Deception #YourStoryIndia

Balthazar.

Avery POV

Shit meet fan.

As soon as I heard the blonde newscaster telecast about the Nepal 'earthquake', I knew that my time had come. My time to 'go all wrecking ball on Fear's ass' as so nicely put by Sydney.

I'm not gonna lie, I was scared. Scared to death that I wasn't enough. That I couldn't do what I was supposed to do. Who wouldn't be? I was just a sixteen year old girl from Clayton Hills, Washington, who, until just a few days ago, didn't even know she was supposed to be saving the world. I choked back a sob. I miss my mother.

I quietly followed Bal through the winding corridors of the Bunker, occasionally tripping over my steps even though my gaze was predominantly fixed at my black Vans. After about five minutes, I sensed Bal coming to a stop in front of me. I, too, slowed down and looked up.

Standing in front of Bal stood an ornately decorated oak door with beautiful carvings on them. It was around 8 feet tall, and the top of the door had four symbols lined up side by side of each other. All the symbols were encircled by a thin, raised wooden circle. All four signs symbolised the four elements - fire, water, earth and spirit. Little inscriptions in some unknown language was painfully carved underneath each of the symbols. The door itself exuded such majestic beauty and power,I wondered what would lay within it. My doubts were answered almost immediately.

"This," Balthazar said in an eerily calm voice, "is the Salle du Monde. Also known as The Room of the World."

The huge double doors opened by themselves, and I stepped inside, only to have my breath snatched away from me. The entire room was smaller than the other rooms in the Bunker, but it seemed as if it had been the most used one. I was engulfed by a warm, cozy atmosphere, and it made me realise that it would have been a perfect room to sit in and read a wonderful book, a cup of hot chocolate in hand, wearing nothing but a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of socks, while a storm brewed outside, the fresh smell of wet earth, making the atmosphere feel like home.

The room was decorated in a very medieval style, but a hint of modernity was visible. The left side of the room had a line of bookshelves with their backs against the wall, stacked with books that were meticulously organised. The bookshelves were every reader's dream come true- with intricate patterns on the wood and shelves so beautifully designed it would make DaVinci blush. A few bean bags lay in front of the shelves, obviously used by the members to sit and read the books. The walls of the room were bare, but what mesmerised me the most was the floor and the ceiling. The ceiling was extraordinarily painted with vivid colours; the night sky that city-dwellers so craved. The stars were set out in wonderful patterns, and if you knew your constellations well, you'd recognise more than a couple of them. The nebulae and other colourful cosmic entities contrasted beautifully with the dark sky. However, when I looked closely, I realised that the sky looked almost as if it were reaching out for the ground- it had an arm outstretched and was craving to get a hold of something. I thought it was my imagination playing tricks on me, but Bal noticed my gaze and he smiled.

"Look down," he said softly, almost as if he didn't want to disturb the quiet comfort of the room.

I followed his order, and almost immediately a gasp lef my mouth. The floor, just like the ceiling, was painfully painted the landscape of the entire earth. It was more like a physical map of the earth, but each brush stroke felt so much more intimate and so much more...real; that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. The mountains, the oceans, the cities- everything was beautifully painted, and I was about to ask Bal who was the artist who so painstakingly drew the masterpiece, when my eye caught something. The earth, too, was painted in such a way, that it felt as if an arm was reaching out into the sky. I gasped again.