Myst Island...Day Two (morning)...
The Golden Ostrich
I awoke this morning to the muffled sound of the waves throwing themselves against the shoreline, and the wind threading it's way through the forest like a ceaseless ribbon. Upon opening my eyes, I found myself staring up at the cracked painting of clouds and sky that covered the domed ceiling of the library. Hanging from it was an iron chandelier that resembled a spider weaving a web of chain links instead of the usual silky strands they use.
I let my eyes roam from the ceiling to one of the oil paintings. Squinting at it, I discovered it to be a perfect depiction of the doorway leading out of the library. This puzzled me and at first I considered that it might be a mirror, but the angle was wrong and it was brighter in the picture then it really was outside. I could make some of the brush strokes anyway.
Next to me, I felt Amai shift in his sleep and my thoughts of the painting were immediately replaced with those of him. I tried to turn to look at him, but I realized his arms were still wrapped tightly around my body...to move would've meant waking him. Instead I lay still and listened to the sound of his breathing and felt the beat off his heart through his chest against my back. Guilt surged through me again...he should've been sleeping in his own soft bed instead of on the wooden floor of a library.
My eyes began to wander again, this time locking onto the bookcase. There were five empty spaces from where we had removed the journals and "crossword puzzle" book. Having spent most of the night reading through the former, we discovered that they described other worlds that could be reached in the same manner as Myst...through what the author referred to as Linking Books. While this information was certainly fascinating, and the sketches proved to be intriguing, we were disappointed to find nothing that could help find a way back to our own world. Finally, in fruitless exhaustion, we closed the books and lay down to sleep...we would explore the rest of the island on the advent of dawn.
Above me was a small shelf jutting out from the wall...I knew that sitting on top of it was a single thin red book and a pinkish page, but I still didn't know what it contained. We had been too tired last night to tackle another mystery, so we left that one and the matching blue book and page for the next day.
I glanced over at the blue book and the shelf that Saifon was curled up beneath. She likes her space and felt more comfortable sleeping by herself, although I was scared to death the let myself fall into slumber, even with Amai as close as he was...Myst was not at all welcoming to me.
Behind me I felt Amai move again, drifting away from his dreams. He lifted his head slightly and peered down at me to see if I was awake yet. I smiled at him and turned thankfully, stretching my neck to pop out the kinks.
I settled back down, facing in his direction this time and we lay there watching each other in silence for several minutes. It wasn't until Saifon sat up and yawned that we began to talk...simple things like 'good morning' and 'my back is killing me from that damn floor'.
After we has gotten up and stretched, we debated on whether or not we should spend some more time in the library or head right outside. Amai was in favour in the latter, but Saifon and I wanted to finish what we were already doing and then move on. Two to one, so we stayed in the library.
The first thing I did was take the Red Book from the shelf and open it. Inside was another moving picture, just as in the Myst Linking book I had found only a few months ago, but this one was different. The image was clouded with red static and buzzed, but I couldn't make anything out through the haze. I shrugged, picked up the loose page, and slipped it into the book. It hummed loudly and the picture suddenly began to flicker. The figure of a neatly trimmed man began to emerge. He looked up and started to speak, although the static made it difficult to understand.
"Who are you?" he demanded through the crackling image. "Bring me the red pages......I can't see you....I am Sirrus....." The picture faded away into blackness.
"What was all that?" asked Saifon, looking over my shoulder. I handed her the book and she watched the scene, her forehead creased in puzzlement.
"What red pages?"
"I don't know," I replied as she set it back on the shelf. We crossed to the other side of the room where Amai was placing the blue page inside of its book. He flipped it open and a similar image rose through the blue static.
"Sirrus, is that you?" asked a man with wild eyes, an unruly crop of hair, and a most annoying voice. "Who are you.....help me....bring me the blue pages.....I must have the blue pages!"
"Ratty little man," muttered Saifon as Amai snapped the book shut.
"He looked pretty big to me."
"Get the red pages? Or the blue ones..." I mused.
"I say get the hell out of here," said Amai. I nodded, instantly ashamed again. I was getting too wrapped up in Myst...we just needed to find a way home as quickly as possible.
I walked over to the painting I had been studying earlier, just to confirm that it really was a painting. I scrutinized it then, then, satisfied that is was only a piece of art, moved on to the next one.
This one depicted a small staircase leading up to what appeared to be a long corridor. Upon further inspection of the painting, I saw that the staircase actually resembled the bookcase...it looked as though they had each been shoved back and then pushed down to form the steps.
I turned my attention to the bookcase, running my hands over the smooth dusty wood, searching for a release. My hands groped into the empty spaces where we had pulled the journals from, but there was nothing but solid carpentry. Placing my shoulder against the top shelf, I shoved my body against it, but the piece resisted incredibly well.
"What are you doing?" asked Amai, strolling over to me. I was pulling all the books, one by one, off of the shelves and then replacing them.
"There has to be a catch here somewhere," I grunted as tugged a particularly heavy volume out. He frowned momentarily, then noticed the painting.
"Oh!" he said, understanding. "I see."
"Yeah," I said, peering into the dark void that the last book had created when I pulled it out. I glanced up and saw he was still gazing intently at the picture.
"Ahhh!" he suddenly yelled and jumped back.
"What?!" I said, startled by his outburst.
"Damn bugs!"
I hid my smile and walked over to him...he had always been fearful of insects. There was a small white moth crawling over the waves of paint. I brushed it away with my fingertips, lightly touching the surface of the canvas at the same time.
The picture began to swirl into a vortex and there was a low rumble behind us...I turned in time to see a huge wooden barrier slide into place at the library entrance. To the side, the bookcase began to creak and with a series of clunks, it slid back and sank down to reveal the staircase. The library fell silent again.
"Well that's not good," Amai observed in direction of our blocked exit.
"Nope," said Saifon. "What did you do?"
"Touched the picture," I said sheepishly.
"You really need to stop doing that."
"I know."
"Well touch it again," Saifon suggested. I did, but nothing happened. "Wonderful."
"Maybe there's a back exit," said Amai.
"Might as well look..."
We mounted the stairs and wandered through the once-hidden hallway until we reached a square-shaped room with a marble floor and foreboding lights. There was indeed a door there, but it only led to a narrow and uninviting elevator.
"We're here now," said Saifon, "so we might as well try it." She slid open the metal door and the three of us crammed inside. I pressed the glowing blue button that was our only option and the lights went dark. Through the window lined with steely bars I could see the hallway disappear and become the stone shaft we were now traveling through. Halfway to the top, the elevator lurched to a stop, rotated 180 degrees, then continued upwards. It slid to halt, the lights restored themselves, and we stepped out into a circular room with two ladders on opposing sides, each leading to a narrow metallic loft.
I scaled the closest ladder and turned once on the balcony, but there wasn't anything of much interest to see. I searched the floor, the walls, and even the top of the ladder itself for some clue, but I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Looking across the room, through the cables and pulleys from the elevator, I deduced that the other loft was identical to this one.
Amai clambered up the ladder as well and began to inspect the wall. The only oddity about it was that while it was mostly composed of some metal I didn't recognize, a small gap about four inches wide was filled with stone. He ran his hands along the seams and found that there was a tiny sliver of space between the metal and the stone. This puzzled us, although we didn't know what it meant.
Upon climbing up to the second loft, we found the same situation, only the gap was about three feet wider here. Again, there was no discerning mark or clue to explain this.
We descended back to the main floor where Saifon was studying the plaques set behind each ladder...one depicted a book and the other, a key. We were still mystified though, and returned to the elevator.
Back down the shaft, through the corridor, and out into the library...still trapped. I tried brushing against the painting again, but it was a vain effort.
Amai sat down on the bottom step and stared at the door as though he was willing it to move with his vision. Maybe he was...it didn't seem that there was much else we could do and I joined him in his silent battering of the exit. He put his arm around me and I leaned against his shoulder, listening to him breathing for the second time that morning. I suddenly remembered the other painting and how I had been staring at it last time I heard his breath.
"Of course!" I exclaimed, leaping up.
"What?" he and Saifon demanded.
"The painting!" I hurried to the picture and placed my hand firmly against the canvas, watching the paint swirl and hum. There was a rumble and the bookcase began to slide back into place, throwing Amai from his seat. I turned and saw the wooden barrier shifting away from the exit, filling the library with clear sunlight and the sound of the ocean once again. "Oh, thank you!" I said to no one in particular and took my hand off of the painting. Amai picked himself up and threw his arms around me in a tight embrace, lifting me clear off the ground in the process.
"I can't believe we didn't figure that out sooner!" he said, nuzzling the side of my neck.
"Here, set me down," I laughed and he complied. "I should've realized that the moment the stairs opened...I was looking at the painting earlier."
"It doesn't matter; we're free to leave now."
"No we're not," said Saifon. "We still have to look at the map and the fireplace."
"That won't take long," I reasoned. Amai nodded and walked over to the latter, peering inside.
"There's a button in here," he said, his voice echoing oddly. "No chimney though." He crawled in, turned, and pressed the button. A steel door lined with bars at the top immediately dropped down and a small light clicked on inside.
"Oh, crap..."
"That's not good," said Saifon.
Amai pressed against the door, creating a small sound that made me thinking of shimmering bits of silver, although I don't know why.
"What the hell is this?" he asked.
"I don't know, you're the one in the fireplace."
"They're little boxes," he said, touching the door in different places and making more shimmering noises. "Oh, the crossword puzzles!"
"What?"
"These boxes look like they're from the crossword puzzle book," he explained.
"Do you want to see it?" I offered.
"No. I want to get out of here." He pressed the button a second time...the light clicked off and he crawled out. "We'll look at it later...I have a feeling we're going to be here for awhile."
I nodded sorrowfully, still all too aware that it was my fault we were stuck there...I hated myself in that moment, hated everything I'd ever done and said, everything I'd ever touched, and everything I'd ever been curious about. I wanted to be like Oedipus and gouge out my eyes for having seen beauty where it should have been forbidden. I wanted to run outside and throw myself off into the ocean so that I wouldn't be able to curse anyone again...to be dead in another world meant that even my soul wouldn't be able to return and haunt the people I loved. And I hated myself for loving Amai because he deserved so much better than me...someone who wouldn't launch him into different worlds because of their heedlessness. I wished I could've slapped him, shaken him by the shoulders and demanded an explanation behind his love for me.
Of course, if he ever did realize that it was foolish to love someone like me, I probably would've taken the first sharp object I could find on that forsaken island and driven it into my heart...or perhaps it would've been easier to hang myself from one of the masts of the sunken ship. At any rate, an act of desperate suicide would've been appropriate...I'm highly unbalanced when it comes to emotions like rejection. Worthlessness floods vision in the form of tears and I long to sacrifice my blood as a gift to compensate for my failure.
If only I had picked up a knife instead of that damned book...
"What's wrong?" Amai's voice drew me back to the present, my thoughts dissolving into nothingness. I shook my head and smiled.
"Just spacing out a little."
Saifon was already standing before the map, so we walked over to join her in her examination. It was obviously a depiction of the island...a topography if I remembered correctly.
"Seems pretty useless," I said.
"Yeah." We were about to walk away when a buzzing sound filled the room. I tilted my head closer to the chart and realized that it was emitting from there. It stopped as quickly as it had begun, but the surface of the map was now covered with little white drawings...landmarks on Myst Island. One of them, a small circular structure, was blinking.
"Scratch that," I said. Amai reached out and touched the flashing circle. A thin white line instantly shot out from it and another loud buzzing began. The circle began to rotate the line across the entirety of the map, like a radar scanning for enemies. At certain points the line would flash red, perhaps having picked up on something. After making two full trips around, Amai finally managed to stop it at one of the red line positions, hovering over what appeared to be a rocket of some sort...I remembered seeing it stationed somewhere to the left of the library on our flyby. There was a deafening grinding coming from somewhere behind the library that last for several full seconds, then came to a stop.
"What the hell was that?" said Saifon, obviously shaken by the unexplained noise.
"I think...I think I might know," said Amai. He walked over to the staircase painting and put his hand against it. The library sealed us in and the bookcase surrendered its hidden passageway once again.
"Remember those odd gaps between the metal walls?" he asked as we followed him through the eerie corridor. "If you noticed, the circle was located on (or possibly in) what looked like a mountain, which was behind the library. This hall obviously leads out of the rear of the library, so doesn't it make sense that it would take us to the circle?"
"Oh, I understand," I said as the truth dawned on me. "The tower we were in before is what was making all that racket."
"Right. And when it did, I think it must have opened up those gaps."
"What good does that do us though?" asked Saifon.
"I don't know."
"Maybe we'll be able to access a Linking Book that will take us home," I suggested, although I knew it couldn't be that simple.
"Probably some kind of book...there was a picture of one on that plaque anyway."
"What about the key?"
Saifon shrugged in response as we crowded into the elevator. We rode it up through the dark shaft again and stepped out into the same room as before. Upon climbing the first ladder though, we found it was very different.
The narrower of the two gaps was now facing in the direction of the ancient-looking rocket. I peered down and saw that Amai's theory had been correct...the tower room was embedded in the mountain, although I couldn't really be sure if it was actually a tower. I tended to think that it was just an elevator shaft cut up through the mountain with a rotating room constructed on top. There was really no way to tell of course, so I didn't waste too much time dwelling on that topic.
Amai had climbed up onto the other loft, Saifon opting to remain on the ground due to her fear of heights.
"Come and look at this," he called. I dropped off of the first ladder and climbed up the other one. There was no window this time, but instead a small brass plaque set into the wall. It was simply engraved with the phrase '59 volts'.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," he said. "But it's something, right?" He ran his fingers over the smooth surface, then traced each number and letter as though this might force them to reveal their meaning.
"We need explore the rest of the island," I said, so we clamored down to Saifon. After riding the elevator back to the small marble room and making our way into the library, we reopened the library and closed off the hall. We made sure that everything was where it had originally been...I suppose we were paranoid that someone may be watching us...and then finally walked out into the noontime sunlight.
Author's Note: sorry it took so long to update...is it still good? I've decided to split it up into divisions of time, since it takes awhile to write everything. I'm working on the next part now and I hope to have it up as soon as possible! Please review!
The Golden Ostrich
I awoke this morning to the muffled sound of the waves throwing themselves against the shoreline, and the wind threading it's way through the forest like a ceaseless ribbon. Upon opening my eyes, I found myself staring up at the cracked painting of clouds and sky that covered the domed ceiling of the library. Hanging from it was an iron chandelier that resembled a spider weaving a web of chain links instead of the usual silky strands they use.
I let my eyes roam from the ceiling to one of the oil paintings. Squinting at it, I discovered it to be a perfect depiction of the doorway leading out of the library. This puzzled me and at first I considered that it might be a mirror, but the angle was wrong and it was brighter in the picture then it really was outside. I could make some of the brush strokes anyway.
Next to me, I felt Amai shift in his sleep and my thoughts of the painting were immediately replaced with those of him. I tried to turn to look at him, but I realized his arms were still wrapped tightly around my body...to move would've meant waking him. Instead I lay still and listened to the sound of his breathing and felt the beat off his heart through his chest against my back. Guilt surged through me again...he should've been sleeping in his own soft bed instead of on the wooden floor of a library.
My eyes began to wander again, this time locking onto the bookcase. There were five empty spaces from where we had removed the journals and "crossword puzzle" book. Having spent most of the night reading through the former, we discovered that they described other worlds that could be reached in the same manner as Myst...through what the author referred to as Linking Books. While this information was certainly fascinating, and the sketches proved to be intriguing, we were disappointed to find nothing that could help find a way back to our own world. Finally, in fruitless exhaustion, we closed the books and lay down to sleep...we would explore the rest of the island on the advent of dawn.
Above me was a small shelf jutting out from the wall...I knew that sitting on top of it was a single thin red book and a pinkish page, but I still didn't know what it contained. We had been too tired last night to tackle another mystery, so we left that one and the matching blue book and page for the next day.
I glanced over at the blue book and the shelf that Saifon was curled up beneath. She likes her space and felt more comfortable sleeping by herself, although I was scared to death the let myself fall into slumber, even with Amai as close as he was...Myst was not at all welcoming to me.
Behind me I felt Amai move again, drifting away from his dreams. He lifted his head slightly and peered down at me to see if I was awake yet. I smiled at him and turned thankfully, stretching my neck to pop out the kinks.
I settled back down, facing in his direction this time and we lay there watching each other in silence for several minutes. It wasn't until Saifon sat up and yawned that we began to talk...simple things like 'good morning' and 'my back is killing me from that damn floor'.
After we has gotten up and stretched, we debated on whether or not we should spend some more time in the library or head right outside. Amai was in favour in the latter, but Saifon and I wanted to finish what we were already doing and then move on. Two to one, so we stayed in the library.
The first thing I did was take the Red Book from the shelf and open it. Inside was another moving picture, just as in the Myst Linking book I had found only a few months ago, but this one was different. The image was clouded with red static and buzzed, but I couldn't make anything out through the haze. I shrugged, picked up the loose page, and slipped it into the book. It hummed loudly and the picture suddenly began to flicker. The figure of a neatly trimmed man began to emerge. He looked up and started to speak, although the static made it difficult to understand.
"Who are you?" he demanded through the crackling image. "Bring me the red pages......I can't see you....I am Sirrus....." The picture faded away into blackness.
"What was all that?" asked Saifon, looking over my shoulder. I handed her the book and she watched the scene, her forehead creased in puzzlement.
"What red pages?"
"I don't know," I replied as she set it back on the shelf. We crossed to the other side of the room where Amai was placing the blue page inside of its book. He flipped it open and a similar image rose through the blue static.
"Sirrus, is that you?" asked a man with wild eyes, an unruly crop of hair, and a most annoying voice. "Who are you.....help me....bring me the blue pages.....I must have the blue pages!"
"Ratty little man," muttered Saifon as Amai snapped the book shut.
"He looked pretty big to me."
"Get the red pages? Or the blue ones..." I mused.
"I say get the hell out of here," said Amai. I nodded, instantly ashamed again. I was getting too wrapped up in Myst...we just needed to find a way home as quickly as possible.
I walked over to the painting I had been studying earlier, just to confirm that it really was a painting. I scrutinized it then, then, satisfied that is was only a piece of art, moved on to the next one.
This one depicted a small staircase leading up to what appeared to be a long corridor. Upon further inspection of the painting, I saw that the staircase actually resembled the bookcase...it looked as though they had each been shoved back and then pushed down to form the steps.
I turned my attention to the bookcase, running my hands over the smooth dusty wood, searching for a release. My hands groped into the empty spaces where we had pulled the journals from, but there was nothing but solid carpentry. Placing my shoulder against the top shelf, I shoved my body against it, but the piece resisted incredibly well.
"What are you doing?" asked Amai, strolling over to me. I was pulling all the books, one by one, off of the shelves and then replacing them.
"There has to be a catch here somewhere," I grunted as tugged a particularly heavy volume out. He frowned momentarily, then noticed the painting.
"Oh!" he said, understanding. "I see."
"Yeah," I said, peering into the dark void that the last book had created when I pulled it out. I glanced up and saw he was still gazing intently at the picture.
"Ahhh!" he suddenly yelled and jumped back.
"What?!" I said, startled by his outburst.
"Damn bugs!"
I hid my smile and walked over to him...he had always been fearful of insects. There was a small white moth crawling over the waves of paint. I brushed it away with my fingertips, lightly touching the surface of the canvas at the same time.
The picture began to swirl into a vortex and there was a low rumble behind us...I turned in time to see a huge wooden barrier slide into place at the library entrance. To the side, the bookcase began to creak and with a series of clunks, it slid back and sank down to reveal the staircase. The library fell silent again.
"Well that's not good," Amai observed in direction of our blocked exit.
"Nope," said Saifon. "What did you do?"
"Touched the picture," I said sheepishly.
"You really need to stop doing that."
"I know."
"Well touch it again," Saifon suggested. I did, but nothing happened. "Wonderful."
"Maybe there's a back exit," said Amai.
"Might as well look..."
We mounted the stairs and wandered through the once-hidden hallway until we reached a square-shaped room with a marble floor and foreboding lights. There was indeed a door there, but it only led to a narrow and uninviting elevator.
"We're here now," said Saifon, "so we might as well try it." She slid open the metal door and the three of us crammed inside. I pressed the glowing blue button that was our only option and the lights went dark. Through the window lined with steely bars I could see the hallway disappear and become the stone shaft we were now traveling through. Halfway to the top, the elevator lurched to a stop, rotated 180 degrees, then continued upwards. It slid to halt, the lights restored themselves, and we stepped out into a circular room with two ladders on opposing sides, each leading to a narrow metallic loft.
I scaled the closest ladder and turned once on the balcony, but there wasn't anything of much interest to see. I searched the floor, the walls, and even the top of the ladder itself for some clue, but I couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. Looking across the room, through the cables and pulleys from the elevator, I deduced that the other loft was identical to this one.
Amai clambered up the ladder as well and began to inspect the wall. The only oddity about it was that while it was mostly composed of some metal I didn't recognize, a small gap about four inches wide was filled with stone. He ran his hands along the seams and found that there was a tiny sliver of space between the metal and the stone. This puzzled us, although we didn't know what it meant.
Upon climbing up to the second loft, we found the same situation, only the gap was about three feet wider here. Again, there was no discerning mark or clue to explain this.
We descended back to the main floor where Saifon was studying the plaques set behind each ladder...one depicted a book and the other, a key. We were still mystified though, and returned to the elevator.
Back down the shaft, through the corridor, and out into the library...still trapped. I tried brushing against the painting again, but it was a vain effort.
Amai sat down on the bottom step and stared at the door as though he was willing it to move with his vision. Maybe he was...it didn't seem that there was much else we could do and I joined him in his silent battering of the exit. He put his arm around me and I leaned against his shoulder, listening to him breathing for the second time that morning. I suddenly remembered the other painting and how I had been staring at it last time I heard his breath.
"Of course!" I exclaimed, leaping up.
"What?" he and Saifon demanded.
"The painting!" I hurried to the picture and placed my hand firmly against the canvas, watching the paint swirl and hum. There was a rumble and the bookcase began to slide back into place, throwing Amai from his seat. I turned and saw the wooden barrier shifting away from the exit, filling the library with clear sunlight and the sound of the ocean once again. "Oh, thank you!" I said to no one in particular and took my hand off of the painting. Amai picked himself up and threw his arms around me in a tight embrace, lifting me clear off the ground in the process.
"I can't believe we didn't figure that out sooner!" he said, nuzzling the side of my neck.
"Here, set me down," I laughed and he complied. "I should've realized that the moment the stairs opened...I was looking at the painting earlier."
"It doesn't matter; we're free to leave now."
"No we're not," said Saifon. "We still have to look at the map and the fireplace."
"That won't take long," I reasoned. Amai nodded and walked over to the latter, peering inside.
"There's a button in here," he said, his voice echoing oddly. "No chimney though." He crawled in, turned, and pressed the button. A steel door lined with bars at the top immediately dropped down and a small light clicked on inside.
"Oh, crap..."
"That's not good," said Saifon.
Amai pressed against the door, creating a small sound that made me thinking of shimmering bits of silver, although I don't know why.
"What the hell is this?" he asked.
"I don't know, you're the one in the fireplace."
"They're little boxes," he said, touching the door in different places and making more shimmering noises. "Oh, the crossword puzzles!"
"What?"
"These boxes look like they're from the crossword puzzle book," he explained.
"Do you want to see it?" I offered.
"No. I want to get out of here." He pressed the button a second time...the light clicked off and he crawled out. "We'll look at it later...I have a feeling we're going to be here for awhile."
I nodded sorrowfully, still all too aware that it was my fault we were stuck there...I hated myself in that moment, hated everything I'd ever done and said, everything I'd ever touched, and everything I'd ever been curious about. I wanted to be like Oedipus and gouge out my eyes for having seen beauty where it should have been forbidden. I wanted to run outside and throw myself off into the ocean so that I wouldn't be able to curse anyone again...to be dead in another world meant that even my soul wouldn't be able to return and haunt the people I loved. And I hated myself for loving Amai because he deserved so much better than me...someone who wouldn't launch him into different worlds because of their heedlessness. I wished I could've slapped him, shaken him by the shoulders and demanded an explanation behind his love for me.
Of course, if he ever did realize that it was foolish to love someone like me, I probably would've taken the first sharp object I could find on that forsaken island and driven it into my heart...or perhaps it would've been easier to hang myself from one of the masts of the sunken ship. At any rate, an act of desperate suicide would've been appropriate...I'm highly unbalanced when it comes to emotions like rejection. Worthlessness floods vision in the form of tears and I long to sacrifice my blood as a gift to compensate for my failure.
If only I had picked up a knife instead of that damned book...
"What's wrong?" Amai's voice drew me back to the present, my thoughts dissolving into nothingness. I shook my head and smiled.
"Just spacing out a little."
Saifon was already standing before the map, so we walked over to join her in her examination. It was obviously a depiction of the island...a topography if I remembered correctly.
"Seems pretty useless," I said.
"Yeah." We were about to walk away when a buzzing sound filled the room. I tilted my head closer to the chart and realized that it was emitting from there. It stopped as quickly as it had begun, but the surface of the map was now covered with little white drawings...landmarks on Myst Island. One of them, a small circular structure, was blinking.
"Scratch that," I said. Amai reached out and touched the flashing circle. A thin white line instantly shot out from it and another loud buzzing began. The circle began to rotate the line across the entirety of the map, like a radar scanning for enemies. At certain points the line would flash red, perhaps having picked up on something. After making two full trips around, Amai finally managed to stop it at one of the red line positions, hovering over what appeared to be a rocket of some sort...I remembered seeing it stationed somewhere to the left of the library on our flyby. There was a deafening grinding coming from somewhere behind the library that last for several full seconds, then came to a stop.
"What the hell was that?" said Saifon, obviously shaken by the unexplained noise.
"I think...I think I might know," said Amai. He walked over to the staircase painting and put his hand against it. The library sealed us in and the bookcase surrendered its hidden passageway once again.
"Remember those odd gaps between the metal walls?" he asked as we followed him through the eerie corridor. "If you noticed, the circle was located on (or possibly in) what looked like a mountain, which was behind the library. This hall obviously leads out of the rear of the library, so doesn't it make sense that it would take us to the circle?"
"Oh, I understand," I said as the truth dawned on me. "The tower we were in before is what was making all that racket."
"Right. And when it did, I think it must have opened up those gaps."
"What good does that do us though?" asked Saifon.
"I don't know."
"Maybe we'll be able to access a Linking Book that will take us home," I suggested, although I knew it couldn't be that simple.
"Probably some kind of book...there was a picture of one on that plaque anyway."
"What about the key?"
Saifon shrugged in response as we crowded into the elevator. We rode it up through the dark shaft again and stepped out into the same room as before. Upon climbing the first ladder though, we found it was very different.
The narrower of the two gaps was now facing in the direction of the ancient-looking rocket. I peered down and saw that Amai's theory had been correct...the tower room was embedded in the mountain, although I couldn't really be sure if it was actually a tower. I tended to think that it was just an elevator shaft cut up through the mountain with a rotating room constructed on top. There was really no way to tell of course, so I didn't waste too much time dwelling on that topic.
Amai had climbed up onto the other loft, Saifon opting to remain on the ground due to her fear of heights.
"Come and look at this," he called. I dropped off of the first ladder and climbed up the other one. There was no window this time, but instead a small brass plaque set into the wall. It was simply engraved with the phrase '59 volts'.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," he said. "But it's something, right?" He ran his fingers over the smooth surface, then traced each number and letter as though this might force them to reveal their meaning.
"We need explore the rest of the island," I said, so we clamored down to Saifon. After riding the elevator back to the small marble room and making our way into the library, we reopened the library and closed off the hall. We made sure that everything was where it had originally been...I suppose we were paranoid that someone may be watching us...and then finally walked out into the noontime sunlight.
Author's Note: sorry it took so long to update...is it still good? I've decided to split it up into divisions of time, since it takes awhile to write everything. I'm working on the next part now and I hope to have it up as soon as possible! Please review!