The Summoner Series - Book One - DUALITY

Chapter 10: Nocturnus - A Surplus of Energy

We were crawling through the vent shafts for what seemed like ages, even though it was only about fifteen minutes, but I couldn't resist silently embellishing in my complaints. This is ridiculous. Why are we even following this guy's advice? He's clearly crazy, and it's not my fault that we ended up underground. But still, I didn't question Cain's advice. Even though there was something off about him, I was still worried that if I said the wrong thing, one of us wouldn't be crawling out of this vent.

We kept crawling through the vents with Jack taking the lead, all five of us trying to be as quiet as possible. Whenever there was a fork in the vent, Jack paused and waited for Cain to give a response on which was to go. We all tried to look at Cain and see how he knew which way to go, but all we saw was Cain placing his hand on the wall. I still couldn't see Cain's face, which didn't make me trust him anymore.

Jack continued to lead the way until Cain whispered, "Stop. We're right where we need to be." They paused over an opening in the vent where Jack could see down and into a dark office. We couldn't see anyone in there, but we could see that there was a computer monitor left on.

I said, "Ok, but one quick question: Where the hell is here?"

"Kristy's office."

"Ok, that raises another question: Who the hell is Kristy?"

"The person who brought us all here."

I fell silent once more, out of questions for the first time. Normally, I'd be all over this, but I was dumbfounded still that I didn't know that this tower even existed in my city. "Do you know Kristy?" I finally asked.

"I thought I did." Cain finished the conversation, for now. I wanted to know more about Cain, but for now I needed to get out of this cursed building. "Jack, I need you to hit that vent so we can fall into the office."

Cece politely interrupted to ask, "Uh, why do we want to get into the office of the person threatening to kill us? I thought the idea was to get out of here, not die faster."

"Because we need to get to the roof, but there isn't a direct vent to the roof without passing through metal fans that would not slow down to consider slicing and dicing all of us into a nice pulp. But, there is a way to get to the roof from Kristy's office. We just need to get to the door."

Bruce decided to add his two cents of doubt. "How do know all this? I thought you got here around the time we did."

"Just trust me. I can see where we can go and where we can't, just trust me, alright? Now stop bickering and punch in that vent cover." Cain sounded extremely annoyed with everyone asking questions about his plan. He clearly wasn't used to working with other people, but Jack just did as he was told and delivered an open palm strike to the center of the vent cover. The first strike didn't do much, but there was a visible shift the second time, and the vent cover came clear off on the third strike. Jack lowered himself legs first, followed by Cain who was just as graceful, Cece, who almost broke something as she fell on her face but transferred into a roll, the me, who was the most graceful of all, then finally Bruce, who slammed his body to the floor, landing on his feet and bracing himself with the palm of his hand to the ground.

All five of us formed a circle with our backs to each other, taking in the scenery of the office, which wasn't much to begin with. It was very dim, almost pitch black in some far corners, with no other furniture other than the desk with a tall, comfy chair behind it. Looked like home to me. Jack looked visibly uncomfortable with the humanity that the room lacked. "I don't know about you guys, but this room seems like a sociopath decorated it."

"You're not wrong. She decorated her room like this ever since she was a kid."

"You've known her since she was a kid? And she still wants to kill you?"