4 O'clock Confessions

Chapter 6 - A Room Full of Questions

The great journey of the trapped library survivors begins. Uncertainty of what's ahead filling their minds as their hearts flutter with anticipation. Something is going to happen. Something is bound to happen. Idris, the now self-imposed leader, who is thinking more with his emotions than his head, addresses everyone. Who has time to go through the details anyway? That is a bother and a half.

Distilled with confidence, he explains, whilst pointing at the flight of stairs in the corner of the room, "Okay, we'll head up there first." Keenness to find some answers just bursting from his body.

Everyone else is just as eager, otherwise why would they do doing this? That being said, they are still explicably, horrendously, frightened.

Complying with his proposition, the gang make their way up the stairs, a foreboding sense of doom hanging over their heads, like when you're about to enter one of those pesky family functions you've been dreading, full well knowing someone's bound to get into a fight over mixed opinions on politics and religion.

Both, June, Lyndon and Savannah rejected this idea, and are now having to go along for the ride.

June wonders what they plan on doing once they meet the preverbal culprit. If there truly is such a person, wouldn't they be experienced and skilled enough to potentially foil their plans of...of whatever they are planning.

God, we're all going to die, concludes June.

Walking up the rickety wooden stairs, she glances at everyone's faces, all of them showing the same amount of unease. Perhaps, people are having second thoughts. Even Idris is showing signs of that. As they reach the top of the flight, the lights illuminating the upstairs are a lot dimmer than expected, creating a moody sense of relaxation mixed with trepidation. It's truly a marvel the feelings that lighting can elicit from a person.

Too focused on the lighting other than her surroundings, June manages to miss what everyone is staring at, at the top of the stairs.

Within the room, books line the shelves much like downstairs, although there are fewer up here, providing more free space for people to roam around and perhaps sit and read. The ideal location for a secret hideaway. The walls have also changed from a red brick to a plain white. Despite the fact that the arrangement is nearly same, the space feels practically empty in comparison to the bottom floor.

This isn't what everyone is looking at, stationary in place, however. No, what's got them riled up is the blood-stain smear on the bare white walls right opposite to the stairs. It's the first thing you come in contact within the room, which, somehow, June was apparently too busy to notice at first.

Her eyes go wide from disturbance as they scan the pattern of the blood, forming the words,

'FALLOW HURT :( '

Reading the words sends a cold shiver rushes down everyone's spine, reaching deep into the crevices of their toes. The fact that they don't understand what it means makes it even more menacing, as well as the child-like frown at the end at the end. The blood-splattered frown appears to be smiling, taunting them instead. Somehow, the frown makes it even more sinister, like a warning to those still left in the library that someone is not happy, someone very, very dangerous, and very unpredictable.

The darkened lighting casting light on the message, does no effect to brighten up the grim sight before them, in fact, the shadows it creates only adds to it.

An indescribable feeling overtakes them as loud, unpleasant sirens go off in their heads. All at once, the members of the brave squad bolt downstairs, effectively deciding that this was in fact a terrible idea.