Nate, Lia, and Liam
As soon as the groups split up, Nate regretted it. Not only because he felt more comfortable with more people around, but because he didn't know how much Lia and Liam both liked to talk. He had always thought Lia was the shy, quiet type, and he didn't even know anything about Liam in general.
"So then, Aimee ducked and the paint hit Pam. She was so mad at Zayn, she threw paint at him. The rest of us just kinda joined in because it looked like fun." Lia told Liam, who was listening intently.
"Wow, I can't believe I missed it!" He exclaimed.
"Would you two please quiet down?" Nate begs. "We're on a mission and we don't have time for idle chitchat."
Nate was the only person in their group who was actually focused on looking for Zayn. The right corridors were just a bunch of twists and turns through what seemed like one long hallway.
"Alright, alright. We'll stop talking, but now it's gonna be much more boring." Lia said.
"All I'm trying to say is that we won't find Zayn if we're not even looking." Nate explained.
Liam sighed, "I'm a bit tired. I should've stayed back with Peter and Rin."
"Yes, you should have." Nate mumbled as he rubbed his temples.
They walked in silence for a while, opening any doors they come across. Room after room, they found nothing but a bed and a drawer for clothes.
"Nope." Liam said after he closed the door of the first empty room.
"Nothing here." Lia informed them from across the hall.
"Another empty one." Nate tiredly called out. They grew more hopeless after each empty room they checked.
"Guys, we're not gonna find anything." Lia spoke with discouragement. "We may as well give up and head back to the door."
"C'mon, we're almost done. Just hang in there for a little while longer." Liam tried to persuade her to keep looking. Lia nodded, still not sure if they would find Zayn or not.
They turn a corner and Nate tried the closest door. To their surprise, it actually opened. It didn't seem like it was a bedroom, though. They shuffled into the room to get a better look.
In place of a bed, on the left side of the room, there was a desk with a chair. The desk was covered with papers and all sorts of unrecognizable markings.
On the right side of the room was a bulky, grey box on a table. The front of the box was different from the rest of it, it was dark and looked to be made of a sort of glass. They all looked around the room in awe, confused and curious at the same time.
Nate analyzed the strange box, which had a small knob on the bottom right corner.
"What do you think all this is?" He wondered out loud.
"I...don't know." Lia admitted, almost speechless.
Curiosity got the best of Nate for once in his life, and he turned the knob. He jumped in fright at the loud click the box made as an image appeared. It was just black and white lines that were making a static-like noise.
He gasped, "Guys, check this out!" He called the other two over.
"Woah," Liam said, his eyes wide with wonder. "That's so cool! Right, Lia?"
Lia was too busy looking at the marked papers on the desk to respond to him. She tried making sense of the gibberish markings but her thinking was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Before the noise startled her and took her attention away from the markings, she recognized one of them. She could've sworn it said, "Harry".
She snapped her head up when the door opened, revealing a surprised Teacher Mel. Nate and Liam stopped looking at the image on the box to see her standing at the door.
"Teacher Mel?" Liam confusedly calls her name. Teacher Mel's eyes were wide and briefly showed a flash of fear.
"Get out of this room." She calmly states.
"What is all this-" Lia begins to ask.
"I don't know what you're doing here, but you need to leave." She ordered, a bit louder than before. She grabbed Lia and Nate, dragging them out of the room. Then, she lightly pushes Liam through the door.
"Wait, Teacher Mel!" Liam said, right before she slammed the door on them.
"That was weird. That was really weird, right? It all happened so fast, I mean what even happened? Did she just kick us out of the room? Why? What were those things? The odd box, the markings on the paper? What's going on?" Lia rambled.
"Not sure..." Nate quietly stated. "Let's just keep going."
"But what about the stuff that was in that room?" Liam asked.
"It's better not to worry ourselves about it. Those things were probably what they do for fun. We have the drawing, crafting, and trips to the Garden. They have boxes that make strange noises." Nate said what he thought was a good explanation.
Nate was the type of person who didn't like to question things. He had no wondrous mind or thoughts, he simply went along with everything that happened to him. So, he was easily able to convince himself there was nothing to worry about. Lia wasn't as sure as Nate, but she kept her mouth shut because she knew how stubborn and annoying Nate can be. Liam was too exhausted to think anything of the situation.
"We need to keep looking," Nate suggested. "It's almost 9 and we still have two halls left." Lia and Liam nodded, and they continued walking. None of them spoke a word since they started looking again. They were now hesitant to open any more doors, but they did anyways. All of them were empty bedrooms, which surprisingly was a relief to them.
They turned the corner into the final hallway, and Nate stopped walking.
"What's wrong?" Liam asked.
"Shh! Do you hear that?" He whispered. They all stood still and listened. They could hear faint shouting.
"It sounds like it's coming from the end of the hallway," Lia said.
They strolled over to the end of the hallway, the shouting getting louder as they got closer to the end. The final door was locked when they checked, but there was a window looking into it. The shouting was definitely coming from this mysterious room. The three of them crouched beneath the window. Nate peeked up a little bit, followed by Lia and Liam so they could see where the shouting was coming from.
They saw Lenore, and she was arguing with someone. She was arguing with Bates.
------------------------------------------------------
Hey!
Sorry about the really short chapter, but I just wanted to get this one out of the way so I could work on the other ones, haha. I would've made it longer but it was 2 a.m. when I wrote it and I'm too lazy to add anything else to this chapter so it should take no longer than 5 minutes to get through this whole chapter XD I was going to write about the contents of the argument between Lenore and Bates, but I want to keep that a secret for now.
Let me know what you thought about this super short chapter :)
Love, Tori
