Under Lock & Key

-4-

    Finding the manhole was easy part. I could hear Sy gagging every few seconds.

"Rich, i don't thi-" He gagged "I don't thin-" He gagged again. "It's not wort-" He choked back another gag. "shh" I tried to silence him. The sewers were hard to navigate. Dark with the overwhelming feeling of being lost, there were no arrows pointing us to the rendezvous. I let the Prince instincts lead me. I'm not an actual Prince but yea. It's an awesome last name. Further into this maze of only a few paths, we came upon a fork in the road.

"We need to split up." I tell Sy. I can feel him tense up behind me.

"I know you're apprehensive but we're already this far-" Sy was already walking the other way.

"yea, yeah" He groaned "This better make us stinking rich." I scoffed. Before he disappeared down the opposite hallway he retorted
 "No pun intended."

"This is our meet-up place if you can't find anything!" I yell towards him. "K" he replied.

It's a typical sewer. The smell of shit in the air, an ever-flowing river of feces rushed down the corridor. Rats inhabited the tunnels. The only light to guide me are the rare vents that illuminated light from various sources and my handheld lantern, that only emitted a faint yellow glow. I'm not going to lie, It's pretty scary being alone. Now that I separated from Sy that feeling of dread grows with every crackle in the distance. The walls moved as the dense moss that grew on it melted upwards.

"Hello?" I whispered under my breath, really hoping that someone would answer. I contemplated going back towards the entrance to meet up with Sy. No. I told myself. Puffing up my chest, I walked a little sturdier with a firm grip on my lantern. I got this, there is nothing to go back too. Holding my breath I came up to a wooden sign that was painted in red. It was an abstract design. Hope flared in my chest, this was a sign that I'm close to my destination. Once I've met the people we're working with I'll let them know that Symon went the other direction. Yes! This is so great. A little more and I came up to the promised door and read the directions once more.

"knok 4 timez. wait. knok 2 moar" That's cute. The "4" was even backwards. I cleared my throat and followed the orders on the paper.

knock.

knock.

knock.

knock.

Then I waited. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

knock, knock. And then the door flew open without hesitation.