What Lies Beneath

Chapter 16

Misha ran down the stairs as fast as she could. Reaching the floor after a long hurdle, she sighed and looked around. The people who worked on this floor were few but at least there; enough for her to ask anyone the route to the record room and soon she got one who explained her the direction. Misha followed, crossing one gallery after she found a hallway ending with a giant steel door. A plaque was secured on its gates on which, with big bold letters written was: the Record Room.

It had taken her 4 minutes in total to reach up to here. So without wasting another minute, Misha entered the room and a light fragrance of wood and paper brushed across her nostrils reminding, it was the right place. She turned the lights on and started running across the shelves, searching for a few letters she had in mind to lastly start digging into.

The first aisle she entered, got nothing in her hands. The second aisle she entered, it just consumed more time. Then one after another, searching several columns in the next rows, she finally found a small section on which it was written: Records of The Goel Foundation.

Misha grimaced in dissatisfaction.

Though the section was found, it was far up in the shelf from her reach. She looked around, and a small ladder came into her view, standing distant in the hall alone. She moved hurriedly, laming up to grab it and dragged the whole way back to the reserved corner.

Stacking it in front of the shelf, Misha climbed up the steps carefully. After reaching the height she grabbed the one particular folder on which she had casted her eyes on and thoroughly started checking the data.

Finally the file she wanted was found. She checked the time and luckily there were still 5 minutes left until her time ends. So she pulled back, getting down from the step of the ladder when a 'chirp' sound of a cloth, tearing up in a large silent hall echoed along with a feeling of pain, as if a knife had just grazed on her skin softly.

"Owwuch!!"

She winced before gazing down and her eyes widened in fear. The fabric of her trouser was ripped from the middle of thigh region to just inches before her knee of the same injured leg, leaving a long scratch of the nail by which her trousers just got ripped.

"OH Noo!!" She panicked, glaring at the new trouble she has got herself into.

Getting completely off from the ladder, Misha kicked it in frustration with the same leg, only to let out an irritated groan after as it started hurting like hell now. She didn't do it out of foolishness though, it came out itself as she was unable to hold her weight on its broken joint.

Whatever the reason, the new problem was- How will she go back to the conference room like this? The cut was definitely somewhere inappropriate to risk going and couldn't be hidden under another cloth, her top wasn't that long after all.

Misha bit her lips in thought and an idea came to her mind as she started roaming inside the hall frequently. Searching a working table aligned after every few shelves, she hunted for a stapler in each table rack vigorously. And founded one faster than she thought as a wave of relief washed her expressions.

However, it only lasted for a second because when she grabbed the pieces of fabric between its mouth to tuck them, it went blank. There were no pins in the stapler.

"NOuw sHiT!"

She cursed. Her face turned gloomy when she checked the time and two minutes passed by already. Misha was left with no other choice but to rush back to the conference room despite her condition; only if she could really run.

Taking up the lift, she reached the top floor and walked up to the conference room but seeing the doors being shut, her feet halted.

Did the Goels come in already? Am I too late to get here?