Paint it Another Colour

Chapter 43

"Keep up please" Milen sighed, glancing over his shoulder at Wendy, who scuffed her sandal into the floor and huffed. She'd started off running in front of him, but had very quickly dropped to trailing behind like a bored toddler in a supermarket.

"You could stop walking so fast maybe?" Wendy grumbled, glancing behind her. "Do you even know where we're going?"

"Yes..." Milen trailed off. He had no idea where they were, or if they were even that close to anything. They'd been walking around for a while now. The building hadn't seemed that big from outside, but now he was inside, and possibly lost, he realised just how big it was. Having said that, he wasn't sure how far in he was, but he hadn't seen a window or any other signs that they could be close to anything for a while now. "Of course I know where we are."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "No you don't. You're making this up as you go along aren't you."

"No... yes... I don't know" Milen sighed. "Okay, I know what we're doing, but not where we're going. No one knows where anything is, except maybe Matthew, but even then, he doesn't know all that much does he? He never saw that much of this place, just a little bit. Everything we're doing at the moment is based off guesses. I'm doing the best I can."

"You're not checking anywhere" Wendy snapped. "We could have walked right past an important door, and not have noticed."

"Well, anything could be behind the door" Milen shrugged. "We could find ourselves faced with emptiness, or people who want to kill us."

"Or Francis and Sadik" Wendy raised an eyebrow. "It's just a suggestion seeing as that's why we're here."

"Stop trying to be clever" Milen gritted his teeth. Part of him was glad he didn't have a sibling. Even though he was more than jealous of Vladimir for having Aurel, there was a higher chance that they wouldn't get on. Right now, that part of him was completely overpowering.

Wendy shrugged and opened a door. "Hello?"

"Careful" Milen hissed, waiting for her response. She screamed. "What?"

She turned to him, wide eyed, staring. "It's empty."

Milen clutched at his chest. "Could you not? I've got to try and make sure nothing happens to you, you know? You're not helping me at all."

Wendy laughed. "It was worth it" she grinned.

"Just deal" Milen muttered under his breath, inhaling deeply in irritation.

Wendy ran past him, opening and closing every door on the corridor, informing him on the interior as she did so: "this one's empty", "so's this one", "this one has a table in", "this one is a library!"

"You're going to get yourself caught you know" Milen grumbled.

"No I'm not" Wendy twirled and opened another. "This ones..." she trailed off, staring. "This one's dark. I don't like it."

Milen sighed. "Come here." He stepped around her and turned on his phone's torch. "See? There's nothing wr..." he too trailed off. The floor was covered in blood, as was part of the wall, and a fine splatter of red lay across the ceiling. In the middle of the room, was the skeleton of an arm, fine slivers of skin and flesh littered around it like tissue from a valuable object. Lying a little away from the arm was Sadik, a hole in his shoulder where it should be, his mouth curved downwards in a silent scream, hair patchy as though it had been pulled out and a huge stain across the front of his shirt. Behind him, propped up against the wall, was Francis, neck mostly severed, eyes covered in dust and gunk from the floor, resting near his foot, the other of which lay across the other side of the room.