The Haunted Orphanage

Chapter 43

Dan's POV

For a moment, we were all frozen, staring at the small door. Nate slowly reached down and picked up his Sebastian name tag. He turned around to face the rest of us. "Do we plan on walking through the tiny door that was basically hidden by a security system?"

Phil nodded his head. "Yeah, that was our plan, wasn't it?" Nate gulped and turned around. It seemed as if the gravity of the situation had finally hit him.

"So, I guess we should clip our name tags onto our lab coats?" I offered. Phil nodded again but didn't say anything. I saw Jason's fist clench around his Marco name tag. I sighed, "Look, guys, if you don't want to go help Percy and everyone else who's down there, that's your choice. That's fine. It's completely your decision, but I'm still going–"

"We're all going, Dan," Phil cut me off. "We clearly aren't going to send someone by themselves. That's an easy way for you to be taken hostage or something."

"Yeah," Jason started in a sarcastic tone, "no way I'm missing the opportunity to see people I know being experimented on and tortured."

Nate punched his arm lightly. "You have to go if you want to save them. Plus, I for one am not missing the opportunity to see people's reaction to Dan's name being Jennifer. If he runs into another scientist, he'll have to think of something quick or we're all screwed. I know he'll think of something, but I can't wait to find out what it is." Nate smirked at me.

I sighed again, "Whatever makes you ready to go through with this, I guess. Anyways, do we want to make a plan of attack or anything before charging into that room or just go for it?"

"Plan," Nate and Jason responded simultaneously.

"Okay," I paused. "How are we supposed to plan for anything? We have no idea what's about to happen."

"Alright, I got this," Nate decided, stepping forward. "Our objective is to save Percy, as well as anyone else we find who needs help, correct?"

"Yup," Phil replied with a faint smile.

"So we're going to go through that door and search until we find Percy. However, there are multiple problems that we could run into by doing this. We need to stay hidden from scientists and stick together at all times. I imagine that the room will be swarming with actual scientists, so yelling across the room for one another definitely isn't an option, as it'll attract too much attention."

Phil and I exchanged glances before I commented, "No offense, but since when are you this good at mapping out obstacles?"

"Since the rest of you stopped helping," he replied sassily.

"Fair enough," Jason responded. "What do we do if someone gets separated from the group?"

"We find them without causing a commotion," Nate returned.

"Alright, but what if–"

"How about we stay optimistic and don't worry about everything that could go wrong?" Phil suggested.

Nate got ready to object, but I cut him off, "Yeah, let's not get anxious. We'll be fine, and even if Percy isn't there, we'll likely find some information that'll help us."

Nate's eyes widened. "What do you mean 'if Percy isn't–'."

Jason slapped his hand over Nate's mouth. "Percy will be here. I can feel it."

I barely heard Nate mutter, "Sixth sense bullshit."

I walked up to the small door and squatted down. I reached for the rusted doorknob and slowly, carefully turned it. The door creaked open, and waiting behind it was a long, dark, narrow tunnel. I turned back to face everyone else. "I'm leading, I assume?"