Welcome to Hell {Prinxiety}

Chapter 13

Virgil's POV

One thing I noticed, or rather failed to notice until now was that Roman wasn't wearing the locket. It kinda hurt when I noticed that, not gonna lie, but it couldn't be that hard to find. I couldn't remember if he had the locket when we tried to escape, and it would certainly make things easier if he hadn't. My only hope to get his memory back would be by reminding him of well, everything. The locket would be pretty helpful when it came to that.

It was still nighttime, so I climbed out of bed slowly and waited on the floor for a solid minute. When no one woke up and complained, I decided that everyone was still asleep. I move on silent feet over to the general area of the wall safe, pressing lightly on different parts of the wall.

The telltale click sounds and a section of the wall seems to swing open. I poke around the safe, finding first a small book, my journal. It could come in handy when I try to jog Roman's memory, it'd be hard to deny that all of this happened. And much as I'd love to read through all of my old embarrassing writings right now and assess how helpful they'd be, I move it to the side in favor of searching for a small silver locket and its key. Well, I find one of them which is good enough for now I guess.

I hold up the key, checking it over as if it wouldn't be the right one. At least my stupid a$$ forgot to bring it with me during my escape, because I sure as hell would've forgotten it at home. So, I still have to find the locket, well I don't have to but it'd probably be easier to fix Roman with it. I'm gonna need anything that might return his memories so having the locket couldn't hurt, not him anyway.

I put away the key and close the door to the wall safe, deciding to at least attempt to get a good night's sleep, or any sleep at all. I climb back up the ladder to my bunk, passing out only minutes after I hit the pillow, new record.

- - -

After only what has to be like five minutes later, we're all given the wake-up call by someone's flintlock. I reluctantly climb down, not having any other reasonable option. Well, if the guards here were remotely reasonable then we wouldn't be waking up this early in the morning. I follow everyone else out to a newer strip of the mine, immediately getting to work. It would have been nice to have access to the crevice from yesterday, but I seriously doubt that I could get to it undetected even if we were in the same part of the mine.

It's not long before the relative peace is disturbed. A kid is shoved in here crying, and the guards yell at him to get back to work. Patton must have rubbed off on me because I go over and help him up. In retrospect, it wasn't the smartest idea ever, but it wasn't uncommon for us to help out the younger kids a bit.

"Th-they took the photo o-of my family, it was all I had left of th-them," He chokes out.

I pulled him over to where I was working, "Shh, I know it sucks but you have to calm down before you get in even more trouble," He's about to protest and I can't let him do that, "What's your name? I'm Virgil."

"Jacob, but why does that matter?" Jacob asks as he grabs a pickaxe.

"If we're gonna talk for a bit then I might as well know your name," That and I hoped it would distract you so you didn't do something stupid.

"I thought we weren't allowed to talk," He says, looking confused and a bit scared.

"Then what are we doing right now?" I ask, "As long as we don't look suspicious the guards won't really care. Try as they might, they can't really stop us from talking to one of the newer kids after they've gotten in trouble," That was true enough, I just had to hope the guards wouldn't be annoyed by us talking, "What did they do to you?"

He sniffs, "They put me in this really dark room and said that slaves don't own anything so they took a picture of my family and put it in this large box near the room. Why would they even want the picture?" A large lost-and-found box in the hallway of nightmares eh?

"They took the picture so that you didn't have it, it makes them feel like they're stronger than us. So they feel like they're in control of us because if they're not, then that might mean bad things for them," I tell him.

He stares at me for a second, "You sound so wise," He says quietly, and I now understand why Patton adopts every child he sees.

"Uh, thanks?" I say, not sure how to respond to the compliment. Except for my time with Logan and Patton, compliments were so rare that I'd always get flustered by them.

The conversation ends and we get back to work, deciding not to tempt fate any further. I'm sure there's some way to get to the box, since that's probably where the locket is. Or at least it's my only lead as to where they would have put it since I doubt that they could have sold it without the key.

So if I could find a way back there without getting caught, I could get the locket. Problem is, getting in and out of there without running into a single guard bringing in a kid or taking them out of one of the cells back there is going to be impossible. From what I remember of my last visit to that area, there are a couple people standing guard but once you're inside the hallway it's basically empty. It adds to the atmosphere I guess, or the guards just got sick of hearing us scream. So I'd have to get past those two guards at the entrance to the hallway without raising suspicion somehow...

Call me Roman, because I just got a stupid idea. 

A/N: This probably isn't nearly as mysterious as I first thought