The All-Alex Rejects Chapter 2

The Rejects walked down the hallway. The hallway was dark and gloomy. Morgana held her flower close to her body. Alex Jr. walked close to her with their elbows locked. He reached for Paeton’s hand, but she pulled it away.

“I wish we had some kind of light in this dark, gloomy place,” Mars complained.

“I think I see a light up ahead,” Alex Jr. commented. He eagerly ran towards it, letting go of Morgana’s arm. Mars grabbed onto Junior’s shoulder.

“Easy, Junior,” the prince said, “You don’t have any idea what could be under that light! It might be…I dunno…some kind of large pit for the other characters who wanted to escape!” Morgana became frightened.

“I’m going back…” Morgana commented. She turned around.

Paeton grabbed Morgana’s arm. “You aren’t going anywhere without us.”

“Perfect. One of you can come back with me.”

“No, Morgana,” Mars authenticated, “you are sticking with us.”

“Please don’t make me go,” Morgana cried, “It’s too scary out there! I’ll just annoy you with my cowardice! You’ll yell at me to brave up and then I’ll cry some more and-“

“Morgana!” Paeton forcefully directed at the crying girl.

Morgana wiped the tears off her porcelain skin. “What?” Paeton pointed up to show they while she was crying, the four of them had walked over to the source of the light. “Oh,” Morgana shyly stated.

The four looked around where they were. It was a large, red hallway with grey columns on each side. In between each column was a large, framed photograph. “What is this place?” Alex Jr. asked.

“I dunno,” Mars said, observing the hallway. He looked at the first picture. It was a grayscale photo of two parents and a black-and-white cocker spaniel playing with a tennis ball. “Who would set up such a picture?”

“Hey, look at this one!” Paeton commented, motioning for them to come over. This picture was of a poster with letters on it. Most of the letters were blurred, except for a ‘C’ made out of candy, and an ‘X’ made out of xylophones. Alex Jr., Morgana, and Mars walked over. “What could it mean?”

“I saw this one strange picture on the other wall,” Morgana commented, “It’s got many children holding bells, all staring at one woman holding a paper with bells on it.”

“And I saw something over here,” Alex Jr. said, “It appears to be a table with plates and small children. And all of the plates have apples on them.”

“I think I get it now,” Mars commented, “These pictures must each represent one of Alex’s memories.” The other rejects all collaboratively asked how. “Well, it’s simple. This place has lots of pictures which seem insignificant, yet if you look at them in a row, they seem to tell a story. I think that grayscale one must be Alex’s earliest memory.”

“That’s stupid,” Paeton said.

“It may be stupid, but I guess it’s how his head is structured.” There was a strange, mechanical noise coming from down the hallway. “What was that?”

“It sounds like some kind of mechanical monster,” Morgana worried, “We must’ve triggered a silent alarm, and now some kind of giant robot guard monster has been sent out to catch us and send us back to the room for all time! Well, I’ll avoid the rush and head back there. See ya!” She turned around.

Mars grabbed onto her shoulder to stop her. He listened again. “It sounds like the noise is getting farther away…” They listened for a minute. “And now it’s getting closer...Now farther away…now closer…” They went to investigate. As they got closer, they noticed so many pictures were becoming faded. One noticeable faded picture was a bronze framed photo of a gingerbread house in what looked like an elementary school classroom. There were some silver framed ones, and a couple gold framed ones, perhaps equating to being some of the best memories from Alex’s life. After many minutes of walking, they found what it was making that sound. It was a little robot. It was moving along a track. They hid behind a column as not to let it see them. It would go over to a printer in the wall and put up every current memory Alex was having. It was obvious that the robot was slacking off lately and many memory pictures were left in front of their frames rather than put in them.

“Poor Alex,” Morgana said, “It seems his memory is failing him lately.”

“Shh!” Mars shushed. Morgana apologized silently. “Now how do we get past him?”

“He keeps switching sides of the hallway,” Paeton noticed, “If we move quickly while he’s not on the same side as us, we can make it past him.”

“Good idea,” Jr. said. They looked at him scooting down the track to the printer. They moved quickly down the hallway. When he came back their way, they hid behind another column. When he went to put the latest memory in a frame, his back was turned to them, so they ran again. After repeating this process for 3 or 4 minutes, they eventually saw the end of the hallway.

“Perfect,” Mars said, “Now we can get out of here.” But as they were about to move, they heard a strange sound, like a scooter. They hid behind a column again. There was a blue hovering robot on its way to the hallway. It had yellow glowing eyes under what looked like the brim of a police cap.

“Oh, no,” Morgana whispered, “They must’ve found out about us. What’s gonna happen?”
“I don’t know,” Jr. said, holding her tightly.

The robot hovered over to the memory robot. “Ah, hello, Doug,” the small robot said to the blue robot.

“Hello, S.D.,” the blue robot said, “The memory banks are demanding a bit of nostalgia. May I please browse the gallery to find some memories of happy childhood?”

“Go right on ahead,” S.D. said, “I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

Doug looked around at the hallway, “What has happened here?”

“Sorry. I think I might be malfunctioning. I need to see someone about it.”

“Well, make it quick, before Alex ends up like that blue fish from Finding Nemo. Ooh! That sounds like a memory Alex will like. Doug zoomed down the hallway.

“Okay,” Mars said, “He’ll probably be gone for awhile. Now we can-” But their escape was cut short when Doug hovered right back over to S.D.

“All done,” Doug said, “I’m going to head back to the Memory Bank now.”

“Thanks for the visit,” S.D. said.

“He’s heading this way!” Morgana said, “What do we do?”

Paeton looked at the frame next to them. “Quick!” They all posed in front of it as if it were a memory picture. Doug hovered past them, stopping when he noticed something strange. He went back to look at them. They all became nervous.

“I’ve never seen this one before,” he commented, “When did you put this one up?”

“Huh?” SD asked. He looked the ‘picture.’ “Hmm. Must’ve put it up this morning because I don’t remember seeing this one.”

“I’m going to scan it anyway, even if it’s not nostalgic.” He scanned them and then hovered away.

When Doug was gone, SD looked at the ‘picture’ again. “That is strange. Why is it that I don’t recall this picture? Let me retrace my steps…This morning, I was putting up the pictures of breakfast...or was that yesterday?” He went back to where the ‘picture’ was, now vacant. “Now that’s really weird. Maybe it’s time to go see the mechanic again.”


The Rejects ran far from SD. They stopped only a few feet from the end of the hallway to catch their breath. “That was close,” Morgana said, “And really scary. Let’s never do that again.”

“We’ll try to avoid it from now on,” Alex Jr. said, “Let’s go. This place is strange.”
They were just about to walk out of the hallway, when the place started rumbling. “What’s going on?” Morgana asked.

“I’m…I’m not sure,” Mars replied. He looked at the end of the hallway. The gap between the end of the hallway and the next location was getting larger. “C’MON!” The Rejects started running except for Morgana. She was too afraid to move. They ran to the edge and jumped onto the other platform.

Alex Jr. turned around before jumping and yelled to Morgana, “Morgana! Come on!”

“I can’t!” she started crying, “Just go on without me!” Tears started pouring down her cheeks as she tightly embraced her flower. The hallway started moving powerfully backward. It soon stopped. When Morgana opened her eyes, there was an expansion of the hallway added on in front of her with Alex Jr. standing before it and Mars and Paeton standing at the end. She looked around and ran over to Alex Jr. The two walked out of the hallway to join back up with Mars and Paeton. “Sorry about that,” Morgana said, wiping off her tears.

“It seems that the hallway keeps getting expansions added onto itself,” Paeton commented, “It makes sense, because then what happens to Alex’s memories if there’s no room left in the hallway? It needs to be constantly expanding.”

“Right…” Mars said, “Now where do we go from here?”

“Hello,” said a monotone, slightly feminine robotic voice coming from behind them.