Caged

Chapter 5

Shade slapped excitedly at his shoulder. "The floor!"

Cage stared at the floor beneath their feet. "What about the floor?"

"It's the only place we haven't considered yet."

He was certain his look reflected the skepticism he felt about the idea. "I don't know. I mean ... the floor?" He didn't think there was a way for the voice to shove them up through the floor and replace it so easily. Still, she had a point it was the only place left they hadn't considered. "Maybe there's a hidden trap door. He could have made it so it blended in with the rest of the floor."

"Anything is possible, it's the only place we haven't thought to look." She tipped her head back. "Well, we thought of the ceiling but that's kind of difficult to reach."

"Fair point. So, how do we go about searching the floor for an exit?" he asked.

"If I'm honest, I hadn't thought that far ahead." She grinned at him. "I was too excited about the possibility."

He chuckled. "Okay, so the floor then. Assuming there's a level below this one or a passage of some sort under this part of the building then we need to figure out a way to get into that space. We just need to figure out how to do that."

They both stared around the room.

Shade finally spoke, "If I'm correct and this is that castle replica they began building when they wanted to bring that Renaissance fair here then any passage below this one will be narrow so the heavy stone of the tower didn't collapse. The people who built this wanted it to appear as authentic as possible, I remember that much, so they built it out of stone native to the area."

He grinned. "You remembered all of that but not your name?"

She blushed. "I told you, architecture is a thing of mine."

"I know, I'm just teasing." He hugged her. "Okay, then our solution is to tap around on the floor until we hear something that sounds hollow."

"Right! But what do we tap with? I don't think the voice will let us keep a tray."

He bent and picked up a small chunk of stone. "This will work. I'll begin in the center of the room and work my way outward, you follow along behind me and mark the spots we've checked."

She scooped up a small shard of stone. "Let's do this."

"Let's get out of this shithole," he told her before he got down on the floor and began tapping at the stone.

When the lights went out a short time later, he took her hand and they went back to his mattress where they laid down side by side. No progress today. He wanted to rant, to scream and curse at the bastard that had locked them in here but it would serve no purpose.

"We'll find it, Cage," Shade told him in a quiet voice.

"I know. I'd rather find it sooner than later." He didn't want to discourage her by telling her that he believed they were going to die in this stone Hell.

***

Shade tipped her head and grasped his shoulder. "Was that spot hollow?"

He could hear the excitement in her voice. He went back and tapped the spot again, tapped around it until the sound changed, and grinned at her. "It is. I think we found it." He dropped the stone, grabbed her face in his hands, and kissed her. "This is it! We've found it!"

"Let's get out of here," she replied and handed him the smaller stone.

"Hell yes!" He used the smaller shard of stone to scrape away at the mortar between the stones on the floor. He was slow and methodical, they couldn't afford any mistakes.