The Final Hope: Awakening

Chapter Three

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" exclaimed Freya, marching into it already.

"Hang on wait!" Ryan and I yelled in unison. We exchanged a glance- it was the first time that we had agreed on something.

"What? Why?" she asked oblivious.

"If we're gonna go, we should be prepared," I told her.

"Yes," Ryan agreed. "The tunnel must have been built by the people who lived here before, and the only reason for doing so would have been to go to the city for supplies without having to fight through all the monsters."

"Yeah," I continued. "So if we're going to go, then there's a chance that we'll end up on the ground, meaning we may have to fight some of those things again. So we should arm ourselves first."

"And we still don't know how this tunnel opened in the first place," said Ryan.

"Or how to close it," I added. Again, we both looked at each other; for all our differences, our thoughts were pretty similar. "Besides, don't you two need to rest after travelling all this way?"

"I found a cave when being chased by those things," she replied. "I hid and slept there for a while."

"What about you?" I asked, glancing at Ryan.

"What do you care?" he retorted, before starting to walk up the stairs. "I'll go get us some knives or something, and you guys find out how this tunnel works." He slammed the door behind him, leaving Freya and me alone.

We shared a glance, shrugged, then started looking around the room trying to find a clue. It was right there. Freya had knocked off all the books in the top rack of the first shelf. All except one, which was sticking out at an angle but didn't fall off. Immediately, I started walking towards it but she reached there first.

"This must be it," she deduced, trying in vain to remove it. "Book of secrets. A fitting name."

"Yeah," I nodded, there was no other explanation. Freya pushed the book back and as soon as it locked into the place, the tunnel closed. It was a handy mechanism.

Testing it out a few more times, she said, "at least we know how it works now right?"

"Yeah," I replied mildly, before starting to rearrange the books back into the shelves. Soon Freya started to help.

"Say, Alvan, what do you think of Ryan?" she asked.

"What about him?" I replied.

"Well, he's just so different to us, so do you think we'll ever get along?"

"I mean, nothing's for certain I guess," I answered hopefully. "Maybe this is just some phase he's going through in order to deal with everything that's happened. So he may come around in the future."

"I guess," she replied quietly, mostly to herself.

As we were finishing up, Ryan walked in carrying a torch, three kitchen knives, two pairs of large boots and thick jackets, along with a large rucksack, filled with the rest of the supplies we would need.

"Did you guys figure it out yet?" he asked casually. We both nodded.

"There's a book here called the 'Book of Secrets'," replied Freya. "It is connected to a mechanism in such a way that pulling it opens the door and pushing it closes it."

"I see, very interesting," he said uninterestedly. He kept his gaze down while distributing our supplies. I'd been having a bad feeling about returning outside and he appeared to share my worries. Freya was the first to get ready, "Let me take that!" she yelled as she grabbed the torch from Ryan.