The next person to come in was Aidan. "Oh, it's you. Good." She said. I looked at Aidan. Her hair was slightly singed and her face looked as though she smudged coal on herself.
"Why are you so exited to see me?" I asked.
"Because you're the leader. You'll help us get out of here." Aidan replied.
"I shouldn't be the leader. You should. You’ve been trying hardest to figure things out."
"Yeah, but that’s why I'm the Inquirer. Trust me, you'll make a fine leader."
I smiled at her. "So, what did you have to do, Ashni?"
"I had to connect colored wires to the same colored wire. So, brown to brown, yellow to yellow. I had to do six sets. And I noticed something; everyone had his or her own color. I was yellow, you were red, Darcel was back, Peter was brown, Aloe was green, and Aquaria was blue. The colors matched our fears. Oh and after I connected the wires I had to connect a plug into an outlet. That was no problem. And after I did that the hole in the tube closed up so I could pass."
"Yeah, you're right about the colors! I had to start a fire under a smoke collector thingy and the smoke powered a bunch of gears to close a gap in my tube. And get this, to start the fire, I got wood, flint, and six colored cloths. The same as yours!" Aidan said excitedly.
"I don't see how this helps us though." A moment of silence followed. "Why are all of us scared of something that killed our families? And why do we all live in New York? Maybe something happened there that affected all of us. I feel bad for Aloe. She's so young and she's been kidnapped."
"Yeah, I know. She's like the little sister I've always wanted." I agreed. Then Peter walked in.
"Hi Peter!" We both said a little too excitedly. We glanced at each other. Then we giggled. We won't let some guy get in the way of our new friendship.
"So Peter," Aidan said. "What was your challenge?"
"I had to build a small bridge with rocks and cement so I could get across a hole in my tube-thing. Oh, and the stones had six different colors."
We explained everything to Peter. "That makes sense, but why would Seeker go through the time and effort to make six different colored objects?"
"That's what we're trying to find out." I said. Then Darcel and Aloe walked in.
"Hey guys." Darcel said. "I assume you noticed the different colors of things that represent the colors of our fears."
I stared at Darcel for a while. Then I finally said, "Wow Darcel, I didn't know you were so smart."
"I'm not, I just listened to you through the door." He grinned. "Today I had to go into a dark area and pick up six objects, our six colors." He thought for a moment. "I say we call them the Cardinal Colors, for convenience. Anyway, I had to plug the shapes into a box so the hole in my hall would fill." He concluded.
Aloe spoke next. "I was so scared. I was in a tube, like a million miles off the ground, and it was glass, and I thought I would fall." Aloe and I think the same, I thought to myself. "But that's not even the scary part! They made me gather six plants, and they were Cardinal Colored! But they were thorny and one was a bigger version of a Venus flytrap! It was so creepy!" Well, they are kinda creepy, now that I think about it.
"So the last person is Aquaria." Aidan said. "I don't know if you noticed, but was she always that dirty? And why doesn't she talk much? She doesn't seem to be the type of person that's shy. And how come she was the only one to be beaten up? I put up a good struggle, but they didn't fight me back. And her tag says Damage, coincidence?"
"Yeah. There's something off about her, but I don't know what it is yet." I said.
I was about to continue, but Aquaria walked in. Everybody stared at her. "What?" she said. We all looked away. She walked over to one of the doors and it disappeared. So did the rest of them except one. She walked over and opened it. Then she walked into a bathroom.
She closed the door behind her. "Seeker, I think they're onto me. Send the gas to make them forget everything bad about me, and why did you put Damage 6 as my tag? Change it."
She closed her eyes and opened them, and now her tag said Helper 6. She walked back into the room and we all welcomed her warmly. She grinned.
