Runaway (first 8 chapters)

Chapter 8

"A vibrant attic room," said Mia, upon entering the room. "A dead end," Grace groaned. There was nowhere to go. Crates and landry piles, dirty towels and woven baskets. A small rock, with similar properties to the stone plate. "Or is it?" Mia inquired with a smirk, obviously with knowledge Grace didn't have. "Oh come on, I said to stop speaking in riddles!" Mia only smiled in return and picked up the rock. Grace could see, looking more closely, that it no ordinary rock, but an octagonal black token, carved with an eye. Mia put it in her knapsack. Then she looked at the remaining three paintings. "Grace, do you see water here?" She spoke with a smile, so Grace figured there was no wrong answer. "The second one," she chose. Its main color was blue - the floor was blue, the windows were blue, the walls, the glass, the curtains, the chairs, folders, candelabra - all blue. No direct bodies of water, though. "A room of Reflections, huh? It's deep in the forest, I know, and that's a common place to be trapped...but let us go anyway." Grace froze, scared she'd made a mistake, but Mia confidently pulled out a thick notebook from the pocket of her knapsack. "A hundred pages..." she whispered, sliding her hand along the cover. "One's findings on the labyrinth. Nothing is of good use, but it tells a story of someone who might still be surviving - the Figure, perhaps?" "Who's the figure?" asked Grace, though she received no reply in return. Mia flipped through the journal to a certain page and held it to the painting.

"What would you call that kind of...travel?" asked Grace. She had no words for the feeling she would never grow used to. "I usually call it, star plus warp - stwarp," Mia grinned. Grace burst into laughter. "That's as bad as the...what was it? Bahedifo...something!" Mia laughed as well. She leaned against a table and raised an eyebrow. "Where to next? I'll leave it to you. The Reflection Passage has many doors." Grace realized, other than paintings and passageways, there was a trap door leading deeper down. The two singers climbed down the steps into an exotic bunker. There were computers, their screens turned on, but they held no power - tall, glass rectangles of water, but its air bubbles and seaweed staying in one place, like a picture. It was as if someone had taken a picture and pasted it all around every wall and floor and ceiling. Nothing was real, but it was all right there...and couldn't possibly be a dream. Grace heard a soft crackling sound. "A portable radio," said Mia. "Always phoning in for mission control. If that's close, the agent must be too." "Agent? Do you mean Golden?" "No - call the agent, another person I mean to save from the labyrinth." "Then? Where is Golden?" "I don't know! Have you seen a single source of water in any of these paintings?!" "No..." Mia looked deep in thought. "That token we found...it had an eye on it. I'm sure it belongs to the organization. The base we just went to. In the desert, in the real world? The room of Eyes. We'll head there." "I don't think these are the ones we're looking for then," said Grace, gesturing to the three framed artworks with nothing significantly important about the painted eye, if there was one. "Then we'll keep moving," said Mia, walking through a passageway past the smaller computer. As they entered the next room, a bell sounded. "Shoot!" Mia shouted as she quickly turned around. Grace did the same, and saw the doorway they had just gone through vanish and the wall repair itself around it, like it had never been there. "Woah..." "The doomsday bell, has rung. The countdown, most likely begun. That's definitely targetting me," Mia grumbled. She looked at the rest of the room. "And that almost had us, too." There wasn't another door. Only a portable radio and two paintings. "How do we-!" "The paintings are our only means of escape now. As long as we do not need the help of the Figure, we should be fine. Now, about that agent." As Mia walked towards the radio, Grace said, "Hey...what was that bell?" It was already cold in the wonderful bunker - the bell's ringing had sent a shiver down her spine. Mia paused and turned to face her. "The doomsday bell. A warning call, and a way for the monster to trap you in. Or perhaps, the Overseer, or even the Figure." "Every question brings a new question," Grace groaned, her brain overwhelmed with all the new information. "You'll grow to appreciate it, in time. Like the author of this journal." Mia looked at the colorful Egyptian painting. "I myself have been to the Source two times - I still do not see the labyrinth through her perspective. A treasure, to preserve...for a place that is worth gold, but only sold for copper? I do not see her point, is what I am trying to say." "Also...you're suddenly speaking real formal now..." "Am I? Well, that doesn't matter." Mia went back to investigating the paintings. "All these pictures...they all have Cats in them. A bunker of Cats, I suppose, that's where we are. Now, why don't you pick up the radio and if need be, we'll move to the room of Hats through that." She pointed to the colorful Egyptian painting again. Grace cautiously moved towards the radio. She recognized the buttons from years of backstage experience and held her finger on the green one, speaking into the microphone, "Hello? Hello!" No answer. "...It doesn't seem to be working." She stepped back, only to hear the speaker phone making more static noise. "Is it now?" Mia smirked, her eyebrow raised. Grace spoke into the microphone again. "Hello? I can hear you?" "Control? Is that Control?" a voice said from the speaker. It was muffled by layers of static and Grace couldn't hear the bits and ends of it. "Who's there?" she tried asking. "...Gone south...no one left...extraction!" Now the voice was completely cutting out, and Grace was struggling to form words out of the incoherent buzzing sounds. "Who is this?" she asked again. "...No escape...Dances!" The line goes dead. Grace tried to get more out of the mysterious voice, but to no avail. "Give it up," Mia sighed. "Never figured out about that agent. Threatened me with a gun first thing she saw me." She looked at the paintings once more decisevely. "Now, you choose. A room of Hats," she gestured to the Egyptian painting, "or a room of Columns." She gestured to the second painting, a cheetah with a woman's head caressing a man. "Caresses", it was called. "One I am familiar with but cannot name as one of the original pieces of the timeline we were once trapped within." "Again, that formal tone," Grace muttered, barely understanding a word. "Choose." "Uh...Columns? A place we can explore, and try finding something...new..." She stopped talking at seeing Mia's disapproving face. After a while, the demon spoke, "Mmm, okay, that is fine. Let us stwarp to the room of Columns." Grace couldn't help but giggle at the silly name being repeated as the painting enlarged and swallowed them whole.

The Garden of Columns. Finally, Grace could smell fresh air and feel the warm sunlight on her skin again. It felt nice to be outdoors. But...the air, it was dense. It felt as heavy as lead, and as cold as the back of a refrigerator. And the sunlight, it was not real. It held no warmth. "Lamps, lights, in the sky," she whispered, looking up at the blank white space, watching clouds slowly pass by. "The journal's author once wrote," Mia started slowly, "that it was a great crime for its creators to hoard this place for themselves. That something like this should be shared with the world." Grace thought of the art gallery show that was only in a few days and realized the author spoke the truth. One couldn't help but admire how every piece of artwork broke what limited rules humans created to classify the assets of reality, while in the Forever Labyrinth, it was no surprise to come across a cement block of white color balancing on only one corner, staying as still as stone. Hedge trees cut in a twisting pattern, swirling to the top. Tiles forming disorganized squares on the ground, neatly trimmed bushes, angels whose eyes seemed to follow you wherever you walked, rolling hills in the distance that gave Grace a false sense of freedom, though she knew if she attempted to run to the other side, she would only end up at the beginning at the end. Three columns, and three paintings for each one. Archways on both opposing walls, leading to more gardens and hedge mazes. "This painting, Eyebrows," Mia mused, moving towards the second one. She opened the journal and pointed at the page. "I found myself in a room of Eyebrows standing in front of one of the greatest paintings of all time," Grace read aloud. "Eyebrows...might lead us to eyes," said Mia excitedly. "Unlikely," Grace wanted to say, though she didn't know where that thought had come from. It was too late, as Mia had already held the page to the painting and it was absorbing them into its colorful environment.