Chain Reaction 3.84: That'll Do the Trick

      I have to get out of here. I don't care if I'm electrocuted. I must exit this door! If I DO get electrocuted, at least that's one way out: death.
      I must get away from AD before I become as crazy as she is. She has me calling her Brielle. I don't want her little plan of tricking me into a false reality to start working, and I'm scared to death it might.
     Plum her! I love EMILY. She's worth a hundred Brielles. I wipe a tear and start truly looking for a weakness in the panel.
     Nothing.
     And when AD comes home, I pretend like I'm just eagerly waiting for her arrival instead of testing the door. She doesn't try to read my mind, happy in her little fantasy.
     I claim not to be feeling well in order to avoid the Brielle-monster. But I don't know how long I can get away with it. She may have seen right through my lie, but she went ahead and left me alone.

     The next day, I find an electrical panel of sorts stashed in a hidden compartment in the bookshelf. And I wonder if I can get it to communicate with the door. I only have a couple of hours before AD gets back.

      The symbols on it are at least a little more familiar to me, having worked so hard at figuring out a little of them.
      Please work! I need to die. Every night, I'm just a little more truly cheating on my wife. I hadn't considered everything I was forced to do cheating, but as soon as it starts touching my heart, I know I will have crossed that line. I would sooner die.
     So I willfully careen towards suicide. IF I make it past the shock of the gate, they might shoot me. That'll do the trick.
     An alarm sounds.

     A voice comes over an intercom, saying what I can guess is 'intrusion detected! beginning shutdown protocol' in Prexan.

     It's not opening!
     She'll know. She'll know it was me, and she'll even more turn my life into a living hell!
     Just plumbing OPEN, would you?
     The room cuts to emergency power, and the door opens.
     For a moment, I stand here in shock, mouth agape. I did it?
     Then, AD shows up, running down the hallway. "Stay right there, Alexander Goth!"
     I glare at her, and I step across the threshold. Nothing. No shock.
     I guess emergency power doesn't power this.

     "The power will be back on in seconds! Get back in there, or you'll get hurt!"
     "I'd sooner die than live the rest of my days with you."
     Then, there's a twinge in my neck.
     "Get back inside, Alex!"
     The pain in my neck grows, and then, I'm screaming from the shock. AD starts yelling. I'd thought she'd push me back inside.
     She doesn't want to touch me!

     In my haze of pain, I grab her hand. That grounds the shock I'm feeling, and to my surprise, the pain disappears, apparently going into AD. She screams and faints. Our hands disconnect.
     And my neck doesn't hurt.
     It shorted out! I run for it.

      Go. Go. Go. Go. Go! I hear them chasing after me, so I duck into some kind of closet. They're just outside the door, arguing with each other. The door opens, and I hide behind it. Thinking I'm not there, they close it. They can't track me!
     When I hear silence again, I run for it, finding a stairwell. It's closed in a hatch sort of way.
     This is it. Deep space. I'm going to get sucked out, freeze, and crack apart. I will die. Using my alien-drug-whatever-happened-to-me strength, I turn the wheel and open the door.
     To fresh air.
     Things around me are in ruins, but I make a break for it.

     I don't even give myself a second to revel at the blue sky above me. All I can think is that I must take advantage of the fact that they apparently can't track my movements, and I run. All around are woods, so I run into them, making myself disappear.
     My adrenaline takes me miles before I even think to rest. No way could a seventy-year-old do what I just did. They've done something to me. Panting, I jog, walking every once in a while.
     I go in a straight line until nightfall, and I sleep under the stars, a grouping of roots for my pillow. The constellations look familiar, and I smile. I never left my home planet.