Nobody POV
Everyone has gotten up off of the ground after their individual pains have diminished. They then begin walking towards the house, stopping once they reach the front door.
"Here we go," Erza says with determination. "Our journey is finally coming to an end."
"Yeah...we finally get to have Luce back!"
"I don't know...doesn't this seem a bit too easy?" Levy frowns, referring to the unguarded entrance. "You'd think there would be a trap or something..."
"There's probably something inside."
"We'd better be careful then," Lisanna points out, and a few of the group nod in agreement.
"I'll go in first," Titania volunteers. "Be ready.."
With that, the redhead slowly opens the door, sword in hand. Once opened, the mages are able to see clearly inside of the house.
It is a parlor, the walls dark red with sable paw prints on them. The floor is polished cypress wood, shining in the dun light hanging overhead. The faint sound of old vinyl music plays from some unknown source, setting the foreboding feeling in the room. And around the parlor are multiple doors, all different in style.
One is made of cherrywood, its handle gleaming gold. Another is dull iron, a latch its handle. One is pale blue with peeling paint, the handle round and silver. Another is scratched and dented with chipped brown varnish, and it has a brass lock. The door-knob is dulled with age, and with greasy finger marks. There are more as well, each varying from the other.
"And here's the difficult part."
"Not exactly..." Levy speaks up.
"What do you mean?"
"There are twelve doors and twelve of us, so if we split up then we'll be able to find Lu-chan a lot faster," she explains.
"You think that we should split up in a place like this?"
"Well, we've been in here for who knows how long so for all we know, Lu-chan could be only a few minutes away from dying."
"There's no time to lose if that's the case."
"We'll take a vote," Erza decides. "Everybody who believes that we should split up, raise your hand."
Levy, Natsu, Erza, Lisanna, Gray, Mirajane and Gajeel all raise their hands in agreement.
"Okay, now everyone who believes that we shouldn't split up, raise your hand," Erza continues once everyone has lowered their hands.
Wendy, Sting, Juvia, Rogue and Laxus all raise their hands.
"Then it's decided, we're splitting up," she declares. "Everyone choose a door and we'll go through them together on three."
Everyone does as Erza has instructed picks a door to go through. They all put a hand on the handles to the doors that they picked.
"Is everybody prepared for what's on the other side?" Erza gets nods in response. "Good. Now, one...two...three!"
When she has reached three, everyone opens their doors and steps through―only for the doors to quickly slam shut behind them all and vanish into oblivion.
Gray POV
I wasn't expecting the door to close like that, so I hastily spin around only to find that there is nothing more than a blank wall.
I guess there's no going back...
Turning back around, I look at the sombre hallway in front of me. The darkness stretches for what seems like forever, deafening and implacable as some elemental force.
I begin to traipse through the shadows, with the only sound being that of shoe against floor.
Without warning, my head throbs, causing me to wince. The pain feels like someone has taken a knife to my skull as I rub my temples tenderly. Squeezing my eyes shut, I will the pain to go away, but only get a loud ringing in my ears in response.
It hurts.
It hurts.
Make it stop...!
The rest of the world becomes detached, and all I can concentrate on is the throe rooted deep in my head. After a few minutes, the headache and the ringing start to ebb, allowing me to gain a semi-clear state of mind once more.
What the hell was that?
I feel like something is definitely going on, but do my best to brush it off. I can worry about it later. After all, I need to focus on saving Lucy right now. I keep walking and walking, with it feeling like the hallway is going on endlessly. Suddenly, the faint chime of bells rings out from my left, causing me to turn. Frowning, I try to remember what Mavis said earlier.
Didn't she mention something about bells...?
Just then, another sound echos out from the darkness behind me.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
I freeze instantly upon hearing the familiar voice.
Paw...
"If someone is there, say something."
"...Hello?" I hesitantly reply, very slowly turning around, the bells all but forgotten now.
"Oh...it's you, Geranium."
She thinks that I'm Geranium? I raise an eyebrow, my mind going back to my double in the forest.
An elegant, wooden ebony door materializes on the wall next to me and swings open soundlessly.
"Come in and take a seat, won't you? I could use the company right about now."
Maybe I can get her to tell me where Lucy is...
Stepping through the door, I find myself in a room filled with books. Paw is lounging in a chair with what looks like a picture book resting in her hands. The armchair is something like a creamy leather marshmallow. It's the kind of chair that molded around you and hugged you as much as supported you. It is the kind of chair that children love and older people see as a backache waiting to happen.
A fireplace is nearby, its contents bursting with light. It is like a tiny sun, casting long shadows over the rug. The flames curl and sway, flicking this way and that, crackling as they burn the dry wood. Immediately I avert my eyes from the fire, the light oddly searing my vision.
"It's nice to see you, Geranium," she smiles at me. "It's not often that you show up here."
Cautiously, I walk over and sit down in the chair adjacent from hers; said chair is surprisingly comfortable. Inhaling, I mentally gather myself to weave a facade for the baneful monster in front of me. If I say the wrong thing, make the wrong move, it will be my end.
"Well, I just decided to stop by and see how you were doing," I greet her, keeping my voice as level as possible. "Lotus said that she'd watch out for the trespassers while I was gone."
"Really now?" she asks, and I nod in response. "Well, that's just wonderful to see her following your orders."
"If you don't mind me asking, Master," I internally cringe when I call her that. "What are you reading there?"
"Hm? Oh, this?" she glances down at her book. "It's just a story that I wrote a long time ago."
"You write stories?"
"Yes, it was a nice way to pass the time. Especially when I was lonely," an embarrassed blush appears on Paw's shadowy face. "But now that I look back on these stories, they're honestly pretty bad!"
"Master, not to change the subject so quickly, but what are you doing in here? Shouldn't you be with Lucy? What if she wakes up?"
"She won't wake for a while, I put a lot more energy into the sleeping spell this time. It maybe wasn't the wisest idea, seeing as I'm low on energy as is," she answers. "But she'll be okay if I leave her alone. No one can get to this house."
"I see. Do you want me to go check on her? Just in case."
"No, I'm confident that she'll stay asleep. Besides, I'll feel it if she wakes up," she replies. "You should probably be getting back to Lotus right about now though, before she slacks off again."
"I trust Lotus to not slack off, but I really do insist that I go and check on Lucy for you," I press.
"You...trust her?" Paw looks at me apprehensively.
"Yes."
"Are you feeling alright, Geranium? I've known you since I created both of you, and never once have you trusted Lotus to not slack off."
Realizing my mistake I internally scold myself, before quickly thinking up something to say.
"Oh, well, I guess that I am feeling a little light headed at the moment," I try my best to keep my voice calm.
"You are? Do you think that you might be getting sick?"
"Possibly," I lie.
"Oh, my dear...is there anything I can do to help?" she sounds genuinely concerned for my health, which catches me off guard.
"Um...if you could let me check on Lucy, then I'm sure that I would be remedied."
"How would that help?" she raises an eyebrow.
"I think that I'm just stressed over all the scenarios in my mind...she could be wide awake right now and wandering the house, the trespassers could be in her room right now, or worse..." I attempt unnerve her. "She could be gone right now and we wouldn't even know it."
Paw becomes visibly worried.
"Alright, but you will not be the one to check on her. I can't have you getting her sick if you're actually sick," she sets down her book. "Besides, you should be resting in bed."
Dammit!
"I will check on her myself, you return to your tree house and get some rest. Let me show you the way out."
She makes a new door appear, which opens, revealing that it leads into the main room of the house.
"I'm sure that Lotus would be more than happy to take care of you until you feel better," Paw gets up from her chair and seems to have a bit of trouble staying on her feet.
I was so close, too.
"Well? What are you waiting for, Geranium?" she asks. "Be on your way."
"...Right," I reluctantly speak.
Standing up from the chair, I begin making my way to the door.
"Have a safe trip home," she says.
I am about to leave when Paw speaks up from behind me.
"Aren't you going to say goodbye to me?"
Grimacing, I slowly turn and force a smile onto my face. "Have a nice day...Master."
She smiles, waving to me as I step through the door. It closes behind me quickly, disappearing and leaving me standing in the parlor of the house. I have absolutely no idea where to go from here, as the only door left leads outside.
"Shit...what now?" I groan. "I can't just leave, but there's no other doors..."
I start pacing, trying to think of what to do and occasionally searching the walls to see if there is a hidden door that I can go through.
Levy POV
The door that I have gone through leads to a small room that has quite a few books sitting on wooden pedestals, with the majority of them being coated in dust.
What's this?
I head over to one of the books and pick it up. The book is old and heavy, the leather soft and delicate as I run my fingers over the faded blue bindings. Brushing the dust off of the cover with my free hand to see what's written on it, I peer at the title.
"Volume I," I read. "This must be a diary."
Going to open it, I hesitate. This is a diary, and no one but its owner should read the contents. But at the same time, it's very tempting to see what laid inside.
"I know that I'm gonna regret this later, but it's just too tempting."
Opening the book to a random page, I begin reading what's written there, only to discover that the book is full of unintelligible scribbles—plus a few drawings that look like they were made by a child. It's meaningless as the syllables of an unknown tongue, but one thing in common with most pages in the diary is the messily written name 'Paw'.
"This must be from when Paw was very young..."
Shutting the diary, I set it back down on the wooden pedestal, reading two more to find that they are identical. Picking up Volume IV, I finger the gold lettering carefully before opening the cover, paper rustling as I thumb through the book. Words appear and disappear as my eyes flit across the pages, quickly picking out anything of importance from the jumble of sentences that litter the world I have become immersed in. This diary has a number of spelling errors, but I'm able to read it to an extent.
"Today I made a friend, I made her all on my own and she's perfect. She's been teaching me how to make things with my powers and she taught me that I had powers and she's been teaching me how to do things, like write..." I translate the spelling and grammatical errors.
There is a small drawing of a stick figure and a much smaller stick figure holding hands while smiling. The scene is so childlike that I can't help but giggle.
"She's really nice to me and she takes care of me as well, so she's always making sure I'm fed and happy," I continue. "She didn't have a name for a long time but she took care of that herself, she says that her name is Protea...I like that name, it's pretty just like her."
I flip through the rest of the pages of the book, and it's all about her and Protea spending time together. I set it down and skip to the sixth volume, opening it to a random page.
"Protea taught me how to make a new friend, she said that he can be anything that I want him to be so I did my very best and tried to make him just as perfect as Protea. He is pretty strange, but I don't care...Protea named him for me, she says his name is Sunflower."
I read a few more pages before getting to the back of the diary.
"Sunflower said something really weird today...he says that Protea isn't real and that nothing around me is real, so I'm the only real thing and everything else is just fake. I didn't know what he meant so I asked Protea," I read. "She told me not to listen to him and later I heard her yelling at him, I hope that he wasn't in too much trouble."
Going through the pages, I see that they are mostly normal with Sunflower being strange and Protea being parental. I place the book back and pick up the next one.
"Something is wrong with Protea...she's changing. Her hair is turning gray and her face is starting to look like my fingertips after a bath. She's getting worse and worse everyday. This isn't happening to Sunflower, though...what's going on? I'm scared."
I page through the rest of the diary until I reach the end. The paper has a few water stains on it.
"Protea sat me down today and told me that she was getting old. She said that soon she wouldn't be here for me anymore...I thought that it was all just a joke because she would never ever leave me, but when she told me that she would. I started crying and I yelled at her," I frown while reading it. "She didn't yell back, she just told me what death was and that she would stay with me if she could...I hate death...I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!"
It is quieter than a funeral as I go on.
"Everything will be okay now...death can't take Protea away from me now...I snuck up on her and turned her into a statue...death won't come for her if he can't find her, so now Protea will always be with me...I'll put her somewhere nice and I'll decorate her with flowers and visit her everyday so she won't be lonely and this way, I won't be lonely either..."
Slowly closing the book, I put it back where it was originally.
So, she turned her caretaker into stone when she got old? I can understand not wanting to let go of someone, but turning them to stone so they can't die? Isn't doing that essentially killing them?
I go to pick up the next volume, only for my hand to hit a invisible wall.
"What the-?"
Looking up from the books, I find that each diary now has a similar force field around it. But my attention is drawn away from that when I glance at the walls.
The word 'TRANSGRESSOR' is written all over the room in dark, scarlet liquid. It's on the ceiling, the floor—it is even on the pedestals.
"What-? Where di-?"
This writing unnerves me greatly, filling my stomach with a nauseous feeling. I'm not sure how long I stand there staring at the writing, but am snapped from my trance when a door appears on one of the walls.
Frowning, I walk tentatively towards it. Slowly, I grasp the handle, before quickly turning it and throwing the door open. When nothing happens, I step through. I'm back in the main room of the house, with Gray there as well, him standing completely still.
"Gray?" I attempt to get his attention as the door shuts behind me and recedes into the wall.
No reply—despondency clings to him like a wet garment as he stands there, motionless. I immediately panic, worrying that something is terribly wrong with my friend.
"Gray, can you hear me?!"
It seems to work that time as he blinks rapidly, snapped from his lethargic state.
"Levy...? Where did you come from?"
"I'd...rather not talk about it," I say nervously. I feel guilty now for reading those diaries. "What are you doing here?"
"I..." the ice mage frowns, his eyebrows furrowing as if trying to recall something. "I...came across Paw who thought that I was Geranium, and I...I tried to trick her into bringing me to Lucy. It didn't work, and now I'm back here..."
"I see...any idea what to do now?"
"No...I've been trying to figure out the same thing."
"I'll join you, then. Two heads are better than one," I say. "Besides, it's not like there's much else to do."
"Alright. Hopefully the others have better luck than us..." Gray sighs, going back to staring into space.
"Yeah..."
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