Pangaea Academy: Revelations (Countryhumans)

Chapter 53 : Perla

Philipia was surprised by the amount of paintings and portraits, she didn't know where else to look.

“Back home, our own gallery room didn't have this much paintings,” she comments.

Philipia surveyed each painting, probed around the edges and behind the curtains. Each paintings were delicate and you can tell the artist was skillfull and a master at his work. Each brushstrokes contain bountiful feelings of passion and freedom. But one particular painting caught Philipia's attention. It was a landscape painting of a forest with huts that can be seen at the distant.

Philipia inspected closer and brush her fingertips on the canvas. She can feel the rough surface and textures and couldn't help but feel the painters feeling when he made this.

It was filled with yearning and love. Unlike the other paintings, this one in particular had a sense of reality to it, as if it was painted from someone's memory. It was as if, she could almost reach in and enter it.

Suddenly, she was pulled out of her stupor by the sound of her phone notification. Philipia calms her beating heart and picked up her phone and read the new message.

It was from an unknown number, the same unknown number who called her this morning. Philipia hesitated but still opened the new message.

Unknown number: [At the very bottom.]

Philipia felt uneasy reading that single sentence. But she looked down at the bottom of the painting, trying to find whatever it was.

Dang it, if this mysterious person was gonna tell her, why not specifically say it rather not talk in riddles?

Philipia groped around the painting's edges and made sure not to harm the canvas. While groping the bottom, Philipia felt something protruding at the back at the lowest part of the painting. It felt like something bulging. She was skeptical on what it was when she accidentally put a bit of pressure and pressed it. They made a ‘click’, before the whole painting moved and opened like a door.

“Ah!”

Surprised by this situation, Philipia was caught off guard and unceremoniously tripped and fell on her butt. She groaned in pain while curled up on the floor. “Ooowwwwwwww!!” she cried.

When she looked at the painting again, it had already moved to the side and showed her a passageway that was big enough for five people to walk through.

Philipia sat up but hissed in pain coming from her butt. Tears welled up in her eyes but it didn't fell, it would've been better if it did. Unbeknownst to her she looked too pitiful it can make anyone with a heart of steel soften to the core.

Philipia got up while stumbling and limped her way towards the black and eerie looking passage. But she wasn't scared, she was afraid of real people than ghost. And she hasn't seen a ghost in her whole life, although she would've been fine looking for one herself. Besides, she's been through and seen something way worse than a scary looking passage.

Philipia held on to the wall but didn't expect for the wall to be so cold she shuddered from the temperature. Even so, she treaded lightly. With no light in sight and only a narrow, long, and dangerous stairs. Philipia took every step carefully, afraid she might fall and break her bones—that would've been embarrassing.

It was then her phone rang, this time, a phone call from New Zealand: “Where are you?”

Philipia hesitated to answer. Should she say she found a secret passage in their house and now she's inside the secret passage? No way. Even so, it was their house and she was in someone else's territory, it'd be best to be honest. “I'm at the—”