Chapter 11

The three boys stayed in a surprised silence for a moment. There were doors, thousands of doors. There were four extremely long corridors in front of them and they were all filled with doors. Hiroshi had no idea where to go. The only thing he knew is that one of them would lead them to the exit. He couldn't help but wonder what the exit would be like. Would it be stairs, a long tunnel, just another door, nothing at all? He pushed the thoughts away. He shouldn't think about that now, he had to concentrate on finding the good door before.

He went to the door between the first and second hallway before turning the knob that blocked, telling the teen the door was locked. The gray-haired somehow felt relieved. If a good portion of the doors was locked, it would take less time to search each room and they would find the exit faster. Unless... What if the exit was hidden behind one of these locked doors? It would mean they'd have to look for a key to open the door leading to the exit. The teen pushed a grunt back in his throat, knowing complaining wouldn't change anything. He noticed the door he just tried to open had a silver keyhole on it. He shot a quick glance around the different hallways. He saw that almost every door had a keyhole on it. He joined Kazuya and Takeshi who had stayed behind.

"So, where do we start?" asked the gray-haired to the other two.

Takeshi shrugged.

"As long as we find the exit in the end, I'm fine."

The two teens looked at Kazuya who didn't seem to have heard them. He stared at his hands that were way darker than usual. Hiroshi knelt next to his brother.

"What happened to your hands?" asked a very concerned teen, taking the child's hands.

"Ryota forced them in a fire." said the boy. "Then, he threw the sharp thing and leaped on me. We fell and… and…"

The silver-haired stopped for a second.

"I… I swear it was an accident!" he exclaimed.

The two teens stayed silent for a short moment. So he really was the one who killed Ryota. Weird but true. Hiroshi put his hands on Kazuya's shoulders.

"But of course it was!" he said, "You're okay and that's all what matters."

The child nodded and Hiroshi stood up. He then looked at Takeshi.

"Don't take this personal…" he requested, talking about that last line he said.

The blonde shook his head.

"I would've said the same thing to my sister."

"You have a sister?" asked Kazuya.

That's when the older boys remembered they talked about her while the child was asleep.

"Yeah." Takeshi answered, passing a hand behind his neck.

"What's her name? Maybe I know her."

"She lives in another city." interrupted the gray-haired, "I highly doubt you know her!"

"Misaki." answered Takeshi, "That's her name."

The boy was about to ask how she looked like but he stopped when he saw the blonde's sad expression and looked away, feeling like he shouldn't have asked that.

"... We should get going..." finally said Hiroshi, breaking the silence and taking his brother's hand.

"... Yeah..." quietly let out Takeshi, quickly blinking away some tears.

They started with the first corridor. The couple of doors they went in were some empty room with a table or a chair as the only furniture. Heck, one of them had a noose ready to use! They were all quite surprised to not find any code or panel with a puzzle on it. This was the puzzle phase, how come there wasn't any? Those small rooms couldn't be considered as puzzles, there was literally nothing in those! They even looked for hidden doors and hidden staircases going down but there weren't any. Random doors with nothing in their rooms couldn't be considered as puzzle. Well at least, nothing was leaping out of the room to kill them.

They arrived at the last door of the hallway. The opening leading to the main hall was only a little dot in the distance. Hiroshi put his hand on the knob and twisted it. As expected, the door opened. It was now easy to recognize the locked doors from the other ones; there were silver keyholes only on the locked doors. The other ones only had a rusty knob. The boys stepped in, noticing this room was actually bigger than the others. There was a wide cavern-like tunnel leading to who know where. The idea of getting out by this tunnel made their hearts beat faster. They advanced in the corridor rather rapidly and ended in a much larger room. Since it was quite dark, Hiroshi took out the lighter and turned it on. He looked on his right and saw a panel with spikes on it slowly spin.

"Duck!" he shouted.

Just when they ducked, the panel smashed the other wall and came back to its original place. The boys got back in the tunnel and stared in disbelief at the room. If they hadn't ducked in time, their heads would be crushed by now. Maybe that's why the other rooms were totally empty; to make them think they were safe there too! There were probably other traps here and there in the other corridors. Hiroshi glanced at the panel that had stopped spinning before getting out with the two other boys. They'd have to be careful; there were surely other traps in the next hallways. The boys got back in the main hall, walked in the second corridor and looked in every room again, being more careful this time. Again, there was nothing special here except a room with six wooden dolls on the floor. The gray-haired had to admit that they looked rather creepy with their white eyes and their weird smiles. When they opened the last door of the hallway, they faced another tunnel. No way they were all going in and risk their lives if it was another trap!

"Stay here, I'll go see if it's the exit." said Hiroshi to the others.

He then walked in the tunnel toward the really dark room ahead. When he reached the black floor, he hesitated. Maybe he should get back. He saw a white dot not so far away in front of him. It looked like daylight. The teen ran toward it, hoping this was the exit. He noticed the light began to fade when he ran toward it. It didn't take more than ten seconds before the light had completely disappeared, leaving him in complete darkness. Complete? No… He could see his hands like if he was outside during a sunny day. However, he didn't see anything around him. It was like if he stood on nothing at all. He turned to head back in the tunnel but he didn't see it. Only black could be seen. He closed his eyes tight and shook his head violently.

I'm surely—

His thoughts were cut when he saw the river in the forest near his house in front of him. He was standing on the flat rocks. The tall trees stood behind him, taking the sun's light to turn the dark green leaves into bright green leaves.

…hallucinating.

He noticed he wasn't alone. Somebody was seated on the large rock: Rin. She turned toward him and smiled. The teen's mind went completely blank at the sight of her smile. Hiroshi's legs brought him to the rock and he sat next to the girl. She gently took his hand and looked at him in the eyes, smiling warmly. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. Hiroshi couldn't help but lightly blush.

"Rin, I—"

"Shh…" She said, putting her index on his lips.

Two martins flew off a tree and flew in circles, like if they were playing tag. The birds then got away, signing a short melody on the way. Rin looked at them until she couldn't see them anymore. She loved birds, especially martins. She rested her head on Hiroshi's shoulder and closed her eyes. The gray-haired put his head on hers before closing his eyes too and passing an arm around her waist. They stayed like that for a long moment in silence, holding hands. Hiroshi wanted to stay like this forever.

"Hiroshi," she asked, "will you stay with me?"

The word found its way out of his mouth without any warnings.

Takeshi and Kazuya were sitting silently in the hallway, waiting for Hiroshi to come back. The child had his eyes closed. He was about to fall asleep again but, knowing it wasn't a really good idea to do so, he forced his eyelids to open. He rubbed his eyes to wake himself up and made a slightly stronger shiver.

"Why were you sad when I asked your sister's name?" asked Kazuya, rubbing his own arms to warm himself up.

The blonde stayed a bit surprised at the question since he had no idea what to answer. Should he lie? Should he tell the truth? He found a sort of compromise.

"I miss her, that's all." he replied.

The child smiled.

"Don't be so sad." said the boy, "Once we get out of here, you will see her again!"

"That's not that simple…" Let out Takeshi, soon regretting his words.

"Are your parents divorced?"

The blonde frowned. What was that question for?

"Uh, yeah, why?"

"The parents of one of my friends are divorced. He keeps saying it's complicated." the silver-haired said.

Takeshi smiled. At least, he thought about another definition of it's complicated. He had no clue she was dead. The two stayed in an awkward silence for a moment until the boy spoke up again.

"Where is your friend?"

"You mean, Naoki?"

The child nodded.

"Oh… Um…" Takeshi tried to start, passing a hand behind his neck.

He looked at the shivering child for a short moment. He really was like his sister. He had those same big blue innocent eyes regardless of the dark circles under Kazuya's, the same pale skin, that same curiosity for unimportant things like a simple name. He opened his mouth to answer Kazuya's question but a door a bit farther in the hallway opened. A rather tall teen walked out and closed the door behind. His skin had a purple tint and his eyes were completely black but the blonde still recognized him.

"Naoki!?"

Cliffhanger? I'm so bad at cliffhangers... XD
I got nothing more to say so please leave a review and see you next chapter!