Rise from the ashes

Chapter 2 - The Trap

"You rescued me." I said, but when I turned to look at him again he wasn't there. I couldn't be imagining things, could I? No, there was proof, a frozen man... well teen, but just as frozen. I needed to find him. I had a lot of questions. How did he get here or what where those strange words he spoke but mainly, how is this boy ice!

Last I saw him he was over next to the fireplace. How did he get there? He wasn't there when I came in and I'm pretty sure he didn't come through the door while I was here. Then it hit me. Maybe the fireplace is a door or an old army tunnel of some sort. This house was so old it still used gas and matches. Either way it had to open.

As I approached the white washed fireplace I noticed a strange carving on the bricks just below the mantle. It looked like a shoe, or maybe a humming bird?

What if this was like a button you pushed to open the fireplace? I decided to push it. I walked over to it and put my hand on the symbol. It was warm, like there a fire behind it. When I applied pressure a dart shot out of the mantle. The dart missed me by an inch and impaled its self in the frozen teen.
O.K, don't push that again. Maybe there was another way to get in. It couldn't hurt to look.

I searched for a good thirty minutes and found nothing but a few household items like a fire poker, shovel, umbrella, seven sticks of fire wood, and a ring with a diamond in the shape of that symbol. It was beautiful. I decided to pick it up.

Could this be a trap to? If I touched it would it turn me to stone or something worse? I picked it up anyway. Nothing bad happened other than a static shock and a slight tingle in my arm.

Just then I heard a very quiet creak that sounded like it came from behind the fireplace. Strange. I was walking over there when I noticed some markings on the floor in front of the fire place. No, not markings, scratches. Why were there scratches on the floor? The scratches were curved, like rainbows with the middle of the curve touching my feet and the two bottoms touching the fireplace.

Then it hit me. The fireplace swivels! There had to be a latch or lever somewhere, but where. I looked everywhere, touched everything, careful not to touch the symbol, but nothing happened.

I was about to give up when I realized in my haste I had thrown the ring on the floor. The ring was now silently sliding towards the fireplace; I reached down and picked it up, or tried to anyway. The ring weighed close to a hundred pounds. Why was it so heavy, I couldn't even pick it up?

"I need to pick you up." I told the ring. I reached down again expecting it to be the same weight as it was and was surprised to feel how light it was. It felt just as heavy as a normal ring.

As I put it on I felt that static shock like before but it was more painful, like I touched a loose wire in a wall. The shock was so big it left my whole arm numb.

I was about to take it off when I noticed that the diamond was glowing a slight blue. As I moved it closer to the fireplace the glow got bigger. I was next to the fireplace before I knew it; the glow was as bright as a dim flashlight. I moved the ring close to the strange symbol craved in the fireplace and the ring glowed even brighter.

Oh, no. I don't like where this is going. I closed my eyes and slowly brought the ring closer. As I got within an inch or so the ring was like a magnet and stuck to the symbol. I felt a tingle in my arms and a shock wave left my arm and went into the fireplace.

Nothing happened. I waited for a few seconds then I heard a faint, "click," then the ring came of the fireplace and fell to the floor, smoking.

That was cool and stuff, but one thing still bothered me. The fireplace was still closed shut. Maybe it just needed a jump start.

I walked back to the table and took a running start the fireplace and slammed into it with my shoulder. It moved, only a little, but it still moved.

I repeated this movement four more times before it gave way to blackness. I'm going to have a sore shoulder tomorrow.
It was so dark on the other side I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. The only light was coming from the other side of the fireplace through the windows and even that was dim.
There had to be matches somewhere if there was a fire in the fireplace, and the soot on my hands told me there was. I walked back through the fireplace and noticed what I hadn't before. A box of matches next to a kerosene lamp.

I struck a match but it was so old it crumbled in my hands. I struck another and this one stayed light long enough for me to light the lamp. I walked through the wall and got a glimpse of what lay before me.it was amazing and scary at the same time.

It was a maze of traps.