The Mysterious Door

Chapter 12

The weirdest thing happens the next morning. The Instructor's voice stirred the entire group as usual, but instead of coming through the walls, she was actually standing in the hallway right outside our rooms, "Good morning, candidates. We will be starting the third test right after breakfast. Today's test will take a lot less out of you than the marathon, but you will have to be vigilant throughout the entire course none the less. The course consists of 40 rooms, one contains the entrance, one the exit and the other 38 each have unique obstacles which you will need to overcome before you can advance.

Today will however be more than just pure skill. Today you will also need fate on your side to come out on top. There is no set way in which you can reach the end; instead a television has been installed inside each room, switching on after the obstacle is overcome. There will be a slideshow showing all the other rooms on loop and it's entirely up to you through which one you'd like to go. Once a candidate enters a room it will be removed from the roll and once they leave it will be restored. If, in the likely event, a candidate succumbs to the obstacles, the room will be removed permanently. Please also note that once you've been in a room it won't be removed from the roll, meaning you could be expected to complete a single room more than once.

You will once again be given points for the time it takes you to reach the end, but this time you will also receive points for other categories, such as style, showmanship and level of awe in the manner that you overcome the obstacles. Once you have finished eating, Gustav will return and we will start with Daniel. Every five minutes thereafter the next candidate will be sent in. Good luck to each of you, I will be watching." The Instructor walks back to the training room, followed closely by Gustav.

"How'd you sleep," I ask Cindy as we eat our breakfast of oats.

"To be honest, she says after swallowing a big bite, "I've been able to sleep better each night. I still get nightmares, but it happens a lot less than before and I don't think they bother me as much anymore. At this point real life is much scarier than anything my subconscious can cook up."

"It will get better," I say in a half lie, "After today we will be through our third test. How many more can there be? And besides, we've all been missing for weeks now; I bet someone is bound to find is soon enough." I touch my locket. I wonder if there has been a new message yet... It might be hard to check now that everyone can see what I'm up to all the time.

"She could have endless tests planned for us, going on until every single one of us is dead. You heard Brandon, every test and every group brings them more and more knowledge. We might just be a platform for their research at this moment, nothing more than ordinary, stupid lab rats. I don't think anybody will find us," she stops eating and scrapes around in her plate instead, "We're not the first group and it's clear no one found this place in one of their previous attempts."

"I know it may seem bleak right now," I try to meet her eyes, but they're scanning her desk, "But you have to keep your spirits up. We can't let everything that happened stop us from looking ahead. We can't let Jasmine's death mean nothing. We'll find a way out of this. Once we're out of here you can come visit me on the farm any day, I'll even give you a picture of my room so you won't have to deal with my parents every time. My dad would love you though. He always said I should find a girl that knows what she wants."

"I'd love that," she says, smiling again, "My mom would like you too. She's big on loyalty and doing right by people and seeing how quickly you forgave Anthony and even managed to convince me to forgive him too, I'm sure she'd approve of you right away. But I'm not giving you a picture of my room though, I don't want you watching me while I sleep."

"Yeah," I say laughing, "I wouldn't want anyone to see me sleep either if I slept like you. You make the weirdest faces when you dream, some kind of cross between smelling something really horrible and stomach cramps. Oh, and you snore."