The Zodiac Cycle

2.15 Zach

We were making our way down one of the halls in the castle. It was eerily quiet, as if empty. I wondered why we hadn't seen anyone since we entered, and Carson had suggested that we might be wandering into a trap.

The rest of us agreed. It was definitely a trap.

What do you do when you recognize that you're walking into a trap?

You continue walking despite the knowledge of what you are doing.

We entered a large room at the end of the hall. The room had no other entrances or exits, but for some reason, it felt like the right place.

It was a completely empty room, with some dots on the floor in different colors. Carson and Alex tried inspecting the walls to see if they had any secret passageways, but had no luck. Rebecca and Iris were also looking around, though not as thoroughly. Brianna knelt down to look at one of the dots on the  ground.

"Guys, these dots are the colors of our eyes and weapons." Brianna looked up at me. She pointed to all the dots, counting them. "Theres twelve total, and two sets that are closer to each other than the others." She pointed to beneath her. "The light red and yellow." And then across to the other side of the room. "And the dark red and grey."

"You and Iris." Rebecca was trying to piece it together.

"And Ash and Nolan." Carson finished.

"The two sets of friends that already knew each other." Alex added.

"Just how much do they know about us?" Iris seemed a bit uncomfortable with the notion.

Carson made his way over to the purple dot. "What if we all stand by our dots? Maybe that will do something? Like open a wall panel?"

"We can try, but we dont have all of us here." Rebecca reminded him.

Brianna knelt once again by hers, observing it very carefully, and poking it several times. The rest of us made our way to the dots of our colors. Iris to yellow, beside Brianna, rebecca to blue, Alex to aquamarine, and orange for me.

We heard a click.

Brianna stood back up and reached for Iris, looking up at the ceiling where the sound had come from.

We waited for something to happen.

"Huh." Rebecca seemed a bit disappointed. "False alarm I guess."

She shrugged and we all looked around at each other, wondering where else to go.

Then there was a loud grating sound and I was separated from the others by walls that had sprung down from the ceiling.

The next thing that changed was my footing as I found the ground had dissapeared from under me. I slid down what seemed like a slide in every which direction before I got to the bottom. I nearly ran into a wall getting off the slide and I looked at it. It was slick and probably not climbable. 

Not that climbing it would change the fact that we had all been separated.

I hadn't really been alone like this since my birthday. It felt weird and quiet.

I looked around and realized my only option was to go down the one-way hall I had fallen into. I wandered down the hall carefully, preparing myself for anything that could jump out at me, but nothing came.

I got to the end of the hall where it connected with two more halls as well as a large door. The door was carved intricately and I had a feeling that it was where I was supposed to go.

So I sat down and waited, I was not going to go in alone, and if I was correct in my suspicions, the others would be coming down the other halls.

Just as I guessed.