Hiraeth |✔

Hijacking a bathroom

"S-Someone's coming down!"

"Uh-" after a few seconds of silence, he added, "Shut the door. Enter the password. Get inside the bathroom, quick!"
His shorter sentences were delivered abruptly.

Scarlett hurried towards the massive door. She placed her gun under the chin and her quivering fingers rolled the discs. She heard footsteps rattle in a distance. Scarlett leapt her path, dodging sacks and lethal tins. Zen was waiting with the door opened. She entered the room that steamed with the vapours of cherry-stewed shower gel. Zen latched the door. Scarlett scanned him. He was wearing the same grey pant and blood-dipped T-shirt, the number was of course, different.

"What a scoundrel! Should I always alert him to turn off the damned light? Let me find him at the penthouse! I will squeeze his silly life outta him?"

They heard a gruff voice hollering over nobody but himself.

Scarlett's eyes traced the door that separated them from death.

"Zen!!" Her suppressed voice never passed her throat. Her flesh floated as if ready to be stabbed, whipped, or shot.

They recognized audible footsteps. The squeak of the
chair- wheels rubbing against the marble floor, followed by a grating sound of drawers being pulled, made them both flinch with worry.

Scarlett removed the fragile paper which was sandwiched between her belly and her pant elastic. Zen and she became mime characters, acting to muse nobody but save their silent lives! They stared into the map, trying to figure out the root of all the lines drawn.

Zen pointed at the small room on the map and then at the room they were in.
The room on the map had two openings. One they knew, the other one stood exactly opposite to it.

Zen stirred towards the wall behind them, embodying panes of dark timber. The bottom shelves, extending about 3 foot, was raided by two pairs of hands. All showed off stacked dresses and various other scented shower essentials.
Zen slid the upper cabin on its little railing.

Zen nudged Scarlett closer. Inside the shelf, which covered the width of the wall, were blocks of black projections. It had four columns and three rows, each bearing unique geometric shapes.

"This place has something to do with shapes," she thought.

Scarlett shoved a solid circle into the wall, which in turn bounced back with a rough cackle. Zen and she held their racing breath at the clasping sound it produced. Zen tightened his hold on the gun. Scarlett placed tripping steps backwards, in a terror so awful.

"Stupid rat! You think you can escape me today..eh? Should I place cheese or blooms when I cremate you?"

The same voice glided through the door, into the bathroom.

They heard the sound of the doorknob being strangled by a human hand. Zen hurried to the door, aiming his gun to where the person's head might be. Scarlett putting on an act took hold of a raven shampoo bottle, turning its bottom in the air. Zen held back a huge laugh. He  cautiously unlatched the door."

"Don't move!" Scarlett walked to his left, reaching his back.

Zen stood to his right, holding the gun inches apart from the man's bald head. The stout man looked like he was in his 50s.

"I'm just searching for a rat, don't kill me!"
"Shhh!" Zen pressed the tip of the gun harder into his white scalp.

"Come!" Zen ordered with a bitterness that cannot be put into simple terms.

Then, Scarlett followed them from the back. She felt superior for being this dumb and daring alike.

The stout man followed Zen to the shelves, making sure the man held his palms in the air. His knees wavered like the support cane of an old woman.

Scarlett ran towards his desk. She hauled his leather chair and untied the ropes of a couple of sacks lying dormant on the floor.

She placed the heavy chair inside the washroom, locking the door behind.

"Sit!" Zen commanded.

The shuddering man sank on his own chair on the decrees of strangers. Scarlett tied his hands to the arm pads, her knots trained to never come out even at the hardest tug.

"Answer our questions, sir! We wish you to get out alive." Zen's authoritative voice hit him like stones, for the man winced at every word thrown at him.

"What do you do here?" Zen could not finish his sentence,

"Wait a minute," Scarlett opened the bottom shelf. She retracted a pair of grey pants and fastened it around his nervous eyes, adding darkness to his trembling senses.

"Answer?" Zen continued.

"I work here as a goods manager."

"And what do they do with the smuggled kids?" Scarlett badly wanted to know the answer.

"Ma'am, please! I've got no idea. I beg you to stop messing with my poor soul!"

"Ahh!! You liar! We will let you go once you tell us the code to open this door."

"What? How do you assume that I know the code?"

"Remember, you only answer, we ask the questions! Yes, the code to access this door!"

"Sir! Please understand that I've no access to these codes and passwords. I only manage goods here." His tone was feeble and soft, easily deceptive.

"I don't believe that, do we, Zen?" She, in fact, half-believed him as he had no weapons or anything for his own security.

"Of course not. In a count of 5, I hope you tell us."

"Ha! I- I, how can I emphasize this enough? Everything is encrypted here, workers don't get access to these high-security codes!"

"Don't you have the slightest idea? You are consuming our time. 5....4....3....." Zen dug the gun harder into his forehead, "2...."

"I've- heard them-em," his lips spat out invisible words, "say uh- hm this around 'serene to a cinder, the closer. shout you begin' I've no clue of what this implies, please leave me alone!"

Scarlett instantly brought a pen and a paper from the desk.

"Write it!" She asked him.

This he wrote: "SERENE TO A CINDER, THE CLOSER. SHOUT YOU BEGIN.

♦♦♦
A/N: any guesses? Comment, please!