Every Ice Blue Cloud Has a Silver Lining

Secret Rooms are Creepy

Maruca:

Maruca's mind turned like gears in a machine. Her brain hurt thinking about all what they had unearthed. As soon as Maruca's hand touched the veggie-gadget, her heart dropped in her chest, confirming everything. This was her biggest opportunity to do more. To learn about what she'd always wanted to learn. It took everything in her not to grab at it.

"I'm feeling sick." Maruca said as her stomach churned with her thoughts.

"The Neverseen can do that?" Keefe's voice was under a whisper.

"They can do anything. They have the ability to promise as much as anyone wants. Who can blame the victims." Maruca said.

The rest of her friends stood silently, taking in the information, leaving Maruca alone with her thoughts.

"What does lifting the vegetable do?" Biana asked, her hands traced the outline of the vegetable.

"No idea." Maruca said. "Let's find out."

Maruca grabbed the vegetable and lifted it, which didn't take as much effort as she thought it would. She gently placed it to the side.

For a moment, the musty air was still. All of them held their breaths. After a beat too long, a door opened beneath them. It opened slowly, everyone scrambling away before they could fall.

Below was a dark, empty staircase. The shadows obscured the end, not that they were close enough to see. Biana grabbed a hairclip and dropped it, counting the seconds it took till they heard a faint clang. She counted twenty-three.

"What does that mean?" Keefe asked.

"That this will be awhile." Biana sighed. "Should we bring Tam and Marella?"

Maruca hadn't thought of either of them. In Maruca's eyes, the tension between Keefe, Marella, Tam and Ro seemed pointless. Couldn't we just work on an escape?

But that was always why Maruca was alone. She thought logically, not emotionally. That, paired with her strange ability, resulted in loneliness. She didn't much mind it. Her brain was like a machine, all the parts there to make it work. She didn't feel an emptiness when groups of friends would swarm together and take photos, so she was sure that she was fine without companionship. But now she was starting to doubt. Did she need friends? Did she always need friends? She would have to rethink her machine-mind metaphor.

"Best not to bring them," Keefe jumped in. "We'll let them know if anything is up."

Maruca nodded and took the first step. The staircase wobbled under her feet, but she could feel the steadiness of the foundation.

"It's safe." She said, taking another step. "It won't feel like it, but I know for sure." the other exchanged worried glances, but descended the staircase with her, each holding the wall.

None of them spoke the entire way down. Biana flickered in an out of sight. Maruca couldn't shake off her nerves either.

As the stairs began to stop shaking, Maruca could feel them getting closer to the bottom. She pressed a finger to her lips as she turned behind her. Despite the room being shrouded in almost total darkness, everyone nodded.

The only light came from a crack in a door. It was old and made completely of metal. Not the regular precious metals that elves often used, it was the human metal, which rusted easily.

Maruca pressed her ear against the door. She waited for the sound of footsteps, or even breathing, but none came. She grabbed the handle of the door and pushed it open. The door creaked as it opened. Dex clapped, but, as Maruca suspected, no lights brightened.

"This is human technology," Maruca said. "And it's old, too. I doubt the lights go any brighter than this."

She took a few steps inside. The room had a desk pushed to its back wall, made of a dark wood. Timber, if Maruca guessed right.

The walls were peeling, their off-white colour stained a yellow after years of use. Maruca ran her fingers along the wall. She sniffed it. The room looked old, but it didn't smell much like it. It wasn't musty. It smelt like nothing.

What caught Maruca's eye was the papers stuck on the walls. Graph paper with diagrams, equations and illegible handwriting everywhere. Even the desk was scattered with papers. Maruca picked one up.

"Dex," She murmured. "What can you tell me about these?"

Dex took a look at the papers. "Not much. These are human maths and science. I could maybe decode what it is, but I'd need time."

Maruca nodded. She stared at the pages, and then all around the room. "This can't be right." She mumbled. "The food storeroom, it's all elven tech, but down here it's all human."

Maruca was about to say something else, but the blood drained from her face as she took a look at one specific spot on the wall.

"What is it, Maruca?" Biana asked.

Maruca pointed her finger at the spot. A drip of dark liquid, the colour of rust, dried up on the wall.

Blood.

Maruca almost gagged and screamed at the same time.

"So, we might be at a crime scene, but that's all fine." Dex said, and from his voice you could tell that nothing was fine.

"What," Dex said. "What happened in here?"

"It's not what has," Maruca said. "It's more what is, and what will."

"Explain," Keefe said, arms crossed. Until now, he had been silent.

"All these diagrams and notes are uncompleted." Maruca said. "Look at them. Some of them look similar, don't they?"

Everyone else peered to looked at the diagrams and nodded.

"That's because they're revised versions of each other. These are a front view," she pointed to a cluster of drawings on the wall. "And there are the back views, and side views, and everything," Maruca said. "Except a bottom view."

Everyone scanned the room, but they weren't met with any bottom views.

"And this, whatever it is, has yet to happen. But it's been brewing for a long time." Maruca pointed at the papers. "Look at the paper quality. It differs from each version. And if you look closely at the diagrams." Maruca stared at the diagrams on the desk. Her breathing was faster, and she hoped beyond anything she was right. "You'll see that every paper is marked with 'v1', v2', up until v6!"

Dex seemed to understand what she said. "'v' stands for version, at least to humans. Which means that they're trying to make something. But what exactly?"

Maruca walked up and down the room, making sure not a miss anywhere. "I-I can feel it. I know what they're doing, but I'm still not quite there yet."

"Well," Biana said. "We should probably head up anyways. This place can't be good to stay in for long." Maruca agreed.

They made their way back to the storeroom. Maruca fiddled with the vegetable for a bit, before tapping it three times to close the trap door.

Everyone looked exhausted.

Biana's hair was sticking up like rays of the sun.

Dex had dark bags under his eyes.

Keefe seemed more distracted than usual.

And Maruca felt like she'd used her skills more than ever before.

It devastated her how little progress they were making in terms of escape. As soon as the Black Swan had agreed on a goal, the more they were pulled apart in a million different directions.

Maruca rubbed her temples but knew what her goal was.

She was going to find out more.