A Fault in the Code

Chapter 8

I quickly get out the book and quill and flip to the next blank page, the write the letter B. Then I turn to the next page and hand it to Jeff, who seems to want to say something.

He writes for a few seconds, then hands it back to me.

What is that? Why is it here?

"I don't know, but on my second day here I woke up with a note telling me... well, you can just read it yourself." I flip to the first page in the book, and he reads it, his eyes getting wider with every word he reads. Then he flips back to his own writing page and writes some more.

That's really weird. Does this have to do with that man you were explaining?

"I think so. But we shouldn't be too sure."

Jeff nods and we start to walk again. But after a few steps, and exploding pain shoots through my head, and I fall to the ground, screaming. I clutch my temples and curl into a little ball, hoping it will go away, but it doesnt. I see Jeff frantically grab the book, write something down, and show it to me, but I can't read it. This is even more painful than the other night. Probably the most painful thing I've experienced, like someone is slowly pushing knives in all over my head.

And then I hear voices.

It's the demonic voices. Whispering more gibberish, more things I can't understand. The letters they say float around in my head.

.Eno on .em fO kaEpS llAHs Eno on

.reGNoL HcUm eVil tNOw UOy

The phrases alternate over and over and can hear nothing else besides them. I faintly see a light, a white light. It gets brighter and brighter the more I scream-well, I'm assuming I'm screaming, because I can't hear myself. With all the pain, not being able to see anything, I can only come to one conclusion.

I'm dying.

The light is Heaven. I'm on my way up. I'm finally going somewhere I'm logically supposed to go after death.

I reach toward the light and see a blocky hand enter my vision. I grab it, and the second our hands touch, the light goes out, and so do I.

+++

I wake up on a bed inside a room, dimly lit with red torches. I look around and see that the room is made of uneven stone, and it kinda looks like a cave. There are cobwebs in every corner, and there's moss and vines on each wall. There doesn't seem to be any doors, and it makes me wonder how I got in here if there's no possible way to.

My head pain is completely gone. No mild after aches, just gone. I look around for my backpack. It is leaning on one of the legs of the bed. But there is nothing in except the book and quill.

I start to get up from the bed, but just as my feet touch the ground, two blocks of stone slide right out of the wall opposite my bed, then move to the right, revealing an exit of some sort. Fog hisses out of the opening.

"Jeff?" I say, not thinking.

No one answers.

Instead I see a light. All these lights are becoming cliché, I think, can't this guy think of something more creative to freak me out? The man walks in the room and motions me toward him. I shake my head, but then the lights in his eyes flash ominously, telling me I better go with him or who knows what he'll do to me.

I grab my backpack and swing it onto my rear as I slowly walk toward him. He grabs my hand, and somehow it feels as though there are hundreds of needles sticking out of his hand and stabbing mine. He starts to pull me out of the room, but as I look back on one of the walls, I see a faint shape in the same black cobblestone-looking material I saw earlier.

A.

And then it is gone when I blink.

I have to remember the letter, because I can't get my book out at the moment. A, a, a, I think to myself, over and over.

We walk down a dark hallway, my heart thumping so loud I am afraid the man will hear it and do something to me, and the thought of that makes it pound harder. The pain in my hand still doesn't stop. Everything about him seems to pain me. His eyes, his telepathy which I am guessing is what those voices in my mind are, even his skin. I'm starting to think he's the Devil in disguise.

I get up the courage to say four simple words. "Where are we going?"

A pain takes place in my head, but not as bad as the last time. This time it just feels like the ache you get when listening to loud sounds for a long time or when you have a fever.

And inside my head is the creepiest meniachle laugh I've ever heard. Then I think, we're going to my death room.

After a long while of silent walking, he stops me at a pair of iron doors, then, out of no where, a lever appears in his hand, and he places it on the wall next to one of the doors. He pulls it, then the door opens. As soon as I'm  in, he breaks the lever and picks it up, causing the door to close again after he walks out. I'm  locked in, and he has the key.

I take a look around the room. Along one wall are skeletons arranged in a line, their bows pointed at me, threatening to shoot if I make a single wrong move. In the middle of the room is some kind of stretcher with machinery attached to all four of its corners. And on another wall is a small room with one iron door and windows blocked with bars.

And hanging on the the bars, looking out through the spaces between them straight at me, is Jeff.

My eyes fill with terror and saddness at the sight of my only friend caged up in a jail. I look over at the man, who speaks with the skeletons and then leaves the room. Facing the skeletons, I slowly back my way up to the jail room, where I reach back behind me to try and grab my friend's hand stretched out between the bars. The skeletons don't loosen their grip on their bows one bit. If anything, they pulled the string back even farther.

Slowly, I turn my head to Jeff who looks sad. I whisper to him, "Can't you teleport outta here? I don't want you getting hurt!"

He makes a quiet noise before I remember he can't speak. I fish out my book and quill out of my backpack and hand them to him through the bars. He writes something and gives it back.

That stretcher over there was for me. It could be for you, too, but he used it on me first to get rid of my teleportation power. Then he threw me in here. I also can't pick up blocks anymore. I have no way of getting out of here. And if you're wondering why I didn't just teleport away when he brought me over here, it was impossible under his grip. Literally, I tried, but nothing happened. Oh, and you may want to look behind me.

Immediately after I read the last sentence, my eyes darted through the bars and past Jeff's head.

The letter C.

Before I forget, I flip to the page in my book with the letter B on it, then write down the two letters I've seen within the last 20 minutes.

BAC. What does that even mean? How will I know when the clue is finished? He said it would make a word, but lots of parts of words can be real words by themselves as much as the words they're part of. So if the word was CATASTROPHE, most people would stop at CAT because that's as word. Who wants to wait around just to see if there's more to the puzzle?

Just then, I hear the door of this main room click open. I straighten myself up and pretend I did nothing. No, strange man, I wasn't just talking to the enderman.

The man rushes toward me, then grabs both my hands, causing a sharp pain shoot through both my arms. I struggle to free myself, but the noise of stretching bows stops me from moving. I let the man drag me over to the stretcher, and before I know it, I see blackness.