I was going to wait until the weekend to post this but decided that I've already let you all suffer enough, with all these cliff hangers I've been laying out right and left. So now I have 21 chapters, which is kind of special since its Sena's number and all.
Chapter Twenty One: Curiosity Killed the Cat
I shivered at the sudden chill; the hallway hadn't been Sahara desert warm but mild and a fair room temperature. Hiruma must have had his air conditioner on full blast because the second I walked into the room I was engulfed by the icy air.
(It wouldn't have surprised me in the least if Hiruma had an air conditioning system set up in his room.)
The room was eerie dark and I debated if I should find a switch or just stumble around in the dark. What I should have done was walk out and give myself a good mental scolding for being an idiot.
Pressing my hand against the wall, I jumped back in shock. It was freezing! The back of my calf thumped into something hard and I fell back on something that felt like a freaking rock. Then the door shut and I was in complete darkness.
Utter darkness, I couldn't even see my hand three inches away from my face. Sliding off the hard something I landed on, probably a table, I sat on the floor hoping that my eyes would adjust to the room. When I started to see red and white blotches of random color I gave up and decided to look for that light switch.
Even though I couldn't have been sitting on the floor for more than a couple seconds, a minuet at the most, my legs were already stiff with cold. The floor was smooth and definitely not wooden like my room, I was guessing stone but it was a lot slicker than the stone floor on the bottom level of the school.
It was then that I realized the lack of noise, surely just because the door shut everything wouldn't disappear. Some small part of me was hoping that I was just caught in a bizarre dream, but like said it was just a rather small sliver of hope.
After all even I was a little more creative, probably not by much, than dreaming about darkness. Also my heart had started to pound and I felt extremely alert, and alertness isn't often an emotion in dreams. No there was no way I was dreaming, but the silence did add yet another eerie touch.
"Just get over it and find a light switch." I muttered to myself stern as possible. The sound of my voice, noise, helped take away an edge caused by the silence and I stood up raising both hands in front of me.
Maybe this way I would be able to not run into anymore nasty surprises. Like walls. Or tables. I blinked and shivered again, it was seriously cold, not winter cold but enough to give a good chill. Even my eyeballs were being to freeze; I didn't even know that eyeballs could feel the cold.
I was about to take a set when I realized that I wasn't sure what way the door was. Uh-oh. That was not a good thing. Remembering something I saw off TV once I stood still, trying to hear which way the air was turning. According to the show, the air would seem to blow towards the door, since a wall was there and all.
After a couple moments of waiting I realized something important.
I was already freezing cold and indoors there wouldn't be any breezes indoors. Oh, yeah. Duh. I moved on to plan B which was just walking in one direction with arms stretched out. I shuffled forewords and didn't get whacked by anything.
So far so good.
After shuffling some more I finally made contact with something, it turned out to be too short to be a wall though. For a paranoid moment I wondered if I had actually gone blind and deaf. I stomped my foot to the ground and sighed in relief when I was greeted by the sound of my shoe hitting against the floor.
Brushing my hand over the strange thing that wasn't a wall I frowned trying to place it in my mind without using sight. It was even for the most part but as I reached higher it curved in both directions right and left of me.
I traced my hand forward, the other side of whatever the thing was more puffed out. I had to lean over on tiptoes to reach all the way down. The second my hand touched the base of the object my mind clicked.
It was a couch!
'I would probably fail as a blind person.' I admitted dryly to myself, after all it had probably been deadly obvious to start out with. Standing straight I started to draw a mental image of what I found so far. Somewhere behind me was the short table, I was standing behind a couch…so a source of light couldn't be that far away.
Trailing my hand across the back of the couch I followed in to a curve and grasped out hoping for a side lamp or something like that. When I didn't find one I moved in front of the couch and carefully moved to the opposite side with the same expectations. No go.
However I did find a wall, which was a start. The coldness of the wall didn't bother me as much as the first time. Probably because I was sort of expecting it, running my hand across the wall I followed the entire wall until it ended at a corner.
'This has to be impossible.' I thought in amazement. I had been counting my footsteps trying to get a feel for the room. 40 steps. I wasn't even sure if that was possible, because it meant the wall was probably even longer because the couch hadn't been in front of a corner.
'Wait.' I thought bringing back the image of my mental map. If I tripped back then went forward this way, I surely would have met the door by now. Why hadn't I just stayed close to the table? That way I could have just searched each different direction until I found the door.
At least, my brilliance begins to show. A little late though.
I moved along the new wall moving a little faster than before, feeling a little panicked. I was spending too much time in there, sooner or later Hiruma would be coming back and turn the lights on and would probably force me to do something even worst than just take pictures of Agon's house.
That is of course unless Hiruma didn't have lights and kept his room cave dark on purpose.
The thought frightening me enough to walk even faster, trailing both hands across the wall searching for my much needed light.
When I found the switch it hurt. I had been swinging my arms around frantic enough that I whacked my hand down against it. I didn't jump back though, too overjoyed and worried that it might disappear if I do.
I instantly flipped the switch and my situation was flipped. Suddenly I was covering my eyes trying to shield myself against the rude burst of white light. My eyes stung and hundreds of colors flew behind my eyes.
When I finally forced them open I at first thought that perhaps I did indeed go blind because all I saw was a jumble of splattered colors in front of a sheet of gray-black. But after a couple sessions of rapid blinking my vision slowly returned to me and I took my first look around Hiruma's boarding room.
In the dark I had slowly began to suspect that I was in some type of dungeon. The cold walls would all be a dark ashy gray, the floor decorated with some animal furs, one of those candle chandeliers would be hanging from the ceiling.
I was utterly wrong.
Of course.
The room was extremely modern looking; the walls were actually light marble and lacked any hanging decorations. I had been wrong about the floor; it was wood but light and polished enough that I could almost even see my reflection stare back up at me.
It looked just about as freaked out as I was feeling.
The couch was pure white leather and a couple feet away was a matching chair, which I had somehow managed not to trip and break my neck over. The door was left of the direction I had headed and the light colored wooden coffee table I had tripped over didn't look any worst for wear.
If my legs weren't prickling from the surrounding cold my calves probably would have been throbbing from that nasty introduction. I turned in amazement, as far as I knew Hiruma didn't even have a roommate, yet his room was bigger than two of Monta's and my room which I had found ridiculously big to start out with.
On the other side of the room was a light wooden desk, a trashcan, and two gray filing cabinets. On top of the desk was a lamp, – not plugged in – a small amount of crumbled pieces of paper that hadn't made their way to the trashcan yet, and a CD player with a couple CD cases sitting on top.
In between that area and where I was standing was a single wooden door. My desire to leave had disappeared as soon as the lights turned on. The newly found curiosity of mine must not have minded the cold because under normal circumstances I wouldn't have wanted to freeze just for adventure's sake.
Guessing that the door lead to Hiruma's bed or maybe a bathroom I turned the knob starting to open it. The sound of another door opening though stopped me in my tracks. If it had been possible my blood would have froze in my veins. (But it was going to freeze it would have already done so by now.)
I was died.
For some reason Hiruma had decided to come back to his room and had caught me red-handed. (Blue-handed actually but it was pretty much the same deal.) Now I was died. He didn't call me out so I turned slowly, the longer I stalked the longer it would take to see his angry face.
"Sena?" I had been halfway with my delayed version of moving. I frowned, the voice almost sounded familiar but I couldn't place it anywhere in my direct memory. Until I turned to look, I first noticed the hair.
A shock of white hair, he was shorter than I remembered but I recognized the face instantly.
"R-R-Riku-niichan?" I asked my mouth dropping open in shock. My brain went dead, it didn't make sense. I haven't seen Riku in years; he disappeared off the face of the earth. I know because after a week of him not showing up in front of my school I had bravely headed to the high school because surely he would have had a reason to skip out on our jogging practices.
I only asked about three students and two teachers – but that had been a terrifying accomplishment for me – but no one knew a student called Riku with white hair. All five of them assured that there hadn't even been a white-haired student for the whole year.
"Sena?! Whoa, it's really you! You've gotten taller – not by much – but you look older. Sort of. I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
But if the high school hadn't been bad enough, I was now standing in front of my old big brother figure. Riku smiled weakly, he really did look surprised to see me, but not as surprised as I was feeling.
Because Riku hadn't aged a day.
By now he would at least in the higher teens maybe even twenty. But no, he still looked like a sixteen-year-old slightly over-confident boy.
"Look Sena I know you've probably got a couple of questions…" Riku started but I had already made a snap decision. Without an extra thought I swung the door open and bolted into the room locking the door after me.
"Wait Sena!"