So I changed Terra's age to seventeen and Kasey's age to twelve. And there's probably going to be some romance between Garry and Terra so... Oh and I'll try to make the chapters longer and post more frequently. Reviews and feedback would be appreciated :)

Chapter 4

Terra, Kasey, and I flew out of the room. We paused to catch our breath. The sound of the headless mannequin falling down the gap still rang in my ears. But at least we'd gotten the key. I wasn't so sure I even wanted to move forward, because who knew what endless surprises would await us there?

"That thing… it didn't get you, did it, Ib?" Terra asked me, her eyes full of concern.

I shook my head. I managed to get away, but it was really close.

Terra sighed of relief. "Alright, then. Let's keep going."

As we were heading to the locked green door, we passed by the little ant. He asked, "where's my painting?"

I didn't have the heart to answer him. By the look on her face, it was clear that Kasey didn't, either. We wandered wordlessly towards the door. Terra put the key in the lock and turned.

The room was also green, but it was a much lighter shade. It kind of reminded me of olives. Kasey glanced around, looking bewildered. "Why are all these rooms different colors?"

"Maybe the colors of the rooms represent separate sections of this place," Terra said thoughtfully.

The room had a cat face imprinted on it. Near the bottom of the room, there was a fish-shaped key hole on the wall. There were two doors on either side of the room. The three of us stood there for a moment, as if silently deciding which way to go. After a moment's pause, Terra sighed and headed toward the door on the left side. Kasey and I followed her.

In the room, I saw two rows of four displays that were all covered in curtains except for the one nearest to the door where we came in. The one that wasn't covered was a painting of a black stick figure. When we passed by it, a message appeared underneath it. It read, "Play hide and seek?"

Suddenly, the stick figure disappeared, and buttons showed up underneath all the curtained paintings. Terra, Kasey, and I shared a glance. Were we supposed to find the stick figure by searching through all of these paintings?

Before we pressed any of the buttons, we looked around the room a little bit more. There was a picture hanging on the wall titled "A Chef's Talent." It appeared to be someone slicing a fish in half.

With nothing else to do, we decided to try and find the stick figure. We went back to the first picture and started leftwards.

We pressed the button, and the curtains on the painting opened to reveal a crescent moon. The room suddenly became darker. Kasey shuddered. "Is it just me, or is it cold in here?"

We moved on. The next painting showed a… nude woman…? She screamed and slapped Terra, and then the curtains closed again.

"Ow," Terra muttered as a white petal fell off her rose. "Why me?"

Kasey giggled.

"We'll have to find a vase soon," Terra said. "Anyway, let's keep going. And, um, try to watch out for… things… like that, okay?"

When we looked at the next painting, I couldn't really tell what it was. I glanced at Terra. A look of horror was etched across her face. She grabbed me and Kasey and pulled us away.

We went to the display underneath it and pressed the button. The curtains opened. It was a painting of a music note with the words "OUT" imprinted on it. Suddenly, all was eerily quiet. I felt very uncomfortable.

I was almost afraid of pressing the next button. But, surprisingly, when the curtains opened, the stick figure was there! A message appeared underneath him: "Found me, you get prize."

Kasey looked around. "Um, what prize?" She glanced at the other two unopened curtains. "Is it behind one of those?"

"I doubt it," Terra replied. But Kasey wasn't listening. She edged over to the next closed painting, but before she could press the button, Terra grabbed her arm. "Kasey! Didn't you hear me? The prize is probably somewhere else around the room – let's go look around, okay?"

Kasey averted her gaze from the paintings over to our older sister. "Can't we just… check? I mean, I want to make sure we're not missing anything."

"Kasey, that curiosity of yours is going to lead you into some serious trouble." Terra gave her a stern look, one that she reserved for when she thought one of us was acting childish. "Let's go."

"I just want to see!" Kasey exclaimed, wriggling out of Terra's grasp. She pressed the button on the painting and the curtains opened, revealing a painting of a… hand? For a while, nothing happened. I wondered why someone would paint something as random as this. Then, all of a sudden, Kasey started screeching and clutching her head. She dropped on her knees.

"Ka–Kasey?" Terra blurted, rushing over to her. "What's going on?"

"Hand!" she cried. "There's a hand on my face!" Her eyes were squeezed shut.

"Okay, calm down," Terra said gently. "Just… open your eyes."

"I can't! They're burning! The hand slapped me! Didn't you see?"

Terra shot a sidelong glance at me, and I shrugged in return. I had no idea what she was talking about, either, but something must've happened for her to be acting like this.

Terra exhaled, clearly trying to be patient. "Dammit… Kasey, I warned you!"

They started arguing loudly, and I glanced around the room, unsure of what else to do. Kasey and Terra were always bickering like this, but I thought Terra should give her a bit of a break this time around. After all, she was clearly in pain.

"Just get this stupid hand off of me!" Kasey yelled.

"Maybe I could if I could actually see it!" Terra retorted.

While I was looking around the room, something caught my eye. Back where I saw the chef painting, an object lay on the floor before it. When I strained my eyes, I saw that it was a fish head. Could that be used for the key hole? And was that what the stick figure meant by "prize"?

Ignoring my sisters' ranting, I walked across the room and picked up the wooden fish head. I examined it in my hands. It could definitely fit into the key hole… but it was missing the tail.

I sighed and walked back to my sisters. I tapped Terra on the shoulder. She whipped around. "What?"

I showed her the fish head.

Terra stared at it. "Is that…?"

"What?" asked Kasey, whose eyes were still closed. "What's going on?"

"Ib found a wooden fish head," Terra told her. "Now we just need the tail, and we're good to go."

"Great!" Kasey chirped. Almost automatically, her cheeriness was replaced with an exasperated annoyance. "But in case you've forgotten, I still can't open my eyes."

"Maybe we can find something to help you. Come on." Terra helped Kasey up. Then she growled in a low voice, "But next time, try to listen when I warn you about something."

The three of us exited the room. Kasey said, "It… It feels a little better now. I mean, it still kind of burns, but…" She still didn't open her eyes, so Terra and I continued to lead her to the opposite room.

The room was filled with a bunch of tall statues. There were a few boxes stacked up around, and a painting of a red rose. We walked past a line of five gray head statues and read a small label on the ground: "Materials Storehouse."

Suddenly, the lights flickered. The middle statue started shaking, and its eyes glowed red. It began to move, sliding away from the other statues and over to me, Terra, and Kasey. I swallowed and backed away. Terra gripped on Kasey's arm and tugged her away, even though she didn't see what was going on.

The head statue continued toward us, and I began to tremble. What if it got a hold of me or one of my sisters? Then, miraculously, the statue tripped against the stone label and shattered on the floor.

I let out a shaky breath. Kasey shrieked, "What was that?!" but neither of us replied. I looked at the stony remains of the statue and saw something glistening. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was the wooden fish tail! I quickly grabbed it and showed it to Terra.

"You're on a roll today, huh, Ib?" she said, grinning at me. "Good job. Come on, let's get going."

We went a different path to get to the exit, and as we were walking, we passed by a vase. Terra suddenly stopped. She looked the vase over. It had some water left. "Kasey, give me your rose," she instructed.

Kasey reached into her pocket and searched for the rose, but it wasn't so easy, since she couldn't open her eyes. Finally, she pulled out the bright pink rose and handed it to Terra.

"Thanks." Terra took it and placed it in the vase. The petals regrew and the rose looked as good as new. She took it out of the vase and gave it back to Kasey. "There. All better now?"

After a moment, Kasey slowly opened her eyes. She looked around and blinked. "I guess so. Um, thanks." She smiled sheepishly at Terra.

Terra returned the smile and glanced back at the vase, which had a little bit of water left. "Hey, Ib, do you need a refill?" she asked me, referring to my rose.

I shook my head. Somehow, I managed not to lose a petal yet. I was proud of myself for it, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

Terra frowned slightly. "Are you sure?" When I nodded, she sighed and placed her own rose in the vase. After it was regenerated, the three of us exited the room and went to the key hole. Terra combined the fish head and the fish tail and inserted it into the key hole. The cat's eyes widened and she let out a loud "MEOW!" Several more "meows" echoed as the hallway opened and we walked in.

The room was the same color as before. The first thing I saw was a black painting with a silly red face on it. It was smiling and its tongue kept wiggling. When we walked near it, it spit at us and evidentially managed to hit me. One of my petals fell off, and I sighed.

Terra gave me a small smile that slightly resembled her "I told you so" look. Despite the situation, I smiled back. We walked past the painting and looked at another picture. We observed it for a moment before Kasey announced, "I don't get it. I mean, it's completely white."

Terra peered closely at it. "Actually, no, it isn't. There's a small red number in the middle. 9."

When I squinted, I saw the number, too. I silently thanked Terra for being with me in this crazy place, since she was so observant and helpful. I didn't know how I could manage on my own. Or even with Kasey, for that matter. Not that she wasn't helpful! She just tended to dismiss things without giving them much thought, that's all.

We walked toward the other end of the hall. There was a yellow message splattered on the wall. It read, "BEWARE OF LIPS." When we continued on, we saw the lips the message was warning us about. The lips were muttering something, but I couldn't hear what. We decided to head back the other way.

There was a narrow hallway near the silly face painting. Before we proceeded down the hallway, we read a note that said, "Just when you've forgotten…" This note seemed to make Kasey a bit uneasy, because she said, "Um… Forgotten what?"

Terra looked thoughtful for a moment. She stared down the narrow hallway, and suddenly her face lit up. "The hands!"

Kasey frantically looked around. "Hands? What hands?"

"The ones that popped out at the edges?" said Terra. "Remember, stay in the center at all costs."

We nodded and the three of us moved down the hallway. Just when we were almost past the hall, a hand shot out and tried to grab our roses. It failed, thankfully, but it still took me by surprise.

The room to the right was full of dolls hanging from their foot. I swallowed, feeling a bit queasy. When we inspected one of the dolls, another doll dropped to the floor. We examined it and saw that the clothes of the doll had a small green number on them: 18.

Down the hall, there was a gold door. It had a password on it, which read, "X x X + X = ?"

The three variables were colored red, green, and purple. Terra frowned. "We only have two numbers," she said. "Let's keep searching around to find the last one."

We walked down the left end of the hall. There was another door, and near the door was a note that said, "The Liars' Room." When we came in, I saw six paintings lined up with a message written underneath each of them. There was a door in between the six paintings, splitting up three paintings on one side of the door and another three on the other side. The paintings all displayed people wearing different colored clothes. From left to right, it was: green, brown, yellow, blue, white, and red. We moved on to read the messages.

The green one said, "Stand in front of the statue, go west 3 steps, then south 1 step. That's the answer!"

The brown one said, "Stand in front of the statue, go east 4 steps, then north 2 steps. That's the answer!"

The yellow one said, "The one in white speaks the truth!"

The blue one said, "The only truth-speaker wears green!"

The white one said, "Stand in front of the statue, go east 2 steps, then south 2 steps. That's the answer!"

The red one said, "I agree with the one in yellow!"

"So… only one of them is telling the truth, right?" Kasey asked, stumped.

Terra looked bored. "Yes." She opened the door in the center and went inside. Kasey and I exchanged bewildered glances and shrugged before we followed her in.

"What are you doing?" Kasey watched Terra with a quizzical look on her face.

Terra stood in front of the statue. She looked at Kasey over her shoulder. "Solving the puzzle," she said, as if it were obvious.

"You figured out which one of them wasn't lying?"

"You haven't?"

Kasey shifted from foot to foot.

Terra sighed. Then her expression softened. "Sorry, I didn't mean to… get ahead of you or anything. But it was kind of obvious, wasn't it?" Her gaze traveled to me. "What about you, Ib?"

My face flushed a little.

"Okay, you two," Terra said. She turned her back to the statue in order to face us properly. "Think about it. If only one of them is telling the truth, the ones that are backing each other up are lying, right? Red and Yellow were backing up White, which means that they're all lying. And Blue was backing Green up. Which only leaves Brown to consider."

Oh. When she put it like that, it made a lot of sense. Kasey was silent for a moment, and then she laughed. "Wow, Terra. You're really smart, you know that?"

Terra blushed and turned back around to the statue. "Thanks," she said softly. "Anyway, what was it that Brown said – four steps east and two steps north, right?" We nodded, and she followed the directions. There was a soft clicking sound, and Terra pulled a loose tile out from the floor. "There's a number on this. 4."

Suddenly, a loud and disturbing sound erupted from the Liars' Room. Chills crept down my spine, and I shivered. Kasey looked paler that I'd ever seen. Terra looked worried. "Um… That didn't sound good."

We exited the room, and my heart skipped a beat. All of the paintings were covered in red paint. They were all holding weapons, except Brown, who looked especially torn and damaged, as if the other paintings had tried to…

The messages underneath the paintings changed, all of them reading "Liar!" except for the brown one. I didn't want to spend another second in this room, and my sisters seemed to agree. We hurried out of there and back to the gold door with the password.

"18 x 9 + 4," Kasey stated, plugging the numbers in based on the colors of the variables.

"166," Terra declared.

Kasey typed the number in and the door clicked open. Inside the room, there were many trees scattered around. A lone tree had an apple in it, which we quickly pocketed. There was also a painting of a tree branch with an apple growing on it. There was nothing else in the room, so we left and headed back past the dolls and down the hall. Out of nowhere, another arm popped out of the wall, but we avoided it.

"Okay, so now what?" Kasey asked.

Terra pulled out the wooden apple. "Hmm…" She seemed to mull over this for a moment. Then she smiled. "We feed the lips." She marched over to the lips, and Kasey and I reluctantly followed suit. The lips began to speak.

"Hungry… Give food… That food… Give to me…"

Terra held the apple out in front of the lips. It took the apple and crunched on it loudly. "This tasty… I let you pass now… Go through my mouth…" The lips opened widely, presenting a way out.

Terra, Kasey, and I stared at each other for a moment. Then we sighed, grabbed hands, and squeezed into the mouth.