New World Order (TNE) [Original]

Chapter 4 - The Black Elevator

The room was covered in a thick dust, soot seemed to line the walls as if a fire had engulfed it and then suddenly decided to stop. Cans of various foods lined the walls and hung on the edge of cabinets along with food on the floor and chairs broken and in pieces. The entire bunker definitely looked as if there had been some kind of fight in it and had an intoxicating scent that made convinced your brain that something was not quite right. Plum and Geoffrey immediately went to cover their nose to try and get the scent out of their brains. Just whiffing it in was as if a spider climbed inside your nose. Speaking of spiders, Timothy found a spiders web along with plenty of eggs and tiny yet noticeable spider droppings that most definitely added to the smell. Yet no spiders. None of the Botanist's Club. Absolutely nothing living in the room.

"The Botanist's Club was made up of... people wasn't it," Geoffrey commented feeling unsettled by the room. Timothy turned to go back but the elevator had already closed and gone back up. Looking into Geoffrey and Plum's plastered eyes he stepped into the room as if it was a delicate room of silk. Looking closely where they were stepping as to avoid the spider droppings he noticed something off about the room. There weren't any plants. There were clearly flower pots with dirt scattered around the room but their contents didn't include anything resembling plants.

"It sure was," Plum told the group skeptically now feeling uncertain even to herself if there really were people.

"Well, what happened, it's not like they could've just left..." Geoffrey responded as baffled as she was.

"On all my travels, through islands and caves I have never anywhere so neglected. It's as if they knew there was a time when they could leave and simply didn't care about the place until then," Tim commented judging the place with all his sass they could muster.

By this time they had all entered the room but there were absolutely no signs of life, or much of anything that matched Plum's original description. The strange part for Plum was that it kind of comforted her. Reminded her of her messy home and how lazy their dad could be about the whole place. Even though some of those moments were painful; taking a step back she felt comforted by it in a familiarity sense. It made her miss dad. But, one mystery at a time first they had to figure out where the Botanist's club had gone. It seemed that something was keen to stop them though. A loud screech sounded throughout the room and the entire cavern for that matter. All of a sudden the giant worm monster reappeared.

"Oh no, not again!" Timothy angrily hollered at the beast. The worm ate through the walls of the structure making a hole through the bunker as if it were a tasty sandwich. The group stood, baffled by the fact that this creature had once been a human. From the black elevator a few meters away it burst through and catapulted itself at the group. Geoffrey use his powers to magnetically attract the elevator to himself, then he took Plum and Tim to the side of the room before deactivating the magnetic attraction. Once deactivated the worm went flying into the room with the elevator eventually crushing it inside. From the shock Timothy fell down. The capsule that the botanist's club once called home had been destroyed and in its place was a shining black elevator and a worm carcace.

Pulling Timothy up, Geoffrey offered his hand to their quaking bones. Luckily, the whole bunker hadn't been destroyed by the elevator as there was still a diary left lying around. As Plum grabbed it, they realized something that Geoffrey had overlooked. Not all of the worm had been crushed by the elevator. With that realization, as if it had triggered the event. One half of the worm began slithering away; chewing into another wall. "Everybody, get back to the elevator!" Plum urged, grabbing Tim's hand and charging back. But, they had overlooked the fact that there was no more elevator after what Geoffrey did. But, the worm didn't care about that.

"Chomp,"

"The Botanist's club private diary.

"I am one of the lucky few to be chosen for this experiment, but I don't think I should feel special or obliged. I am but a lab rat, this isn't some kind of mission to space and I'm not some kind of astronaut. I'm going to be stuck in a bunker with a group of scientists and researchers who care about the optimal temperature for cacti more than any basic human interaction."

Plum closed the book remembering that it wasn't the time to be reading and realized that they hadn't been eaten. But, their current predicament of getting stuck inside a giant worm mutant didn't sound all that much better to her.