Hi Everyone!
So, making progress has been a lot more difficult than I expected, and to anyone who is still reading, I can only apologise.
I want to thank DearestMrIcarus for being there for me this whole time to help me through life's drama, it really meant a lot. He's written some great stories, so definitely go and read them!
Anyways, I hope you're all okay too, and are excited for Christmas! Enjoy!
I can't believe it.
I'm inside.
I'm actually inside.
Looking around the room I'm standing at the door of, I release a breath I didn't even realise I was holding. I think a part of me had no idea that I would get this far with my plan, and another part of me is surprised at myself for doing this without thinking about the consequences of it.
My eyes widen, the realization dawning on me.
Oh no.
I'm standing in the middle of Gabriel's office, having just escaped from my cell after defying every rule set in place by the owners of this place.
And I haven't stopped to think about the consequences.
My whole body is made of petrol, thoughts and worries spilling everywhere, and this realization has thrown a match into my mind and now my whole body is on fire, burning with adrenaline and roaring into action. I'm fuelled with determination, knowing that I don't have a lot of time to stand gawking at how cosy this room is.
It's the first proper room I've seen in a long, long time, it looks almost unreal, like it can't possibly be connected to the world outside of the door. It is an anomaly, an outlier, standing out from everything else in this building. Everywhere I look, all I can see is glamourous décor, expensive wallpaper, chandeliers adorned with crystal upon crystal. The splendour of it all is daunting, blinding.
Terrifying.
But nothing will put out the fire that is roaring inside of me now. I've come too far to be found out.
Jolting to life, I rush forward to the large desk at the against the back of the room, mostly because it looks like the most obvious place to put important information. There are boards at the back of it, full of pictures that I recognise my face in but don't have time to fully digest. I know that around me there must be piece upon piece of useful information and clues to what I'm doing here, but the time before I'm discovered is like a lit fuse, burning closer and closer to the bomb, able to explode and shatter everything at any moment. I need to prioritise and be quick with whatever I'm doing.
I'm about to start rifling through the stacks of papers as fast as I'm able to, but I stop, hands pausing in thought over the piles of papers on the desk.
They look like they've just been organised neatly into clear, uniform stacks, each piece of paper falling exactly into the same place, corners all meeting at the edges. Looking at them, I bite my lip. The tidiness of it all is highly intimidating, making me feel like if I so much as look at the papers then my presence in this room will be detected. It's stupid, I know, but I just need to make sure that if I move anything, anything at all, it's put back exactly where it was. Carefully, I slide pieces of paper from the tops of piles, keeping them all carefully in the order they were in before and studying them as best I can. But to my dismay most of the papers are filled with lines, and each line is filled with a neat curly scrawl. These pages must form some detailed research project, I realise. That's the only way to explain all of the writing. It would be futile to even attempt to read through some of them, so as painstaking as it is, I put them back down, determined to find something else instead. I place each paper down meticulously, the pressure beating down on me like there are a thousand pairs of eyes watching me as I do so.
When I'm satisfied all traces of my prying have been erased from the piles, my eyes dart around the rest of the desk to see if there's anything else to see.
To my surprise, there is.
One pile of papers is different from the rest, balanced precariously on the edge of the desk as though it has been hastily shoved there. There are edges of sheets poking out at every angle. Feeling slightly more at ease, I pick up a few pieces and look at them, flicking through them at speed to see if anything catches my eye.
And it does.
A smaller piece of paper.
About the size of my palm.
Ripped at the edges, like it has been torn, it grabs my attention, and I pick it out from the pile, setting the rest of the paper back down on the desk.
When I read it, I gasp.
Then smile.
It's not the contents of the note that make me so happy, not at all.
It's the handwriting. Adrien's handwriting.
It matches the font of the note he left in my cell, so I know that it was him who left it. My fire of determination rages on, igniting my mind and turning any feelings of doubt to ashes.
Adrien has been here, and he knew that I'd find a way to get here too. He left this note because he trusted that I would finish what he couldn't quite manage.
This was his plan, and I was right. I was right this whole time, about him still being on my side, about him really meaning the things he said, about him wanting just as desperately as me to escape from here. And seeing this note, seeing this note means that he wants to escape with me. I know it does. Maybe there is hope after all. And maybe things aren't as doomed as they first seemed.
Clutching the note in my hand like it's sacred, I read the two words inscribed on it again and again.
Absolute Power.
Absolute Power.
Absolute Power.
What it means I have no idea, but I do know that it's what I need to find out about.
So I search.
I look high and low, in drawers and in filing cabinets, on shelves and through wastepaper bins. Leaning back from the bin, I rest on my knees for a second and sigh defeatedly.
Nothing.
Not a thing.
I get to my feet and pace around the smaller desk in the middle of the room, wracking my brain for places I might not have searched.
Again, nothing.
I'm getting desperate for answers now. I have no idea where Adrien wants me to find anything, or what he wants me to do.
I'm running out of options now, and I'm, starting to panic more than ever. I was so delighted that I'd managed to be on the same page as Adrien and he'd had around the same plan as me, I was so happy that we were thinking along the same lines, that I could finally understand what his plan was, but I can't even manage to help him at this point.
It's no use at all.
Completely exasperated, I rest my hands on the desk and stare into the dark varnished wood, feeling the smoothness of its surface underneath my hands and the fire inside of me turning to embers. I gaze across the desk for a moment, not properly concentrating on what I'm looking at. I stare off into some of the objects on my desk, my eyes resting on intricate gold patterns on one of them. Glinting gold lines that swirl this way and that, looping under each other and through repeatedly. They draw me in, and I'm completely intrigued. Spellbound.
Looking at them more, I realise that I haven't noticed them in here as I've been snooping around the room. I snap out of my stupor and to attention, focusing in the actual object that the gold lines are on.
It's a book.
A brown book, bound in oldish leather, gilded in gold.
It's beautiful, and it's just as curious as just about everything else in this room. Being as careful as I can, I pick it up with trembling hands and flip open the cover. My eyes instantly widen in surprise.
This book isn't what I was expecting at all.
Then again, I quite know what I was hoping for.