¶. Evan looked like he was about to object, but instead, he let out a sigh, "fine, just don't waste time cuddling or something like that". Meredith barked, "we aren't like that"! I wanted to bury my face in my palms, but I could only look at the ground. There were two sets of doors positioned beneath massive arch's on opposites sides of the wall, but just to be safe we all entered through the same door. When I pushed past Jack and saw what remained of the library, I was devastated.
¶. The floor was largely coated in a blue carpet, but beneath the entrances the carpet had a yellow and black outline that led in a straight path to the service desk. The walls were lined with bookshelves but most of the books were scattered on the floor, or destroyed in some way. In the middle of the room there should've been desks and standalone book shelves, but the shelves were pushed over like dominos and the desks were missing legs and stacked so it looked like a makeshift fort. In the the back, there was a large set of stairs that led to the upper floors and there was also spiral staircase that lead down stairs.
¶. Meredith seemed upset by the state of the library, she took a quick glance around the room and the corner of her lips sunk. Lucas and Evan both didn't care in the slightest, but Jack kept his whimsical grin. His eyes lit up like he found a new toy. He shouted quickly, "I call dibs on the highest floor! We'll meet back here in an hour"! Then he quickly zoomed off. He was half way up the stairs before we could even question why he wanted to search that level specifically.
¶. That left Meredith, Myself, Evan, and Lucas to decide where we wanted to go. While Evan and Lucas bickered, Meredith crouched down to grab a tattered book from the floor and ripped a single page from the spine. She subsequently tore the pages into three separate strips of different lengths. Evan asked, "what are you doing"? She quickly explained, "there's no need to argue. We can just draw lots". Lucas quickly argued, "that doesn't seem fair, how can we trust that you won't mix up the answers"? I interjected, "come on Lucas, how can you not trust Meredith"? He scratched the back of his neck and let out a sigh. "Fine. But you better not be trying to trick us".
¶. The way it worked was she assigned a floor to each strip, then she had us turn around, mixed up the papers and hid them behind the palms of her hand, then we would choose. Just so Lucas could keep his piece of mind, he drew first. He got the main floor. Evan went second and coincidentally, he got the second floor. Due to the process of elimination, Meredith and I got the basement.
¶. The metallic steps creaked beneath our combined weight. I heard the soft yet constant sound of our steps falling further down the spiral staircase. The further it went, it kept getting darker. Soon I could only feel Meredith gripping my arm, and the smooth metal shavings rubbing off from the railing. It took us maybe a few minutes to finish the stairs, but we survived without some much as an extra worry.
¶. I can feel Meredith's heart beating faster as she sunk her hands tighter against my arm, or maybe it was my own, I don't know for sure. It's dark and eerily silent, I can barely make out 5 doors slightly peeking from the darkness. I whispered Meredith's name, "Which door should we choose"? She whispered back, "I don't know if we should choose any of them". In a hushed voice, I argued, "but what if Jamie or Ancel are here"? I could feel her squeezing my arm tighter. "We'll just open the doors and shout their names, if they don't respond, that's that".
¶. I felt her head nod and slowly we made our way to the first of the four door frames. It was hard to find the doorknob, but when I did find it, the door seemed to be blocked by something. It opened fine, but when I tried to push or pull it was stuck. I told Meredith to take a step back and rushed the door in hopes of dislodging whatever was stuck. Luckily I heard a crash and the door was opened a small bit. I was able to push the rest out of the way with a bit of effort. The room was just as dark if not darker, so I shouted, "Jamie, Ancel are you there"? No response.
¶. The next door opened without any worry, but when we stepped in, we were quickly blocked by a fence, I shouted for their names again, but only silence responded.
¶. The third room was just empty, nothing inside, not a sound could be heard nor thing be seen. Finally, when I opened the last door, a blinding red light peeked through the darkness and showed what looked like rows shelves all over the room. I think it was a small server room. Before I could call out their names, Meredith put her hand over my mouth. For some reason the red perfectly complimented her beauty. "Reeling, this is how people die in horror movies". I laughed a bit to myself as I remembered what happened when I tried to swing from the vine. "I'll be fine". She looked up at me with doe eyes, I caved almost instantly. "Fine, you get to the stairs and I'll shout their names real quick then run back to you". She hesitated, but then agreed. "Okay, but be quick". I shouted their names not expecting an answer, but both Ancel and Jamie shouted back, "were here"! Jamie shouted back, "Reeling is that you".
¶. I felt a wave of relief, "We're all here, we came to get you". Jamie shouted back, "Ancel is stuck, help me lift this shelf thing". I ran as quick as my blind eyes allowed me to Meredith. A faint hue of red lit the room as I grabbed her hands, "I need you to call everyone, Ancel is stuck". Meredith nodded her head and ran up the stairs. I quickly ran back into the red room and made my way to the back, where I saw Ancel pinned by a shelf and Jamie crying over him.
¶. I told her to pull Ancel out when I lift the shelf, we both doubted I could lift it myself, but I still tried. The shelf weighed about 300ibs, and it sat directly over Ancel's legs. I grabbed it with all the strength I could muster, but I only managed to lift it an inch above his leg. Jamie pulled desperately but before Ancel made it out, the shelf slipped from my hands and fell back on his legs. He screamed out in pain. I quickly apologized, but it did us no good. I quickly lifted it as much as I could and this time he managed to escape from the weight.
¶. He breathed like a mad man, but I could hardly blame him. Jamie hugged me and thanked me, she didn't let go until Meredith and everyone else showed up, which was about two minutes later. She quickly ran into Meredith's arms and silently cried. Jack offered me a mischievous grin while Lucas helped Ancel up from the ground. Evan asked no one in particular, "now what do we do"?