Aerie's Fallen Immortal

Chapter 35

The lights it itself up after her laughter finally died down. It was a office. And also a room in rooms. Room with rooms. The doors, same as those brown, wooded ones that she saw just now, around the central of the office.

Twenty? Twenty two? Aerie trie dot count the doors, but she lost count of them at around 15 or 16 every time she tried to count- the room was round and large. The doors were identical. Whats more, she guessed that she had roughly not drunk any water for at least 3 hours in that maze. Now she's more than thirsty- and hungry that she could no longer see the objects in front of her extremely clearly.

"Then we wold have to do it this way." Lovelock said, turning Aerie's chair and untied her. "Its going to be fun, wouldn't it? Game with doors. Don't worry. You cant run from here so quickly."

"Why would I have to entertain you anyways?" Aerie replied, "you don't have a sound reason."

"Oh?" The lady, who now swung her legs freely as she moved further inwards on the table she was siting on, "You know that apart from you, I also caught your friend, right? And make a guess why he's not with you, hm?"

Aerie looked up. She stared at her right into her eyes, deep down into those blue eyes of hers. It was a pair of invincible lens, she could tell by the fake and plastic blue color that it gave. "Because-" she hissed. The both of them knew what was happening, only they were not wiling to admit it. "Because you already caught him."

"Exactly." Lovelock said, "in fact, we caught him before you. Surprised that a mortal little girl like you could last longer- only a quarter of an hour longer- than him before you gave up and started the digging- breaking."

"What have you done to him?!" Aerie said, shouting and lured forwards. "Where's him?"

"Relax, cutie." Lovelock said, and switched on the monitor above Aerie. "You know theres nothing that you could do to save your friend if you haven't heard of the game rules." There he was. Inside the monitor. Silently sleeping and tied onto another chair, one that was identical to the one Aerie was being tied to a moment ago.

But behind him as a small, yet red vessel that was drawing some red liquid up the tube. Yes, up. Aerie confirmed it with her eyes for a few times, and it would be attached to somewhere on Cad's legs where the monitor could not capture.

"Mate's having quite a bit of a tough luck." Lovelock said calmly, "You see the tubes? There's currently one on him, and it is draining him as we are talking now. He's behind one of those doors, I can confirm you. And both the antidote and the medicine to wake him up are inside two of the other doors."

"To open the doors, you have to make use of the tarot cards here." Lovelock said, hading Aerie a stack of intact tarot cards inside a new box. "Each door had a number behind it. Be it arranged randomly or in order, thats what you have to figure out. Place a card to the door you believe would be the right match. It would open if it is, and whats inside would be yours."

"And the downside would be that I cannot withdraw the card if I had it wrong. If the medicine was in room III and I wasted the III card on another room, then could never open the room, right?" Aerie said. "Smart. Then I would have to guess both the room number, which is, obviously, behind the doors and had no idea of knowing, and make the right bet."

"Right." Lovelock said, "and you can only make one try every five minutes. The tube draws around one liter of blood in half an hour. Roughly six tries you have over there. If thats not difficult enough, then if you guessed the room that we had Cade in, then the game stops immediately. You would not get anything else if you haven't already got everything."

"It won't make any difference in the probability." Aerie said.

"But it would make you more nervous." Lovelock said. "Have fun. Oh and by the way, take this as a friendly reminder. Don't try to the doors with any knives or bare hands that you might possibly have, we would only speed up the process of draining. You would be less happy than us in the end."