Delta

Chapter Sixteen: New Tests

Adrian insisted on removing the slivers himself, and it was hard to watch as he gritted his teeth together in pain as he dug them out of the wound. 

"There." He finally panted, reaching up to push some hair away from his forehead and leaving a bloody smear instead. 

"Good. Now you just need to wrap up the wound to stop the bleeding." Amy instructed.

Adrian picked up his jacket and handed it to me. "Rip off this sleeve." He said, pointing to the torn one.

Ripping fabric was actually a lot harder than I had expected, and after a few attempts, I finally managed to tear off a long strip.

"Hold your arm out." I ordered, and Adrian slowly lifted up his arm. I gently wiped the blood around the wound away with the fabric, before carefully wrapping it around his arm.

"How does that feel?" I asked once I had tied it up. 

"It's fine." He said, grabbing his grappling glove and carefully sliding it over his hand. He then pulled his jacket on as I stood up. I offered him my hand and he accepted it, and I helped him up. He looked a little funny with only one sleeve, as the other was torn off at the elbow. 

"So, I guess it's time to address this situation." Adrian said, gesturing around the room. "This was not part of the plan." 

I looked up at the ceiling where the huge hole was where we had fallen through. "I don't think we're getting back out that way. It's way too high up and most of the floor is gone." I kicked a broken piece of wood that was lying on the ground to prove my point. 

"I guess our only option now is to go forward." Adrian said. "You know, this is exactly where Elsa wants us. We played right into her trap." 

"It definitely wasn't an accident." I agreed, then looked around the room. The ceiling above the water was much higher up, and the triangle exit door was in the wall high above us.

"How are we supposed to get up there?" Adrian mumbled, spotting the door too. 

"I saw a lever when I fell in the water." I said. "It's probably part of this test. I can go back down and pull it."

"Go and do that then." Adrian walked over to the edge. "How deep is the water anyway?"

"Maybe fifteen feet," I answered, walking over to stand beside him. 

"Okay, go down there and pull it and we'll see what happens." 

"Yay, more swimming!" Lee blurted out in excitement. I dove into the water, making sure to keep my mouth shut this time. The water wasn't as cold as I had expected, but still was colder than I would have liked. I swam straight down through the murky water. Luckily, the water was clear enough for me to see through it, or else we probably would have been stuck in the chamber for much longer while we tried to figure out what to do. 

As I swam down, the pressure was of the water grew uncomfortable and made my head hurt. I swam all the way down to the lever and grabbed it. I tried pulling it, but it seemed to be stuck. I yanked as hard as I could, but the water slowed my movements. I assumed that it was rusted stuck. I gave it a final yank and the lever grinded down with a muffled sound, as if sand was grinding around inside.

As soon as the lever was pulled down, I shot back up and burst through the surface, startling Adrian.

"I pulled the lever down." I said, swimming up to the wall. "Did it do anything?" 

Adrian pointed up to the door. "Yeah, it made that platform come out of the wall." I looked up to see a white platform had slid out of the wall just beneath the door, like he had seen.