doing here?!" Ham Sandwich boomed in a worried tone. "The real question is why you're REALLY here" the rat spoke, it's voice was ethereal yet ominous at the same time. "Yeah, what the heck is going on?" Dennis asked in his usual frustrated voice. He really wanted to make sense of the situation, but I doubted that any of this was real. All of this chaos was too crazy to be really happening. I began to believe I was having a bad nightmare. I hope I was going to wake up soon.


"Uncle Grandpa gathered you all here to buddy around with each other..." the rat started and leaned in close to us. The storm seemed to quiet down as the rat leaned in. "because he erased part of your memories!" when the rat said that, everyone gasped and began to look at each other. "That's not true!" Uncle Grandpa shouted in a high pitched voice. "That rat is a liar!" Uncle Grandpa pointed angrily at the rat. "If I'm such a liar, can you all tell me how you got here?" the rat asked us. "Well we walked from the beach to the building!" Slog stated matter-of-factly. Billy shook his head and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Slog, the rat means how we first came to this place in general not how we got to the building" he corrected him. "Oh! Well in that case, I have no idea!" Slog hung his head in disappointment. Everyone else shook their heads, at a loss for an answer. "All I remember is waking up on a beach" Frank told us in his glum voice. I was surprised when he said that. Everyone had a similar experience to what I had. This is too unreal! "Just as I thought. That's because he erased your memories! What a jerk move!" the rat laughed. Everyone was silent and watching Uncle Grandpa, who was nervously shifting his eyeballs. "I, uh... uhh" he wiped sweat off his forehead. "Uncle Grandpa, why?" Billy Baggins asked with a forlorn voice as he looked up at him with teary eyes. "I-I..." Uncle Grandpa stuttered, becoming teary eyed as well. "No matter," the rat piped in. "We're gonna take this kumbaya bullshit and slam dunk it in the trash! How boring is that? Making friends to get out of here, more like bullshit to me!" The pink rodent started to cackle. "Before I tell you the NEW rules, how about I introduce myself..." the creepy creature crawled up onto the platform the new statue was standing on.


"My name is Tanezumi!" the pink rat danced as it spoke its name. "I will be overseeing this new Amusement Park of Blood Baths and Death!" Everyone gasped. "D-Death?!?!?" Susie gulped as the word spilled from her lips. "No way! You can't do that to the Amusement Park of Playfulness and Happiness and Uncle Grandpa-i-ness" Uncle Grandpa stomped his foot down. "Of course I can! Your amusement park's name was dumb anyways!" Tanezumi brushed him off. "It's not dumb!" the old man whined. "Now, let's go over the rules, shall we?" Tanezumi took a scroll from Uncle Grandpa's back pocket. "Hey! That was mine!" Uncle Grandpa exclaimed in a whiny voice. "Does it look like I care?" the rat looked at him with a sarcastic face. Then the rodent opened up the scroll and laughed. "Oh no no, this just will not do!" the rat giggled as it took out a pen and began to scratch it off. "In order to get out of here, you're not going to become best friends with anyone," Tanezumi scribbled on the scroll before looking up at us. "In order to get out of here, you must kill until you are the last one standing!"


When Tanezumi uttered that statement, everyone's faces went pale as gasps filled the air. "You want us to kill each other?" Pizza Steve lowered his shades to reveal his widened eyes as he asked. He then put his sunglasses back on and crossed his arms. "T-That's crazy! There's no way we're going to do that!"  he told Tanezumi as he waved one of his hands like as if he was swatting something away. "If you don't, you'll never leave!" the rat laughed. "Anyways, let's look at the other rules..."


Before anything else was said, Slog raised his hand like as if he were in school. Tanezumi looked up and nodded in his general direction to signify he can speak. "Uhh... are you a girl or a boy?" Slog asked as he tapped his fingers together. Billy put his hand against his own forehead when Slog asked. "That is quite rude of you!" Tanezumi told him, a bit of anger in the ominous voice. "I am obviously a female. How is that not obvious to you all." She brushed a hand through her fur and looked back at the scroll. "Huh... next rule is have fun and don't hurt each other?" she looked down at the scroll before bursting into a fit of laughter. "You aren't very organized, are you Gramps?" she took her pen and scribbled out the rule. "HEY! It took me 2 days to finish that scroll!" Uncle Grandpa told her sternly as he waved his finger. "Tanezumi, you are not very nice!" he scolded her. "I never was known for my kindness" she told him as she began to write on the scroll. After a few minutes of writing, she held up the scroll to begin reading it. She cleared her throat and was about to speak, when suddenly Remo stepped up from the crowd and stood close to the statue. "No, no, no, and no!" he began to groan. "This is RIDICULOUS! I want to go HOME! This is so not cool! This is lame!" he stamped his foot on the ground in frustration. "Go stand over there and shut up, kid!" Tanezumi ordered as she waved her hand at him like as if she were shooing away a fly. "Don't you tell me what to do you-" Remo lunged forward and the next thing I knew a spear came out of the statue and into Remo's head. Everyone let out a scream as his chubby body flopped over. Everyone fell silent as they watched Remo's crimson blood form a pool below his spear-pierced head. "Y-You killed him!" I shook in fear as tears welled up in my eyes. This isn't happening! None of this is real! It's all a bad dream! Everything is fine! No one is dead!


"That brings us to rule number two, do NOT try to harm Tanezumi in any way, or else you will meet a demise similar to Remo over here." she told us sternly before giggling and smiling. "Look at that! You have one less person to worry about on your way out of this park! You also know exactly what will happen to you if you break any of my rules!"


Dennis let out an enraged cry and stamped his foot. "What is this talk of an amusement park? Explain to me, now, what is going on?!" he demanded an explanation as he clenched his teeth and fists. "I'll let you explore soon enough, for now we will finish going over the rules" she looked at her scroll. "All rides and attractions shut down at 11 pm and start back up at 9 am, that is the third rule. The fourth rule is that you cannot climb, dig under, or damage any gates or barricades that bar you from entering a certain part of the park, nor can you climb, dig under, or damage any of the border gates surrounding the park." she continued to read the scroll. "The last rule is to not damage any of the surveillance equipment I have installed around the park," when she informed us of that rule, a surveillance camera and a relatively small flat screen TV popped out of the wall of the Hotel Building. "I will add more rules as we go along. Any questions?" she looked up from her scroll. "Yeah, why do you want us to kill each other?" Dennis interrogated the park overseer. "That's not important" she brushed off his question in that ominous voice of hers as she waved at us. "You can all go explore now, ta-ta for now!" she cackled and seemed to disappear from thin air.


"Okay, this IS NOT happening!" I shouted my thoughts out loud. "Mary, I feel your pain, but unfortunately, this IS happening." Billy informed me, much to my dismay. "I-I'm scared!" Frank stammered. "Me too!" Susie agreed, trembling as she looked around. "No one is killing anyone!" Uncle Grandpa barged into the conversation as he held his hands out at his sides. "You will not hurt each other! Do not listen to that dirty, mean rat!" Everyone just looked at him glumly. "Well, Uncle G, if you won't stand by us killing each other, how's about you let us out of here!" Pizza Steve suggested in a miffed tone. "Sure thing, guys!" Uncle Grandpa reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote. "I'll just push this button and-" he pressed the button and waited a moment. "Hmm... I'll just press the button and-" he pressed it again and waited a moment. He began to press the button several times. Each time he pressed it, however, nothing seemed to happen. "Oh no! It's not working!" Uncle Grandpa panicked. Then he remembered something and shouted "WAIT A GOSH DARN MINUTE!"


He placed his fingers up against his temples. "I'll just take us back in time! That way none of this could have happened!" he closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate really hard, but nothing seemed to be happening. He opened his eyes. "There we go all be-" before he finished his sentence he looked around. "Hey, everything is still the same!" he sighed. "Why won't my time traveling powers work?" He shut his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth. "Hang on, Uncle Grandpa, perhaps we can weave through dimensional portals to get out of here" Billy suggested. He began to stick his hand into his own mouth, but ended up getting into a coughing fit as he rapidly took it out. "W-what? Usually my hand can grab onto other dimensions!" Billy looked confused. "This is ridiculous! Time travel, dimension hopping, that's not real!" Dennis shouted angrily at them. "Of course it is! Remember when we traveled to Egypt together? We had to travel through a dimension-hopping sarcophagus!" Uncle Grandpa reminded him. "I don't know what the heck that was but it certainly wasn't dimension hopping madness!" Dennis began to tug on his hair. "I'm sure we can find an answer on the internet" Gweelok suggested as he went to reach in his bag. His eyes widened as he felt around in the bag. "W-Where's my laptop?" Gweelok began to panic. "Oh, I took it and hid it with the rest of the cell phones and computers because I wanted you all to get along without any kind of internet or other silly things!" Uncle Grandpa smiled. "Cool idea, huh?" Gweelok put his hands on his head and tugged his short black hair. "WHAT?!?! NO! THAT WAS NOT A COOL IDEA THAT WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA!" Gweelok shouted. "I can't even play video games to cope with the situation now!" Ham Sandwich complained in his nasally voice.


"Guys, let's all remain calm!" Mr. Gus piped in as he held his hand out. "We're not going to be able to figure anything out if we panic like this. Panic and chaos is most likely what Tanezumi wants from us!" It was nice to hear a voice of reason, but I still couldn't believe everything that was happening. "Yeah, Mr. Gus is right," Pizza Steve agreed. "We should check out what this place is all about and what we do and don't have access to!" Mr. Gus smiled. "That's the most intelligent thing I have ever heard you say, Steve." Pizza Steve tipped his sunglasses and rolled his eyes in response.  "Anyways, once we figure out what we have access to and understand how this place works a bit, we can assess what we all can do to get out of here safely without killing anyone" Mr. Gus's reasonable plan was agreed upon by everyone. "Alright, let's split up and take a look around, and then meet back in the Hotel Lobby at 6 pm!" Mr. Gus instructed us before walking off to go explore. Everyone else went their ways to look around at the amusement park. I looked around at the directions I could take, and decided to go back into the hotel. If I was going to be forced to live here, I want to make sure I have a comfortable and safe place to sleep in.


I went through the doors and traveled up the stair case. I noticed when I got up to the first floor, the stairs leading to the second staircase was locked up by a gate. This must have been what Tanezumi was talking about earlier. I continued to observe the gate a bit before making my way down the hall. There, I found a line up of 23 rooms, each door had one profile picture of every person that was brought to this amusement park, including Uncle Grandpa himself. In fact, it looked like he had the most deluxe room at the end of the hall. At least it looked that way, it looked like it would have more space than our rooms. On the ceiling in the middle of the hall, there was a surveillance camera. Seeing it made me shudder. I decided to ignore it for now and looked around to find my picture. As I looked at the pictures, I noticed Remo's picture had a big red X on it. It grimly reminded me of what I saw not only 10 minutes ago. Poor Remo, he didn't need to die like that. As I stepped up to my room, I noticed the door knob had some kind of fingerprint scanner on it. Before I could further observe it, Tanezumi appeared next to me.


"Cool system, eh?" I jumped and let out a surprised shriek. "T-Tanezumi?" I stuttered out. "These locks are unique because they will only open for your fingerprint, no one else's." she told me. "If you want us to kill each other, why install locks on the doors?" I asked her. "Well, I'm a reasonable woman! Not everything can be fun and killing all the time! Sometimes you need a little beauty sleep and time to freshen up, and these locks will help you do that!" she explained to me. "Well, that is thoughtful of you..." I told her. "Remo's room is completely unlocked, though, because he is dead so it doesn't matter if you sneak in there in the middle of the night" she told me. "I wouldn't want to do that" I responded. "I'm just saying!" Tanezumi seemed annoyed by my answer. "Anyways, I just figured I'd tell you about the fingerprint system. Go ahead and try it out!" she instructed me before disappearing again. Once Tanezumi was gone, I put my finger up against the finger pad. As Tanezumi told me, the door unlocked and I was able to enter. The room before me was beautiful! It had a big, comfy bed, a night stand, a little table with chairs, and a bathroom with a shower in it. I proceeded in to enjoy my new room when suddenly I saw it. The surveillance camera and the TV. "Ugh" I groaned. Tanezumi is insane! I no longer wanted to stay in that room, but what could I do? It was just creepy to know Tanezumi was watching us even when we sleep! I exited the room and made sure to shut the door. There I saw Izzie with the same disgusted look I had when I saw the surveillance cameras. "How's a girl supposed to get her privacy with those cameras?" she hissed. "I hear ya, it feels so weird being watched!" I replied. "It sucks because there's no way in hell I'm going to make adult movies with Frank for Tanezumi to watch." Hearing her say that brought a look of disgust and shock to my face. "H-How can you be thinking about that right now?!" She just laughed at my reaction. "What? I'm sure you were thinking about that too when you saw the surveillance camera!" I shook my head, dumbfounded by her logic.


"You're boring!" Izzie told me before huffing and leaving. Poor Frank, but I guess he's safe for now. I shook my head and headed down the stairs. There I saw Dingle and Festro at the foos ball table I haven't noticed until now. "Blegh blugh blegh blegh!" Dingle chirped happily as he rapidly turned the knobs. Festro was laughing and turning the knobs on his side of the table. "No, Dingle, I'm gonna beat you! Hahaha!"


They seemed to be having a pretty heated game. I wonder why they weren't taking this time to explore the island. I guess I can't really worry about that right now. I exited the hotel building and began down the rainbow path Uncle Grandpa lead me through earlier. It lead me straight to the beach I woke up on. I saw Susie, Melvin, Guillermo, and Eric when I got there. "Hi Mary!" Guillermo greeted me with a friendly wave. I greeted him back as I approached them. "Did you find anything here?" I asked them. "Well, it seems this beach is fake," Eric informed me. "Take a look at this rock!" He then proceeded to lift the big rock I was asleep on early and turned it upside down. He then pointed to a place on the rock. "It says 'Made in China'!" I went over and read the little imprinted words. "Huh," I knocked on the rock, and found it was hollow. "That is something!"


"The water doesn't even go out as far as what it looks like!" Melvin told me. "Look at this!" He picked up a flat "fake" rock on the ground and skipped it over the water. It skipped a bit before it seemed to hit something and made a metal clink noise. The rock immediately went into the water. "It's painted like a view of the ocean, but it's really a barricade!" I said as I observed the realistic mural of the ocean. "Whoever painted that is a really good artist!" Susie complimented. "Like Michaelangelo!" Guillermo professed. "Besides the point, we're not going to be able to swim or raft our way out of here" Melvin sighed. "If we keep looking I'm sure we'll find an answer" Eric remained hopeful. "I hope so." I sighed. "Well I'm going to go see what else this place has, I will catch up with you guys later." I told them. I began on my way back down the rainbow colored path. As I reached the hotel courtyard, I heard a scream coming from the area over the bridge. I gasped and took off running. "OH MY GOD!"