Elizabeth POV
I looked down the empty hallway and internally groaned. Every path looked identical. I was lost again. I hated being lost in here, anything could happen. This morning I had managed to sneak out of my room in hope of finding the "vault". Not that I knew much about it. Tabby had said that it wasn't hard to find but I had a rubbish sense of direction. It had only taken Tabby 20 minutes to get there and back. Turning the corner, I bumped into something solid. My first thought was A but then I looked up. Great. Mom.
"Beth, what are you doing?" she whispered
"Looking for treasure!" I replied. I didn't like to lie but to be honest, 90% of the time it produced a better response than telling the truth. Besides, Tabby didn't want the adults to know about the "vault".
"Look Beth, you can't leave our room during the day. I need to know where you are. Carmen manages to stay put and entertain herself." Mom had learnt early on that it was no use trying to get the truth out of me. It was hopeless!
I followed her back to the room and took one look back at the hallway. Us girls didn't normally venture out, unless it was to go to each others rooms. Every day our moms had to leave us behind to "keep us safe" but we could visit each other, if when the alarm went off we stopped playing and went back to our rooms.
I saw my twin Carmen sitting on Mom's bed, drawing in her notebook. We had a notebook each, and a pencil. Apart from that, we had to make our own entertainment.
"Beth, you missed your favourite game. Ava won again but it was still fun. I beat Ruth though!" giggled Carmen.
Great. I'd gotten caught exploring and missed out on playing Irish Snap. Tabby had found a pack of cards and begged Aunty Hanna to teach her to play. We had drawn up a leader board last year and played every week. Ava was the best at it. Ruth would be great, but she always ended up losing focus and having to pick up. Despite her interest in cars, Tabby wasn't great either. But that might be something to do with her only being six...
At that moment the bell chimed and a paper bag fell through the flap in the door. Mom picked it up and gave me and Carmen our dinner before opening the bottle of water and passing it round. I took a few sips and then passed it to Carmen who gulped it down greedily before Mom gave her a stern look and she stopped. Meals were always the same around here. Two small slices of bread without butter, a square of cheese and a slice of apple. It wasn't much, but at the end of the day, it was all we had. On our birthdays, we would be given an extra slice of bread with jam and a packet of raisins instead of the apple.
"Girls, get into bed quickly please" called Mom from the other side of the room. She had a box in her hand with a note. I noticed her go pale when she read the note, looked at Carmen, and we scrambled into bed.
Up to two years ago, we hadn't realized that this place was dangerous. Sure, "A" was scary but nothing had ever happened to us. Ever. Then Auntie Emily hadn't got to her room in time and the next day, Zoey was missing. It had taken three weeks to get her back and in that time we realized that we needed to get out of here.