Eden's Gate

Chapter 17: Caught Red Handed

Clifton had had it with waiting. His friend was in trouble, probably confused and hurt, and they were just sitting there doing nothing. He saw how Edelweiss' disappearance had hurt everyone. Taylor was spending more time out on the soccer field, or on the computer researching, and Kaitlyn looked sad and he could hear activity from her room late at night. The only one who seemed unphased was Richard.

A part of him, the emotional part, wanted to say that Richard didn't care about her. But he knew that it was more complicated than that. Richard did care about their friend, that was obvious. But he also cared about winning this game of cat and mouse. He was constantly holding them back, worried about them 'getting caught', but he was getting tired of doing nothing.

That's why, this night, he quietly waited for his roommate to go to sleep. Once Taylor was off in their dream world, he sat up, closed his eyes, and began to focus. There had to be a time, some time, where he could get into the Teacher's Wing, into one of their offices, and find something valuable. And his power was going to let him solve that.

He focused his mind on the future. On his instincts. Future Sight was hard, because any number of things could complicate the situation. The future was an ever-shifting river of possibilities, splitting constantly in different directions, and there was no way to tell which way the current would go until you got there, or if you were the one making the choice that split it. Even then, which choice led to which branch could be unclear. It was all very complicated. But he was a natural at it.

He followed the possibilities of when he should leave, where he should go. What he should do. For an hour, his mind whizzed through the night, 15 minute intervals at a time, to find when he could get through the locked door, avoid the camera, and open a door.

And he found it. If he left at 02:15, and went to Eliza's office, he'd find exactly what he was looking for. An answer of some sort. He set his watch's silent alarm, and laid down to try and rest until then. He'd want to be as rested as possible, because tomorrow was another school day.

Kaitlyn was once again having trouble sleeping. She was afraid of having the dream again, of seeing That Thing again, of any of this. Mr. Lepus had shown himself to be more than capable of fighting them off, just like she knew he could, but sometimes, he'd be sleeping too, and she'd have to wake him up. He also found That Thing especially difficult to deal with.

So when a panicked and frantic knock came into her head, it caught her off guard. She recognized it as Clifton's, and all that was coming were images. A flash of a paper, a knife, a shadowed figure.

He was in trouble?!

She ran to his and Taylor's room, and knocked. She knocked again, and a third time, before Taylor finally came up. Their eyes were wide and panicked.

"Kaitlyn, what's going on?"

"Where's Clifton?" She asked.

Taylor looked to his bed and saw it empty. "Oh no. He didn't."

Another flash, it was the paper again.

"He did."

"Let's get Richard."

They ran to Richard's room, getting ready to wake him up when he stepped out quietly all on his own. Had he been awake, or had the noise of these images woken him up? There was another flash of a shadowed figure, that Kaitlyn was only sure wasn't the first one, blocking a turn in the hallway.

"That idiot. Let's go."

They made it as quickly as they could to the Teacher's building, running through the more discreet underground tunnel between the buildings. Kaitlyn was able to undo the door bolt, and as they ran they saw the first clear image that Clifton sent them. A potted plant outside Eliza's office, where a key had been stuffed discreetly in the dirt.

"What are we going to do?" Kaitlyn finally asked, unsure.

"Help him get out," Taylor said, "hopefully not get murdered in the process."

Kaitlyn's blood pumped as the adrenaline surged through her. They didn't need to look for him as they heard the heavy stomping of running feet on the floor above them.

"They're heading toward the dorms." Richard realized. "Let's get there, and cut them off once he gets on the other side of the door."

They nodded and began to run, until suddenly, the stomping stopped. They heard a thump, a scream, and for a moment, silence, before the sound of something heavy being drug across the floor. One final message came:

"Don't follow me"

And then the connection went silently, eerily quiet. That silence hung on the air as the grim reality of what had just happened dawned on her. They had caught him.

"What do we do?"

"We follow him, see where they're taking him." Richard said. "We can get him, maybe Edelweiss too."

Taylor interjected, "no. They're looking for us. I can sense them getting close, searching. We don't have time."

"Then we get the key," Kaitlyn demanded, "he risked his life to get us that."

Richard nodded, "fair enough."

Taylor guided them to the pot outside of Eliza's office where the key had been hidden along a path where they'd avoid the watchful eyes of the teachers seeking them. Taylor was as good at hiding themself as seeing others. Kaitlyn took the key from the pot. It had the symbol on it. The one from the door.

He had got them a key to the Screaming Room. But at what cost?