The Elements

Chapter 20 - Fire

The rooms kept changing, but neither of us were in the mood to check them out. I thought I spotted a heart growing in a sludgy substance - but let's not get into that. Finally, we turned another corridor, and found a rusty, metal door with a huge number lock on it.

"This is definitely it." The certainty in my voice surprised both of us, but I could somehow... feel it. There was an aura of suspense, of danger, vibrating through the door.

"Yeah, but... how do we get through?" Aura jerked the door handle, but the door didn't budge.

"Ugh, guess we've gotta figure out the code or something." I looked at the number lock - four digits.

"Wait, let me try something!" I snatched the lock over and put in the numbers "0000". When that didn't work (obviously), I put in the numbers "1111", and so on.

"Pearl! We're gonna run out of tries soon! Stop fooling around!" Aura screamed at me, as I put in "8888".

"Wait - just let me try one more!" I sniggered to myself as I entered my birthday - 0227 (February 27). And the lock clicked open.

Aura gaped at me - and I felt like doing that to myself too. "How - ?" I was surprised Aura could speak. I sure couldn't. All I did was gesture for her to go in, secretly marvelling at my guessing skills - though... it did seem to be a bit too coincidental. And from my experience in this world, things were never a coincidence.

Pushing this memory into another mental box labelled "Things Too Coincidental To Be True", I followed Aura in.

My temporarily regained ability to speak was immediately stripped away from me as I witnessed the sight in front of me. Hundreds and thousands of doors lined the corridors in front of us, but the most surprising part was that one of the doors were open - and I immediately froze to the spot, never expecting to move again.

Her blonde hair was tangled and matted with dirt. Her arms and legs had suffered scratches and there was blood flowing freely from an open wound. Her shoes were torn open, the fabric long worn down. But her green eyes still had their trademark sparkle. "Emerald?"

Emerald's eyes widened, but she didn't say anything. She rubbed her eyes in utter disbelief, then squinted at us - but we weren't an illusion! "Is it really you? Pearl? Aura?" Her voice was thick and raspy, but even so, I could hear the shock and excitement it contained.

"Yep, it's us alright!" My words could barely contain my delight as I ran into her room, tackling her in a tight embrace, which Aura soon joined. I couldn't believe it was her. After this long... she was safe! And that was all that mattered. Tears of pure, golden joy leaked down my face as I squeezed her even harder - the poor girl must have been suffocating. But she didn't say anything.

My heart felt full, for the first time in years, the gaping hole fully mended. Who knew friendship could ever replace lost love? I broke down for no peculiar reason, sobbing long and hard - but nobody found me weird, because they were doing the exact same thing. Soon after, all of us pulled away from the hug, but I knew that none of us were still willing to believe that this kind of good had happened to us.

"Hey! Guys! Don't just let me miss the fun!" Olivia's voice burst in, to which both Aura and I broke down in a fit of giggles. Emerald, however, gave us a quizzical look.

"Okay, okay," I managed to say, through the laughter, "I promise I'll tell you about it later, okay? For now, I think we should look for our friends first."

"Right. I think I know where Alexa is - they put her in a room before me. But just to tell you, no noise at all. I managed to pick my lock open - yeah, I'll tell you about it later - so that's why my door was open. But I'm not supposed to be out here." Following Em, we tiptoed out from her room, and into the corridor again. I heard my footsteps echoing, but hoped that it wasn't loud enough to trigger an alarm again. Finally, we reached the door of a room - Alexa's room.