CHARLOTTE

CHAPTER V

As I pursued the lights, I realized that with each footstep I took, the lights were getting dimmer till reaching the point they would disappear. -Will something like that happen to me in the future too? -. I asked out loud. Later on, the illumination had finally stopped, meaning I had reached the end. I looked up and perceived a pair of stairs going down. I was excited to find a path to leave the building, but something about it just gave off a bad vibe. I couldn't see what was at the bottom or where they would lead to. It also seemed they were a tad narrow. A black color surrounded them making it have the appearance it had been covered in oil.

Bravely, I put one foot in, and then another, and so goes on. A ridiculous amount of old pictures wrapped the place around but nothing particularly weird happened. Except for the fact I was feeling as if I was being watched by hundreds of eyes. Closing my eyes would have been a good idea and if it wasn't dangerous I would have run, but I was afraid of tripping over and finding things that I didn't even want to imagine.

As I was reaching the end, I could feel my moccasins getting wet and therefore my feet. There wasn't a lot of brightness in the room but I was able to realize I was stepping on water, and the level was rising. If I go back, then all of my efforts would be for nothing, but if I step in I might drown.

The liquid was already at the height of my knee, and it was making my steps slower. The floor looked like a division between levels and it had a lot of rooms. -If I unlocked one, maybe I could get the water out -I thought. I started with the process but I had to do it quickly if I didn't want to die there. Something hit my head, maybe my conscience or just my gut feeling but somehow I managed to get to an exit route door. I opened it with the hope of getting some water out. And so I did. Despite the fact that now I was in a completely different scenario.

This time I felt like I was in an action or mystery movie. There were a lot of broken metals over the floor, a lot of dust and rubbish, there was also gasoline and pasted on the walls there was that yellow duct tape police officers use in crime scenes. I felt more amazed than scared while watching the environment, this time it was weird to see the presence of light, sunlight to be more specific. Overall I wasn't scared. But I shouldn't have been so confident at the time.

The water had combined with the dirt making it mud. I wasn't surprised, I don't really mind getting dirty. I decided to use this at my advantage by marking my footsteps so I didn't get lost. And after walking a little bit I was attacked by a lot of flashlights. They suddenly appeared and ended, all in a quick move. It dazed my eyes but then I saw the truth. A huge black van was above a white car.

Almost instantly, sirens could be heard all over the place, but there was no ambulance nearby. Even though I could appreciate the reflection of the red and blue lights blinking at the walls. There was a very large black plastic bag on the floor. And assuming the worst, I decide to touch it. It was empty. I sighed in relief, I didn't want to see a dead corpse, not right now in the state I am.

I kept getting closer to the scene trying to put together the pieces of what had happened, but nothing came to my mind. -My brain isn't working today. Perfect -I reproach myself. To avoid surprises, I steadily approached the window of the van and peeked over it. Again it was all clear. I was starting to get kind of disappointed, I mean, it is not like I want to live a life threatening situation, but I also need answers, and in order to get them I needed to investigate.

I circled around the van and watched a white car, it was a 2021 Corolla, it looked so pretty. If i would have a car I totally would have gotten one of those. But there's a lovely thing called poverty. Anyways, it makes me sad to watch the car damage. This time I was afraid of looking into the window, someone might be pretty injured in there. I repeated the process I did before. While I was walking I was stepping on blood and mud, the consistency was not pleasing and started to make my stomach hurt. I was wondering why there was mud in the first place, the "sky" was cloudy but not in the mood to actually start raining and there weren't any signs of rainfall.

I tried not to think nor hear the sound of the floor and decided to focus on the glass. I ducked down, getting all my knees and hands messy. And what I saw was something I didn't expect to see there.