A Chaotic but Perfect World: In the Epping Forest

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After embracing each other for several minutes, they released.
Eyes glared at each other, tearily, and silence still kinged. He took her hands in his and exhaled before pronouncing.
-What's the next page?
She sniffed and took the diary, turning the next page. It was cut with several other pages under it, a  rectangular hole was created and a scarlet tissue at the very bottom. It was dry.
-I don't remember doing that...
Oliver said softly and took his diary from her hands, gently.
He brought it closer to his face and smelled it.
-This is blood. It smells like blood.
Her wet eyes turned to his.
-What does it mean? Are you sure you haven't done this?
He shook his head.
-After the...suicide attempts, I was...taken to a mental hospital under the name of a schizophrenic and I couldn't have written anything else. The diary wasn't with me. It stayed at the orphanage. For 2 years. In that very drawer.
Tears began filling his eyes up again.
-And I hid the keys in that teddy bear. It wasn't mine. I borrowed someone else's. I always put my diary inside that drawer, locked it, then hid the key in that teddy bear's head. It used to be separate, the head and the body. I used to cut the stitches of the head, hide the key inside and stitch it back, but that kid never noticed, because his teddy bear was always decapitated, and he never wanted to stitch it together, because his mother promised to do it after returning from work, but never came back home, because she died in a car crash. He still hoped, that one day, she'll return and stitch it back together. Of course, she never came.
Serly listened carefully.
He exhaled heavily as tears fell.
-Fuck, I'm so tired of crying...
His whisper flew out from his mouth.
She wiped his tears away.
-What now?
Oliver looked at her sadly.
-I don't know. I really don't.
She sighed.
-Maybe red means something. Remember when we were solving the riddles and the lights were different colors? Maybe red represents one of them and so it's the same riddle?
He shrugged.
-Maybe. Who was red?
After pondering and reflecting, she answered.
-I think it was the old hag and the young woman. They had some kind of a dark history together, well, at least that's what Emily theorized. The answer was...which side?
-Left, the one when you said it might mean metaphorically or literally...so, what's on the left here? Now? Also, which left, exactly?
Serly shook her head.
-It's too unspecific...this can't be the right answer.
He sighed. Unwittingly, he ran his fingers over the tissue, and the redness began to clear off.
-Whoa. One minute.
He kept doing it faster, until all that was left was a dirty tissue with something written on it in red and a piece of red stone under it.
-What does it say?
She asked hopefully.
-"Reflections are keys to escape these". Hmm...reflections?
Oliver thought.
-So what does "these" mean?
Serly asked.
-That's a word chosen to confuse us. The answer's mirrors. But how...?
He took the stone.
-And what's the meaning of this?
They stood up. He walked towards the mirror.
-What are you going to do?
She questioned.
-I don't know. Just try and see if something happens with the mirror and the stone.
The red stone in his hand sparkled from his touch and a red light hit the mirror, but didn't return. A portal got opened in the mirror.
Both of them looked at each other.
-A-are you sure this is safe? It's not a trap or anything?
Serly gently asked him.
Oliver exhaled.
-We would've known if we had drones with us, but now...our only option is jumping straight in and see for ourselves.
He carefully entered his head into the portal and took it out.
-It's just another room. I didn't see any threat. You ready?
She hesitantly and timidly nodded.
-But I've got one thing to get done.
Oliver walked back and kneeled down, taking his diary. Unexpectedly, he pulled out and destroyed the pages, one by one, until they were the size of germs. They rained on the floor, laid dead. Finally, the source of his tears were expelled from life.
Serly came and rested her hands and head on his shoulder.
His hand reached for hers.
-There...it's over. Time to start life from a new page.
She smiled at him.
Their hands joined and together they hopped inside the portal, having a rough landing. The mirror in this new room immediately faded away.
The walls were beige, dirty and clearly antique. There was one old, broken bed with a dirty, dead white mattress, the legs were metallic. The floor was wooden, but not taken care of. There were pictures hanging on the walls, all with broken frames. Next to the bed, there was a bedside table, shattered glasses and bottles of alcoholic drinks on it and the unclear mirror. A broken, empty wooden wardrobe was against the wall. A tiny window with bars was placed high, at the edge of the wall.
-Do you think we're supposed to do the same thing? I mean, try to open a portal with the gem?
She asked and got a shrug as an answer.
-Worth a try.
Again, a red light shot out and opened a portal. He looked inside, but only saw the place they just left a while ago.
-No. I think each room leads to another one, but they all have keys, which are the gems. The red one is for the nursery, we need to find another one, that's for the next room.
Both got to work of searching for keys. They looked under the mattress, inside the bottles, on the legs of the bed, inside the drawers, but all were empty.
-Weird. You think it might be up there?
He pointed at the high placed window.
-I don't know, but I have a feeling it's not there.
She answered skeptically.
-Go back and carry me, let me try to see if there's something, anything, up there.
Serly continued.
Oliver obeyed. Her eyes went over to the hills and far away, but all that she could see, was the unoccupied stand, like a desert, just dirt and who knows what else.
-No, nothing.
He put her back down.
-Then where could it be? We looked everywhere!
After the exclamation, he got an idea.
-What if it isn't just gems or stones, but could be anything else too, as long as it's a piece of a solid object? Like the pieces of glass?
Immediately he chased after the shattered bottles and picked a random piece, shoving it in front of the mirror. A green light rose out too fast and a new portal opened up.
-This was much easier than the other one.
To himself he confessed.
-Come on.
Taking her hand, Oliver jumped into the portal, which, as the earlier one did, closed down.
They fell on a large bed, modern and white as the clouds of a sunny day and soft as a freshly mowed grass. The walls didn't take up as much space in the room as the huge, rectangular windows did. The floor was marble, black, and just like in the prior rooms, it had a wardrobe, a bedside table, but this time, it had only a lamp on it with a big round head. The mirror was in front of the bed, large and clear as a diamond.
-What is this? The white house?
Oliver exclaimed, making Serly chuckle.
They got off the bouncy bed.
-So there's a window. This means every portal leads us to a higher room. We're probably on the second floor now, if we count the nursery room as the ground floor.
She observed.
-You're right...which is strange. I thought the room with the tortured people had to be underground. Logically, I mean, it's better for them to hide the noise and possibility of getting found. Do you think we have done something wrong?
Confused faces broke out.
-I don't know...do you think we should search the drawers now? Maybe after this, we'll go underground?
He shrugged.
-Maybe. Let's conti-
Serly pulled him, causing him to fall down and she lied next to him, on the floor.
She shushed him.
Oliver turned his face to the right, where the spacey window was, and saw a white haired man in a black suit standing outside. His heart skipped a beat.
The white man made eye contact with him and smirked. He brought his finger to his lips, silencing his doubts, and walked away elegantly. Oliver couldn't see him anymore.
His breathing got faster.
-He's gone, come on.
He said and helped Serly stand up.
-Was that...?
-Yeah, it was. It was Hemsworth. And he knows exactly what he's doing. And yeah, we're on the right path, this is where we're supposed to be now.
In a breath, he answered her shy question.
She stood there frozen. Eyes slowly began showing a clearer reflection of everything in front of her and her heart raced against time. Oliver stepped closer and his arms, like ice around an oasis, surrounded her. Lips serenely ordered her thoughts "winds, be still" and they did, just by the power of believing.
-We're close to the finals...
She whispered, trembling, yet with a smile, a smile that embraced fear and pain.
-Serly...my love...know that there's nothing to be afraid of. We can fight against whatever might come in our way. I've got you and you've got me, there's nothing that can stop us, but you just have to believe that. Come on, we've got several steps to do and it's showtime. You in?
She wiped her tears away.
-Alright...I-I'm in...
He kissed her lips and calmly broke away.
-I love you.
Serly smiled shivering and turned to the other angles of the room.
-I love you too...
Her legs went on and kneeled, opening the drawer. A box of tubes with colorful liquid in it was inside. She took out one and examined it.
-I don't know why, but this looks familiar...
Oliver confessed.
She nodded in agreement.
-It is. It's the Retinetia potion.
He squinted.
-The recording potion used by witches and wizards in the past, that were killed? The one with unknown ingredients, but theories said had suffering and pain as parts of it? So he did bring these from the past. How can we watch or hear or gain whatever it information it has?
-Uhhh...It only noted how to put the thoughts or memories inside, but never how to get the information...I remember it said something, that to put the thoughts inside, we had to use some breath keeping potion and put our head in the potion or something...do you think it's the same for gaining the information?
Oliver shrugged.
-I don't know. Maybe. But do we have that potion here somewhere?
He began looking for the potion between each tube and bottle. Although they were dusty, he managed to find one with a name written on it.
-Camsirvatvs splrltvs...huh?
Serly took out that bottle and tried to clean away the dirt.
-Conservatus spiritus.
They glared at each other.
-I mean, the name sounds familiar, so I think this is it.
She said.
-Yeah, besides, consevatus in Latin means to keep, while spiritus means soul, otherwise breath, since there's no soul without breath.
He added.
Her laughter suddenly bloomed.
-T-that's the more logical reason...I guess this is the difference between Ni and Ti...
-Oh, this is exactly the difference. But there's also Ne here, didn't you notice? How I connected the words and all.
Serly nodded enthusiastically.
-Well, then...I guess we have to take this one and put the Retinetia in some cauldron, which doesn't seem to exist in this room. Any suggestions where we can put this potion?
He looked around the room.
-In the drawer...no, no, no, no, no, no, in that lamp's head. Seriously.
She squinted.
-Or we can go back to the other rooms and take something from there. Was there anything close to a cauldron there?
Oliver shrugged.
-Meh, don't think so. But that lamp's head will work just fine, if you listen to me.
She happily sighed.
-Well, fine, let's take that, then.
He went and excitedly removed the head of the lamp.
-There. Now, how do we take the Conservatus Spiritus?
-Uhh...how much was it? Just a drop? A whole bottle? Or half of it?
Oliver furrowed his eyebrows.
-Let's just...take a bit of it. I don't know how much it was...I'm not a bloody chef...Do you want to take it first or second?
-I'm better with first.
He snickered.
-Ah, classic Serly, always trying to be number one.
She giggled.
-You had to joke now? While I had to drink?
-At least not during drinking...
His sarcastic faces lightened up the mood and even earned him a peck on his cheek.
-Alright...no more jokes. Fill the lamp head with the Retinetia.
He obeyed, while she drank a small amount of the potion.
She lended it to him, and he gulped it too.
-There. Now, let's see what we've got to find out...
And they both drowned their faces in the potion.