Okay, who here is really tired?"
Almost everyone raised their hands as Nazz jumped from the door and let her back slide against the wall until she was sitting down in the white room.
"I may not have a watch, but I'm pretty sure we've spent the day in this place. I think we should all get some shuteye before we continue." Edd said as he sat down too. The rest of the kids agreed and joined them. After a moment, Sarah jerked her head as if she had an idea and grabbed Ed's foot. Under his shoe was a small clock, the glass cracked from being stepped on repeatedly. The face depicted a cartoony version of Eddy, his arms being the small and big hands used to tell the time.
"It's around 10:24." she said.
"At least he's good for something." Nazz remarked, earning a cold look from Sarah and May.
Edd sat down near a corner, staring blankly at one of the white panels that covered the room. Despite being a deadly, life-size rat maze made for god-knows-what, Edd thought, it was quite an architectural technological wonder. The ladders wrapped all around the room, outlining the edges of each door to split each wall into nine squares. The door made up the middle square while the rest were bisected again with metal strips, making 32 panels on each wall surrounding the doors. Each panel was covered in intricate geometric designs; circles, triangles, and other various shapes were imprinted on each panel. Each panel differed slightly from another, though the different walls were all identical. They almost looked like silhouettes of a large circuit board, but they were more solid than they looked. For some reason, upon closer inspection, the panels almost looked familiar to Edd. As if he'd seen them before.
"So much for being near an edge." Kevin remarked.
"Huh?"
"Back at that red room where we found the Kankers, you said we might be near an edge." he said.
"Oh. For a moment, I thought that the numbers were coordinates, of sorts. That each number represented an X, Y, and Z position. But none of the adjacent rooms have corresponding numbers that would show they were next to each other; they were completely random." Edd said.
"I'm glad, actually." Nazz said. "I think I remember in math class a little about coordinates. If the numbers were positions, then wouldn't there be like a thousand rooms on each side of this place?"
"Yes, Nazz. In fact, there would have to be exactly one billion rooms in this place if there were a thousand on each side." Edd said. The crestfallen expression that appeared on half of the kids' faces and the shocked expression that appeared on the other half told Edd he wasn't lightening the mood. "However," he said, "as I have said before, the numbers aren't coordinates. I highly doubt that anyone, even the government, would have enough money or space to construct a billion-room death machine."
"Still, the numbers do play some kind of role in this place. Double-D proved that safe rooms never have a number that is prime, though the trapped rooms are a bit more complicated." Nazz said.
"Will you guys shut up? All this talk of numbers is making my head hurt. And I wanna go to sleep!" Eddy shouted, followed by a few nods of approval by the other kids. Though the room was brightly lit, the kids were exhausted. One-by-one, they all started to fall asleep.
"Hello Father."
"Greetings, Eddward. How are you?"
"I'm just dandy, thank you. Have you seen mother?"
"She's still at work."
"Oh. Hey, father, what are those?"
"I'm not entirely sure myself, Eddward. My boss gave me the blueprints to construct them and ordered me to do so."
"They look like panels of some sort."
"Good eye, Eddward. But these are quite strange panels; I have to install all of these hinges and openings in the back. Apparently these designs are supposed to conceal something."
"Strange. Hey, why are they all green?"
"Another question I have not the answer to. I asked my boss and all she said was that they come in green, white, red, orange, and blue."
"That's a strange color scheme."
"Indeed."
"How many do you have to make?"
"Quite a few. I was promised a large raise for doing this; I have to make four-hundred and thirty-six sets of these things. And I have to make thirty-two of them for each set."
"That sounds like a lot of work!"
"It is. Fortunately though, I have a few years to complete this assignment."
"What are they all for?"
"I'm not quite sure."
Edd shot up from his sleep to find himself covered in sweat and breathing heavily. The room still glowed, bright as ever, but everyone else was still asleep.
What was that? Edd thought. He slowly gathered up the memory of his dream which shattered for a moment when he woke up. He took another look at one of the wall panels. As his memory started getting clearer and clearer, Edd was more and more certain they were the same panels he saw in his dream.
"Father......Why?" he said quietly to himself as he slumped up to a wall. Edd never knew much about the company his father had worked for. He never talked about it. Once Edd had let the curiosity get the better of him and he pestered his father to know about his job. After he couldn't take it anymore, his father simply said, "It's a place called Izon. Now if you keep bothering me about it, I'll take away your labeler." After that, Edd had asked no more questions.
Edd sat there up against the wall, trying to find a rational explanation. But tears kept running down his face and he felt as if a rock was being shoved down his throat. He let a few sobs escape his mouth, a bit more loud than he had hoped. He tried so hard to keep silent that he didn't see Nazz crawl up next to him.
"It's okay, Double-D. We'll find a way out of here." she said, surprising him.
"Oh, I didn't mean to wake you." Edd said, quickly wiping his face off with his shirt.
"It's okay. Ed's foot-watch says its like 9:30 anyway."
"Oh my, we've slept in!" Nazz chuckled at Edd's comment, though he didn't tell her he was serious. A minute later the other kids started getting up, yawning and stretching.
"O-okay. Let's get back on track" Kevin said as he rubbed his eyes.
That boy is dead set on getting out of here, Edd thought. I don't blame him though.
The kids made their way through a few rooms, being held up occasionally by Ed.
"Hungry......hungry......hungry....." he mumbled, much to the other's annoyance.
"Shut the hell up already!" Eddy whined.
"Language, Eddy." Edd said, casting a glance over to his friend. "We're all hungry, but there's nothing we can eat here."
"Except each other." Eddy remarked as he climbed through the door.
"Eddy! I'd rather die than resort to cannibalism. The mere thought of it...." Edd shuddered and made a face of disgust.
The group found themselves in an orange room with traps on all three sides and above. They opened the door below to find a blue room. Edd checked the numbers, shoed it, and tossed in one of May's hairs. Nothing.
"Alright, let's go!" Before Kevin could slip himself into the hole, long spikes suddenly projected from the walls of the blue room on all sides. They waited, fully extended, for a second before retracting back into the walls, the circle designs on the panels sliding back into place to conceal them.
"What the?" Eddy asked right before the spikes filled the room once more. The kids all looked in to the hole. Ed made one of his usual noises and the spike trap suddenly activated. After the spikes retracted again, Edd slapped the floor of the room and they sprang right back.
"Sound activated." Kevin mumbled as he let the door slide back into place. "I guess we'll have to backtrack." The kids agreed, but just as they were about to get to the door another rumbling shook them and knocked them off of their feet. After it started to fade, a second rumbling sounded and abruptly stopped.
"That's starting to get annoying." Eddy remarked as he opened the door. To the kids' surprise, however, instead of the green room that was once there there was now a red room. Edd climbed up and shoed it, activating an acid shooter. Nervous, he quickly checked all of the other doors. They were all trapped.
"How is that possible?" Edd shouted. Below them the kids could hear the faint sound of the spikes in the room below activating. "The room we came through is gone!"
"You mean we're trapped in here?" Nazz exclaimed, shaking. The kids slumped to the floor. "We're dead." she said quietly. After a while, Kevin crawled toward the bottom door and opened it again. The kids quietly crawled towards him.
"What are you doing?" Eddy whispered.
"We have to cross through here." Kevin replied quietly. "It's the only possible way out."
"Are you crazy?" Nazz whispered frantically.
"It's crazy, but now it's the only way out." Edd said.
"Hmm...." Whispered Marie. "Close the door again."
"Why?"
"Just do it." Kevin let go of the handle, letting the door slide back into place.
"What is it?"
"I wanna see something." Marie turned the handles quickly and violently jerked the door up and over. She looked into the blue room, which was empty of spikes. "It seems to ignore the noisy opening of the door." she said.
"Then that settles it then." Kevin said. "We gotta go through."