Supposed to be doing homework. Started watching anime, so I thought "Eh, why not update?" Sorry for taking so long to come back...
The idiot who invented the idea of a reflection room will die. Along with Gary. They'll get matching tombstones and lie side by side under the ground, with the words "Here lie _ and Gary the Gadget Guy, murdered by Astra for inventing the reflection room and trapping Astra in a bathroom respectively" carved on their tombstones. Astra wouldn't even buy them coffins to place their bodies in. Now that she was thinking about it, she won't even put them in separate areas anymore. She would just hide the dead penguins in a closet until the sky was midnight blue, dig a deep hole, toss both bodies in the same pit, throw the snow back in, and place the tombstone right on the spot the bodies were buried.
Basically, once PH let Astra out of the bathroom, Astra had made a beeline to the room Gary was tinkering with his potions and whatever else he did in there, smashing the door down because she didn't trust doorknobs anymore. Unfortunately, the only trace of the scientist left was shattered glass and a pool of liquid that strangely resembled the color of bile (Do you know what bile does, Jessie9095?). The rest of the storage room was completely intact, other than the burnt wooden table, chairs, and what remained of Rookie's stuffed animal collection after Astra decided to dissect them for a biology project. Hey, the assignment was to cut open a stuffed animal, fill the insides with fake organs, and present to the class how to examine a dissected organism correctly. She didn't own any, so she borrowed several from Rookie and did a couple of trial-and-error runs with them before starting on the final animal. Rookie had cried and fell into a deep trauma for a couple of weeks, but the good thing was that Astra had gotten an A-plus on that presentation.
Anyway, Astra had stormed out of the storage room, yelling, "WHERE DID GARY GO?!" before being directed by a trembling, terrified Skye to the warehouse Astra didn't even know existed behind the building. She opened up the door instead of smashing it because there wasn't a doorknob, but rather a handle (There's a difference!). The wooden door creaked open to reveal a dark, eerie setting, where the only light was a single faint glow all the way on the far end of the warehouse (GTFO, single light source. Sorry, inside joke).
Well, that must've made Skye even more terrified to the point where his brain couldn't take it anymore because there was a gasp from his beak, followed by a loud thud of his unconscious body hitting the concrete. In other words, he had fainted out of extreme fear.
Note to self: Ask the Director why she hired this guy again, Astra thought to herself before continuing towards the glow.
What if that's not a flashlight? a small, evil voice whispered. What if it's the glow of a ghost? Just like the one that you read in that book? Or the light being emitted from an alien's skin? (Did you know that humans actually glow in the dark? The light's just too weak for us to see)
Shut up! the short-tempered, easily annoyed voice yelled back. Have you ever seen a ghost before? Or an alien? Besides, no one said aliens glow in the dark. Or ghosts, for that matter. All of those are just stereotypes made in horror movies and stories.
Fine, the evil voice conceded. Something must've kept it rolling because then more thoughts popped into Astra's mind as she neared the light. Maybe it's a serial killer from the 1980s. There have been murderers from that time who have never been caught, not even now. Maybe he or she wants to get back to the criminal business.
Be quiet, Astra scolded mentally, ignoring her love for paranormal stories for a moment. Still, she couldn't help wonder if she unknowingly placed in a situation where she would have to face a crazed killer, ghost, walking dead, vampire, and other unidentified creatures like the penguins from various blogs and books claim they have gone through (I like to scare myself...).
Astra continued on, trying not to make any noise with each step she took. The glow seemed to multiply as she walked closer, splitting into smaller orbs of light. Astra realized that the single light source she had seen were really smaller glows put close to each other. At a far distance, it looked like one light.
"Hm, now if I add the whatchamacallit with the ginglidorf, it should become...AH!" Astra face flippered at Gary's newest explosion. No wonder all of his inventions had the number 3000 added at the end of the names. This was probably his seven hundredth trial with the potions.
"GARY!" Astra yelled. "WHAT ARE YOU-?"
"WHAT THE HECK?" the scientist screamed in fear, dropping a test tube filled with bile-colored liquid. Astra picked up a remote control on the makeshift lab table and hit the big red button with the words "Warehouse Lights" printed on it. All of the ceiling lights turned on, revealing an array of fallen over glow-in-the-dark potions that were miraculously still intact and shattered glass on the color-stained floor.
"You do remember that it's against the rules to disappear in the middle of filming without leave, right?" Astra said bluntly. "And you do remember that if any inconvenience is caused for any of your co-workers, you'll be on suspension, correct? You were the one to make up the basic ground rules since the rest of us weren't responsible enough, remember?"
"I did get permission to leave while filming!" Gary protested.
"You locked me in the bathroom, which was an inconvenience!" Astra countered. "You didn't even bother to check if anyone was inside! For all you knew at the moment, a bomber could've been planting a mine!"
"Well, you should've said something!" Gary argued. "How was I supposed to know you were in there! I thought you went to grab a cup of coffee!"
"I'm not allowed to drink coffee, remember?" Astra reminded him. "Besides, you should've checked if everyone was present!"
"I did go through the list, and you weren't written down as one of the penguins who were supposed to show up to work today!" Gary defended himself. "I even checked it over three times!"
"That's because today was supposed to be my day off, but apparently, everyone decided to create a pandemonium instead!" Astra fumed.
"Maybe you should've checked in so the machine could've registered you as present or at least late!" Gary yelled, waving around...something Astra couldn't identify.
"I didn't bring my ID card because I wasn't even supposed to come in!" Astra shouted. "You saw come in too, and you saw me drag in that Herbert suit, and you even had the guts to suggest going to a psyche ward moments before I went to the bathroom!"
"Oh, no wonder you were so jumpy and didn't yell at me for that," Gary murmured, setting down whatever he was holding. "Still, you should've at least mentioned you were going to the bathroom!"
Astra threw her hands up in the air. "Logically, if a penguin is jumping around, squirming, and looks like they're trying to do some weird version of the jitterbug, that means that he or she needs to go to the bathroom! Do you have any common sense?"
The argument continued on for a while until Aunt Arctic came in and screeched, "WHAT IS GOING ON? WHY AREN'T EITHER OF YOU IN THE STUDIO?"
"He locked me in the bathroom!" Astra exclaimed, pointing at Gary.
"She snuck up on me!" Gary claimed. "I dropped one of my chemicals too!"
"Maybe I wouldn't have done it if, hm, I don't know, you checked if anyone was in the bathroom before you trapped me inside," Astra snapped.
The two battled back and forth, throwing cutting remarks and insults at each other as a way to "solve" the problem (read: as an excuse to let out what they really think of each other) despite their EPF leader standing right there, watching two of her top agents fighting with one another.
Eventually, Skye, who had awoken at the sounds of Astra and Gary arguing, told Aunt Arctic what the two penguins were yelling at each other about based on the pieces and chunks he gathered from their argument. The Director immediately took Gary's side, claiming that he had done nothing wrong, until PH came in and vouched for Astra, saying that Gary did tell them to put the equipment against the bathroom door.
"Look, it's even on the security feed," PH said after leading them up to the security room, pointing at the computer that was hooked up to the security cameras. She rewound the tape, hit pause, and then hit play again.
"Gary, what do we do with the extra equipment?" Aunt Arctic flinched slightly at how loud the recording of Rookie's question was. PH lowered the volume as the tape continued.
"Just put it against the bathroom door," the inventor replied absent-mindedly as he tinkered with a broken camera. It didn't even seem like he was paying the least bit attention to the world around him. Present-day Gary turned pale slightly.
"If the door's closed, doesn't that mean there's a penguin inside?" PH inquired, hesitantly leaning a stage light against the door to the lavatory.
"I just did role call about three times already," Gary answered, connecting two wires together. Suddenly, a buzzing sound followed, resulting in the blue penguin being electrocuted and collapsing on the ground, smoke rising from his body as he tried to recover. "There's probably no one in the bathroom."
Even though the evidence was clear on the camera feed, Aunt Arctic still believed that Astra overreacted and sent her in the reflection room to think about her actions, which was where she was now.
Astra let out a groan and lay down on her back on some boxes. The reflection room was so cramped. Basically, it was a teeny tiny supply closet filled with boxes of cleaning supplies and shelf after shelf of bleach, Windex, Clorox, and other packages required to kill germs in your toilet. The closet felt like summer in the rainforests of Africa: moist, warm, and stuffy. The idiot who invented the idea of a reflection room must've enjoyed the suffering of penguins in a cramp, overheated room. Astra was pretty sure locking a penguin in this room for over a certain amount of time is illegal. The worst part was that there was no food. She was suddenly hungry for macaroons or cookies. Chocolate chip cookies would be nice. She loved chocolate.
"Isn't this long enough?" Astra called. "I'm pretty sure that it's illegal to lock me inside a tiny closet that makes me want to faint. By the way, I'm really thirsty and hungry."
No response. There weren't any chuckles, whispers, or even the scuffling of penguins walking past the closet, pretending not to hear Astra.
Shoot, Astra realized, the situation clicking into place.
I'm locked in. Again. Someone will die when I get out of here.
As you can see, I have terrible luck.
Happy holidays, everyone! Hopefully, you'll get all the presents you want.