Htrae : The Four Stages

Chapter 4: Nymph of the Underwood

Chapter 4

Nymph of the Underwood

Carol

"This is a weird place to put a library," Alan said as he looked around "I don't remember our library being in a place like this."

I looked up as I massaged my sore nose. We were within a forest environment. Far behind us, there was the school corridor. The corridor seemed to stop half way, vines wrapping around the unfinished portion of the building. It was as if the corridor was meant to be unfinished just for this dirt pathway into the forest. I could see the peaceful azure sky above me. The gargantuan trees of towered over us, the bright green leaves sheltered us from the sunlight. Vines wrapped tightly to the trunks of the trees. The bushes were neatly arranged along the pathway. A few squirrels were scampering around. The humming of insects filled the air. It seemed like a serene, but something was different about it. I'm not sure what it was but it's different.

The gold-painted door was even more unusual, almost mystical. It had weird languages and carved, detailed pictures on it. Kinda like the one you see in ancient tombs like those huge pyramids. Except the pictures were popping out of he surface, if you run your hand against the door you and feel the bumps of the carved pictures. The pictures were of fairies, ogres, books and several other items, some unidentifiable. The two carefully designed curved handles was covered with vines twisted over it like a lock. They were vines covered with large leaves and small flowers, hugged the door like a protective mother. There was no keyhole to unlock it.

"Open Sesame!" Harold yelled all of a sudden. Nothing happened. We all stared at Harold. Harold shrugged as he put his hands in his pockets, "It worked for the pathfinder."

Then Alan went to the door and tried to open the door, the door didn't move at all. Harold went to help him. They both were unsuccessful and ended up panting, wasting their breath, "It won't budge." Alan said.

"There is a lock on the door, of course you can't get through by pushing. Even if there wasn't a lock, the door would have been too heavy to push anyway," Helen said.

"So how do we open it? Mrs Stupid Principle forgot to tell us how to open the door!" Malita exclaimed, frowning.

"Call for someone inside?" Megan suggested "Oh! Maybe we can call Mrs Manar."

"Do you even have her number?" Malita said. Megan sighed.

"How about a key?" Harold then suggested, "You said there's a lock right? Find the key, we get in."

"There's no keyhole, I don't think that's how you open it. Plus, where would we even find a key?" Amy countered.

"How then?" Malita asked. I thought hard. But I can't think of a way to open the door. I observed the lock. It looks like the vines are what holds the lock together. There's a few options on why they use this lock. The vines were carefully placed over the lock, so the option of it being a natural occurance is out, plus the path finder lead us here. Maybe it's an old school library and it was intentional to lock it? Then this door wouldn't use such weak vines. They must be strong then. But even the thickest vines can be cut, if item was given. Why vines? Why not normal locks? They would withstand longer, so maybe it's not meant to be kept locked long. But... argh! This is confusing. This should be the right library, but why does it have such a weird lock?

Wait. I'm not on Earth. On Earth, this wouldn't make sense. In Htrae, it would. I thought hard. I thought of what I had seen earlier that day. By natural means, using such a lock would be impossible or not efficient. Unless... you had the power to control plants or have some sort of magic. Far-fetched? Not really after all we've seen.