Chapter 13

Door 1

"We're leaving." Eddie said forcefully. The other three girls raised their eyebrows at him. They were in a meadow, because it was their favorite place to go.

"Oh yeah? How?" Patricia asked.

Eddie looked at the door. "That door opens anywhere we want to go. Even if we can't manage the four door room, or our real home, we can think up a city and escape."

Willow looked brightly. "We'll never come back?"

"No matter where we end up, we'll never go back." Eddie said.

Patricia smiled. "No more pretending. No more being held prisoner."

"We can take the marbles!" Mara said. "We'll take them with us, pack everything up. Have our memories permanently."

Eddie nodded but frowned. "If we leave, though, we won't get to see any of our friends and family again."

Tense silence fell over them. "Never?" Willow asked.

"Willow, if we escape somewhere, and we come back to try and see them again, we'll be trapped. I doubt they'd let us go out ever again. So we'd have to never see them again."

Willow sniffed. "Read their names again?"

Mara smiled and nodded pulling out her notebook. "Jerome, Fabian, Nina, Amber, Alfie, KT, Mick, Joy, Trudy and Victor."

Willow sighed contently. "Okay. When are we doing this?"

"Tonight." Eddie said. "I know it's soon but I-I can't take another day."

"It's perfect." Patricia said quickly. "I can't take another day as well."

"We'll have to pack tonight." Mara said. "Who's in charge of marbles?"

"Me." Willow said. "I'm in charge of marbles. I'm doing it."

Eddie looked like he wanted to object, but said, "Scream if anything happens."

"We can't really do this the way we've been doing it." Patricia said. "We have to get the big bag if we're bringing everything, so they'll know something's up. We can't distract them with a tantrum because if someone's taken they'll be too weak tonight. We just have to be fast, and ready for everything."

The other three nodded. "Agreed." Mara said.

"Okay, we have a plan. Let's go." Eddie said getting up.

"Wait... incase this all goes sour... I just wanted you guys to know I think you're all really brave." Patricia said. "I've been here for two weeks exactly, and I'm already going crazy. You did this for six and a half months. You guys are amazing."

They smiled at her. "So are you." Eddie said.

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "It's not like you walked into a meadow."

"You were a beacon of light when you came." Mara said. "A sign of hope."

Patricia sighed. "Well I hope we can pull this off."

They walked into the house determined. Looking at each other one last time, they raced to the bedrooms. Patricia, Eddie, and Mara took the largest bag, while Willow took the duffel bag and raced to the attic.

As fast as they could go, the three grabbed all of the clothes they could get their hands on and ran downstairs. Soon, they ran to kitchen and gathered all the food they could. Willow was up the steps in seconds, and her breath caught slightly at the familiar marbles trapped in the hourglasses. Knowing she had no time to take them out individually, she placed each hourglass in the bag and ran downstairs.

Or at least she tried to. But standing in the doorway... was one of the masked men.

Door 3

(8 days earlier than chapter 12)

Fabian sat outside the warehouse with achy shoulders. According to Nina, he was much better today when they were training. Nina was leaning on him, sleeping. She'd fallen asleep while they were talking. Fabian was brainstorming, when he heard a sound to his right. Nina went rigid, and Fabian could tell she was awake. Quietly as possible, they drew their weapons.

A young man came into the moonlight. He was tall, skinny, and by the looks of it, tired. "Dom!" he cried out pointing at the warehouse.

"Who are you?" Nina asked quietly.

He stared at her. Nina wondered if he spoke English.

"I'm going to call you Dom for now." she said. She began to not feel as stiff as before, so Fabian relaxed a little bit. She began talking to herself. "He has no weapons, nothing on him. I doubt he's from the tribe."

She stood up. "Do you want to come inside?" She pointed at the warehouse. He nodded and followed her in. Fabian decided to stay outside. He was brainstorming.

He's been through door 3 for twenty two days now. He was back home for an hour.

He paused.

And hour exactly. When they tried to open the doors before to get back and save their friends, it wouldn't work. He didn't know the exact time, he didn't bother to look at his watch. But he knew it was about an hour. And the door didn't open for several minutes and then it magically did.

Time. It has to do with time. Sixty minutes back home equals a year here. His head was spinning but he tried to keep track of his thoughts. He didn't want to have to spend another year in this place. Maybe he didn't have to.

What was something that sixty minutes had in common with 365 days? They're not both even numbers or odd numbers. They were both multiples of five. He'd been here 22 days. Maybe when five minutes hits in the real world, that's when they'd be able to leave. And if they missed that deadline, they'd have to wait for five more minutes. And five minutes there has to be thirty days here.

The thirty day mark. They'd be able to leave on the thirty day mark, and he hoped he was right. And if he was right, he hoped he could get KT and Mick in time so they wouldn't have to stay there another month.

He went inside to tell Nina. In there with her was Dom and Maya. They were having a conversation in their language, and Nina was watching it unfold. Fabian came up next to Nina. "Understand them?"

Nina looked at him crazily. "Of course not, I only know about ten words in their language and so far they've said none of them."

Soon, Maya directed Dom to a place to rest and came back to Nina and Fabian. Nina asked, "So... What's going on with Dom?"

Maya smiled. "Dom isn't his name. Dom means home. His name is Miloš."

Fabian and Nina looked at Miloš attempting to sleep.

"He says he lived here for several days with his family. He wanted to stay, but they are a nomad group. They were attacked by animals, and he traveled very far for very long to come back here. He liked it here. He liked the carvings on the wall."

Nina's head snapped to the wall where she, Mick, and KT had counted their days here. And where they left and someone else continued.

"He said he thinks they were used to count sunsets, and he wanted to continue the story." Maya finished. Nina looked at Miloš and smiled.

"Thanks, Miloš." she whispered. Maya went back to where she'd been awoken.

Fabian sighed. "I really like Maya."

"Me too." Nina said.

"I hope she'll be okay." Fabian continued. "Because we're not staying much longer."

Nina looked at him with wide eyes. "What do you mean?"

Fabian smiled. "I think I figured out how to get back home.

Door 4

Amber was crying hysterically in the car. When Alfie, Joy, and Jerome all came to it was nearly twenty minutes later on the side of the road in the car. She couldn't leave them there, what a scene! A car crash, a dead man in it, blood everywhere... it was too much. They couldn't get caught. So despite how shaken she was, she had to pull it together and drive them away from the scene, and then drive the second car to the same area. When they came to, they realized what happened. It didn't take a rocket genius to figure out. And they'd tried so hard to avoid it.

"I can't do this anymore, I can't!" Amber sobbed, now finally able to get out words. "I can't go back to that house and- and-"

Alfie looked at the other two. They looked remarkable. And though the word usually was associated with good things, this was not the case here. While Alfie was drenched in blood, Joy had been laying in a pile of it and an entire side and back of her body was red. Jerome had about eight holes in his clothing, each surrounded by a ring of blood.

"What do we do?" Alfie asked.

Joy bit her lip. "I don't know."

Jerome felt his face get hot and his eyes brim with tears. "There's nothing we can do. The Commander has us locked with an iron fist."

Amber was still sobbing, but she hiccupped and started to say, "You're wrong."

Alfie frowned. "You don't understand-"

"You're wrong." she repeated. "You are the strongest and fastest things on earth in this... dimension. You know about one hundred ways to kill someone. You've been using your abilities every day since you've been here. But you have yet to target the right person."

Amber wiped her face and sat up straight looking each of them in the eye.

"I'm giving you a very important job to do. And then we escape, somehow." Amber said. "You're going to kill The Commander."

She watched Joy visibly gulp.

They split up evenly into the cars. Jerome and Joy in one car, and Alfie and Amber in the other one. Alfie offered to drive, but Amber insisted that she was fine. She wasn't fine, she was horrified. But she needed to be fine, because unlike the other three, she wasn't afraid of The Commander. And when it came down to it, she'd need to be strong for them. She'd need to support them. They needed her.

So she drove. It was better anyway, Alfie looked so horrible at the moment, if someone saw him they'd be pulled over for sure. So he crouched in the back, and Joy did similarly in the other car. When they got back to the house, finally, they huddled around each other.

"How are we supposed to do it?" Jerome asked timidly, in a way Amber had never seen him. She honestly didn't know.

"We have time." Amber said. "We don't die, remember? We'll figure it out."

They trained for the next couple of days. Until they found a way to escape, they'd have to do what they're told. They couldn't just shoot him or slice him. They had a feeling all of the 'accessories' were more like protection. If that hunch was right and they tried shooting him at target practice but it didn't work… things would not go well for them. Amber realized that she had gotten better with a gun, which made her very sick. Days later while they were on a break, The Commander approached them with only one manila folder. Alfie was playing with matches again. "Stop that. I told you not in front of me."

Alfie quickly put the matches away.

"Job today." he said handing the folder to Jerome. "Before you come back, put gas in the car. It's running low."

"Gas?" Alfie said suddenly.

"Yes, it's what you feed the car so it runs." He said mockingly as he walked away.

Alfie looked over at his matches. And then at all of them. "Okay." he said even though The Commander was out of earshot. "Okay. We'll get your gas."