Chapter Three: The Blindfold Car

Quite a bit of time had passed and Brooke's number still hadn't gone down. Eventually, the group entered a car which was all black on the inside. The only thing of note that they could see was what looked like the entrance to a maze. However, before they could enter the maze, a star-nosed mole who walked on his hind legs came out.

"Did I just hear new passengers come in?" asked the mole. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Beethoven! I'm named after the blind painter because I'm blind, just like him."

"Actually," Zac interjected. "Beethoven was deaf, not blind, and he was a composer, not a painter."

Not knowing what else to say, Beethoven simply commented "I didn't know."

Wanting to get out of the car as soon as possible, Brooke stated "So, what do we need to do to exit?"

"First, since I can't see, I need to feel your bodies so I have a good understanding as to who you are. Remember, I'm blind".

"We know!" snapped Brooke. She was quickly loosing her patience with the mole.

Using his snout, Beethoven was able to feel each member of the group to get a sense of their physical shapes, sizes, and textures. He called Zac a "tall, smooth skinned fellow", Oliver a "tiny fluffball", and Brooke a "softie".

"I am not a softie!" Brooke objected.

"Well, your fur is certainly soft. How do you keep it like that?" asked Beethoven.

"I use only the finest conditioner."

"Well, anyway, the softie gets to lead the others through this maze, and the others have to wear blindfolds and follow her."

"WHAT?"

"I don't make the rules, softie."

"I hate you guys."

Zac quickly noticed that simply listening to directions wouldn't be enough to get all three of them through the maze. "Wait, I think I'll need to hold your paw so I'll have a better sense of direction as we navigate the maze" said Zac.

Brooke was baffled by Zac's request. "And how exactly would that work?" she asked him.

"Well, I just get down and crawl just like you, holding your hand as we explore it." Zac then proceeded to do exactly that. It was just as ridiculous as it sounded.

Oliver quickly came up with an idea of his own. "Zac, how about I ride on your back, and you can be my horsie!" barked Oliver. The puppy then jumped on Zac's back, all ready to ride.

The first hour the trio spent in the maze was not very eventful. Instead of actually being helpful, Brooke constantly complained about having to help out these people who she really, really hated. Eventually, Zac had a realization.

"I can't believe I didn't realize this, but this is a lot like the team-building exercises that my high school would make me and my classmates do. We all hated them."

Brooke found this oddly relatable. "If they're anything like this stupid car, then I'm glad my high school doesn't do them. It would make me hate that place even more than I already do" she said in a surprisingly sincere way.

"Wait, you go to school? I thought only humans went there."

"Where I come from, all animals go to school. Many of them go there so they can go to college, earn degrees, and get jobs. I personally don't give a hoot about school. I only go there so I can keep my position as Queen of the Barbie Dolls. And even if I didn't have such a big responsibility, my mom still insists that I have to go."

"But what will you do after you graduate?"

"My mom is super rich, so I will just keep living off her money for the rest of my life."

"That doesn't seem like a productive way to spend your time."

Brooke hated that Zac asked her about what she was going to do after high school. The truth was that she had no plans for what she was going to do after she graduated because she had no friends outside of school. On top of that, her mom was neglectful and her pet cricket Gigi had turned against her due to her mistreatment. But she did not want to admit any of that to anyone else because she feared that others would hate her if she admitted that. So instead, she simply said "My life is perfectly fine".

Zac was suspicious about that claim. "I'm actually in college right now. I currently study marketing at UC Irvine in Orange County. I plan on being an executive in the video game industry after I graduate."

"That's funny. I go to school in Orange County too. I'm a student at Orange County Day."

Zac laughed. "That's not a real school."

"What do you mean, it's not a real school?"

"I know Orange County quite well, and I know for a fact that there is no school there called Orange County Day."

"Interesting. Do you know of a place called 'The Cozy Shack'?"

"Also doesn't exist."

"The mall?"

"That could be any mall!"

One might think that this would result in Brooke going through an existential crisis, but that did not happen. If there is one thing that both Brooke and Zac knew about the train, it's that anything can happen as long as they were on there. Zac soon realized that this could only mean one thing.

"Wait," said Zac, "if you are a passenger and not a creation of the train because you have a number on your paw, then you must be from a different world! But why would the train take passengers from multiple different worlds?"

"Beats me" said Brooke. She didn't originally plan on saying anything more, but soon the implications of the conversation she just had with this mysterious human boy started to sink in. "Why did we even have this conversation? It made me learn more about you. It made me learn that I have stuff in common with you". As soon as she said that, her number went down to 288.

"Look, Brooke! Your number just went down!"

"Why would an awkward conversation like this make my number go down?"

"Beats me. It's not as weird as when my number went down as I was talking to all these water people who I had never even met while selling random junk in the Beach Car. Though they did make me feel uncomfortable at first."

"That conversation made me feel uncomfortable, too. Wait, is that how we lower our numbers? We make ourselves feel uncomfortable?"

"That certainly seems to be a pattern, so it's certainly worth trying".

For reasons she didn't fully understand, this compelled Brooke to help Zac and Oliver through the maze. Though it did involve a lot of trial and error, as mazes tend to do, after another two hours they finally completed the maze. To top it all off, both Zac and Brooke's numbers went down as they completed it. But they still weren't even close to zero by the time they finished the maze.

"Hopefully we won't have to make ourselves feel too uncomfortable to get off this train" said Brooke. Unfortunately for her, the train had a lot more tricks up its' sleeve for her to tackle.