The Jewels; Mother of Pearl (#ABA2017)

Chapter Twenty Two

Lola continued to fall until she hit the road below. Almost immediately, Lola woke with another jolt of adrenaline and fear. Lola was huffing and puffing as she sat there, waiting for all the fear of falling to pass... it took a lot longer then she thought it would.

"I...I gotta find Annika..." Lola breathed as she got to her wobbly feet, "I... I gotta get the pearl..." Lola continued to softly babble on until she managed to stand up without knocking something over.

Lola slowly opened the door and looked down the hall; she didn't know how long that daydream had lasted for.

Lola walked down the hallway; the sound of those kids still haunted her; their screams of fear, their cries of agony... did Annika have to go through that?

'Annika is fine,' Lola thought as she managed to get down the hallway and looked down two other possible routes, 'She's probably a lot more stubborn then I think she is. If she's lasted this long and hasn't turned into... whatever those things are, she should last a little longer.'

The keys continued to jingle in her pocket as she awkwardly jogged down the hallway. Where could Annika be?

She knew she was 'with them' but where are 'them'?

Were they in the hospital?

Or were they somewhere in town?

Lola continued walking the empty hallways, every now and then having a panic attack when she heard footsteps. At one point, Lola heard running feet coming near her. She gasped as she ran to the closest door, but it was locked. Lola pulled out the keys and looked at them as they clinked with each other. She stared at the door, it was a thick, wooden one, it's dark brown wood seemed old with age and the hinges and door handle was covered in bronze rust.

The key hole was massive!

Lola started going through the keys frantically until she found several bulbous keys on the key ring. She slammed them into the locks, only to have four out of five of them not fit, be too big, if that's possible, or not big enough. Lola suddenly heard her name, Lola froze as she turned and saw Dr Jones further down the hallway running with the other doctor and the nurses.

Lola screamed as she managed to fit the key into the lock, opened it and managed to close it shut just as Dr Jones and the other adults slammed themselves against the wall and was pulling at the door handle without too much success. The door's rusty age, made it easier for Lola to lock if from the inside because of it's lack of willingness to open.

As soon as the door was locked, Lola took a step back... but there wasn't anything to step onto.

The ground disappeared from her feet and she fell backwards, her back hit some of the stairs as she fell, she was forced to do some backflips and was soon rolling down the stairs on her side and at some point on her stomach with her chin hitting every possible stair.

Lola's feet soon rested on the ground with her head resting on one of the stairs. A loud groan escaped her lips as she slowly managed to standing up, hands on her lower back as if she was an old woman. She wanted to cry, really badly, but she didn't give herself much time to mull over the pain that was rushing up her back and the headache that thumped behind her eyes.

"Brilliant start, Lola," Lola grumbled as she turned around and looked for some other way out, "Great start."

Lola was looking for some window. But all that was in the room were shelf, after shelf, after shelf of... shelves. Each one seemed to have objects in it from teddy bears to wallets to jewellery to books to phones. All the shelfs were reinforced with a thick layer of glass as protection, with the only way to get to the objects was to unlock the door and open the shelf.