Eden's Gate

Chapter 21: Our First Move

After class, the children once again got together in the workshop, but Kaitlyn had a special secret mission before she met up with them. She had reached Eliza's office, and tossed the key in it. As she turned away and walked down the hallway, she crossed a mirror. She caught her reflection not moving out of the corner of her eye. She froze.

"Clifton's dead now too. No excuses this time, eh?"

Kaitlyn turned her head. The Mirror Beast was there, eyes radiant purple.

"It's not my fault. He...he made his own decision. We tried to help!"

"Did you?" It asked. "You seemed pretty eager to just leave him to die."

"We would've been hurt too!"

The Mirror Beast leaned closer, a grin on its face. "Coward."

Kaitlyn squeezed her fists, Mr. Lepus finally seemed to take notice of it too as he turned his head towards it.

"Why are you doing this?! What's the point?!"

"Because you think I will, obviously." Said the Beast.

Kaitlyn tilted her head, her jaw going a little slack before the Mirror Beast also raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You have no idea what you are, do you?" It asked.

It positioned itself exactly mirror to her, and went away. She decided to hurry back.

She made it to Clifton and Taylor's room and saw her remaining friends waiting for her, though Richard was...off. He was seated, cross legged on the bed, with Taylor sitting across from him in a chair. His eyes were rolled back into his head and glowing orange. He was shaking and sweating.

"Is he okay?" Kaitlyn asked immediately.

Taylor nodded, "he's Astral Projecting into the Screaming Door. He wanted to see what was down that shadowed path you guys found there."

Kaitlyn once again dropped her jaw a bit. "He can Astral Project?" She asked.

"Apparently. Though he's...having difficulty with it."

She could tell, the way his brow was furrowed and the sweat dripped down his face, and his body was shaking. Astral Projection was supposed to be one of the most advanced skills of the Projection branch of psychic abilities. Like scrying, it would allow you to observe other places, but was different from scrying. You were literally projecting the image of your soul out into the world that your senses were tied to. The upside was that unlike scrying, you didn't need to have an image of where you were going to get there - you could literally just walk and you'd be good. The downside was that even though the projected form was invisible to the human eye, those with an attuned Sixth Sense could sense it. Also, it was much more difficult than scrying - which wasn't the easiest task in the world to begin with.

"C'mon..." she whispered.

With one final jolt, he zipped back to his body, a flash of red erupting from his eyes as they snapped open.

"We're in luck," he said, "that tunnel has a few other libraries and such like along the path, but it's a straight shot all the way to a hidden door in the forest." He said.

"Oh really? That's brilliant!"

He nodded, "it seems like Eliza has some friends on the outside she doesn't want on the cameras, and that's how they get in. So once we get into that tunnel, we won't have to worry about that."

Kaitlyn sat down at their desk, taking out a piece of paper and beginning to sketch out a map.Taylor also got up out of their chair, and went over to the large tank that Voltaire called home, as they began to pull out a handful of cylindrical brown food stuffs from a red plastic tub labeled "AQUATIC TURTLE PELLETS". They smelled so strongly Kaitlyn could smell them even from her position at the other side of the room. They dropped them into the water part of the enclosure.