New chapter whoop whoop

Gilbert looks more dishevelled than usual as he sits in front of his camera, his hair is a mess and it is obvious he had slept in the rumpled Silas University hoodie he is wearing. He catches his image on the laptop screen and immediately moves to smooth down his hair, without much avail. "I didn't sleep very well last night," Gilbert explains. "I didn't have any nightmares but I don't know, I guess I must have had a lot of things on my mind." He explains the events of the previous day - from his close encounter with Laura to the outbreak of giant fungi, the brain parasite breakthrough and Erzsébet's arguments with both Arthur and Roderich. "Roderich still isn't talking to her," he concluded. "And I think she's trying to find ways to keep her mind off of that by keeping busy. She was in here earlier – woke me up, actually. She told me to get dressed because we're going to the library subbasements as soon as she gets back from her Summer Society meeting. She thinks that if we go down the deepest levels where the earliest university records are kept, we might find something useful. So that's one way to spend a Sunday. I don't know if she's right, but it worth a try, I guess." Gilbert pauses as if he was considering whether to say something else. "Arthur hasn't been back," he finally says gloomily. "I don't know why, but I'm worried about him..." He trails off, staring pensively past the camera. "I guess it's because I don't know what vampires do when they get upset. I mean, for all I know, Arthur could have run out of the room to eat somebody." Gilbert blinks and his eyes focus back on the camera. "I hope he hasn't gone and eaten somebody." He looks even more concerned than earlier, then quickly changes the topic. "Anyway, Erzsébet will be here any time now, I'll let you guys know how the library trip goes once we're back. We're going during daylight hours this time, so there hopefully shouldn't be a repeat of last time. Until we're back..." Gilbert waves at the camera, then clicks to end the recording.

Gilbert posted the video and tried not to think about Arthur, tried not to think about all of the things Erzsébet had said about him. There were more pressing matters at hand, Gilbert told himself, and as long as Arthur wasn't hurting anyone, where he was shouldn't matter. He started on a recommended reading, but struggled to get through it. Before long, the door opened, and although he knew it was most likely to be Erzsébet, Gilbert spun from his desk, hoping to see Arthur. It was Erzsébet. In some ways she looked just as worse for wear as Gilbert, dark circles ringed eyes bloodshot from tears, but her face was set in stubborn determination.

'You ready to go?' Erzsébet asked in a tired monotone.

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied, slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. 'How are things with Roderich?' He added after a moment's pause.

'He's been ignoring my texts, but I'm sure he'll come around,' Erzsébet smiled tightly, a strained, brittle smile that made Gilbert regret having asked. 'Enough chitchat, we're moving now.' She said abruptly, unable to maintain the smile.

They left the dorms and trudged across campus in silence. It was still before noon on a chilly Sunday and the grounds of Silas were like a ghost town. Through the gaps between the buildings, Gilbert could see the woods that lay beyond and his thoughts strayed once again to the question of Arthur's whereabouts. He knew his worry was irrational, it wasn't unusual for Arthur to disappear until late afternoon, but then again, he'd never been that angry on those previous occasions. It was pointless to worry – besides, Arthur had made it clear that his idea of "helping" was to watch and wait to see if they could come up with a plan. Gilbert going on this research trip would actually be the most productive way to deal with this situation. A question from Erzsébet dragged him into the present.

'You okay there?' Erzsébet asked him. She was frowning at him. They had arrived outside the library and she had one foot rested atop the first step.

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied noncommittally.

He walked on past her into the library. Erzsébet didn't say anything, but Gilbert didn't like the implications in the look she gave him. The library was mostly empty, save for the students studying frantically for whatever upcoming tests they'd were unprepared for and the PhD students scrambling to meet deadlines with their theses. Gilbert and Erzsébet walked through the library, past the continuous tapping of computer keyboards and rustling of notes being referred to, and reached the stairs that led to the first basement level. Gilbert paused on the stairwell and inhaled deeply, remembering how the stairs had vanished when they needed them on their last trip into the basements.

'Scared?' Erzsébet taunted, but Gilbert could tell she wasn't as fearless as she let on.

'Aren't you?' He asked quietly.

Erzsébet didn't reply.

Gilbert switched the light at the bottom of the stairs on this time. They made their way through the thankfully silent aisles all the way to the door on the side leading to the records from the 19th and 18th centuries. The second basement was even more claustrophobic and unnerving than the first. A musty smell of ageing paper filled the room, which was dimly lit by sickly florescent lighting. There was a subterranean chill to the stagnant air and Gilbert shivered despite the warmth of his hoodie. Erzsébet forged on towards the opposite end of the room.

'Where are you going?' Gilbert asked her. 'Shouldn't we look through this floor first?'

Erzsébet sighed impatiently at having to explain herself.

'Look, we only have the word of our vampire friend to go on here,' she began. 'And if he's to be believed, then the kidnappings have been happening even before most of the university was built. In fact, you could even deduce that some of Silas' buildings were built to cover up the disappearances – to use as a front, if you will. Therefore if we want to find out anything, we should look at the records documenting the very beginnings of the university.'

'You think there'll be something down here about the brain parasites?' Gilbert asked dubiously, bristling at her condescending tone.

'No I don't,' Erzsébet conceded before continuing in her previous tone. 'But while you might have gotten the part about the second stage of the lifecycle right, you're still missing something here.' Satisfied with Gilbert's confused expression, she elaborated. 'What purpose are the kidnapped students used for? You used the example of the infected snails that let themselves get eaten by birds – well, we're looking for the "bird" of this parasite lifecycle.'

Gilbert had to admit that made sense.

'So we're looking for something documenting – I don't know – some sort of eldritch abomination here?' he said.

Erzsébet snorted.

'I don't know what we're looking for,' she told him. 'But I'm determined to find it.'

The third and last subbasement was the smallest and most ominous of them all. Erzsébet lead the way through it, phone light switched on. Gilbert did the same. Despite the lighting being electric, it barely filled any of the room. Grotesque carvings sat in alcoves, casting ghastly shadows when struck by the torchlight and seeming to move when seen from a corner of the eye. A damp odour of decay hung in the frigid air, whose chill could not simply be explained away by the underground surroundings alone. Gilbert shivered again, feeling cold sweat drip down his back. Erzsébet seemed somehow unaffected, shining her phone light one way then another. They reached the end of the room and Erzsébet began to browse the final shelf. It was filled with just as many scrolls as crumbling, leather bound tomes.

'Where do I begin,' she muttered to herself, scanning the spines of the tomes for titles.

'Maybe over there,' Gilbert suggested, pointing his phone towards an alcove set into the wall beside the shelf.

Within the alcove stood a pedestal of black marble, displaying enormous, ancient, leather bound book in astoundingly good condition. In the light of his phone, Gilbert could make out the glint of gold embossing the cover, forming a title in a script he did not recognise. Erzsébet walked towards it, swiped a finger across the cover, and frowned at the lack of dust she found.

'That's odd,' she murmured, and then with a shrug, she reached to pick up the book.

'Wait –,' Gilbert began, but his warning came too late.

Erzsébet already had the book in her hands. For a moment nothing happened.

'It might be booby trapped,' Gilbert finished lamely.

He heard a derisive laugh from Erzsébet. Then the room began to rumble. The gargoyles in the alcoves were turning towards them and the heavy wooden bookshelves were shaking precariously.

'Run!' Erzsébet ordered, tucking the book that had triggered whatever was happening under her arm. 'Go before the stairs disappear!'

Gilbert didn't need to be told twice, he sprinted back the way they had come, taking care to avoid touching any bookshelves while Erzsébet took the rear. He was halfway up the stairs when they gave beneath his feet; transforming into a steep, slippery chute.

'This is some Indiana Jones shit,' Gilbert muttered after nearly losing his footing.

He regained his balance and crouch ran up the rest of the slope, turning around once he'd reached the top to help Erzsébet up. She was struggling, with one arm wrapped around the heavy ancient book and her other hand clutching at an apparent handhold in the wall, her hair was plastered to her face with sweat and her grip was slipping. Gilbert held out a hand to help her up, but Erzsébet was too far down.

'Just drop the book!' He called to her.

Erzsébet shook her head with manic determination.

'No,' she replied fervently, pulling the book closer to her chest. 'If something is trying to kill us over it, it has to be important. It has to be a clue.'

'It won't be a help to us if we can't get out of here!' Gilbert yelled down the chute with frustration.

'I'm not leaving without having gained something,' the look in Erzsébet's eyes was almost feverish. 'Catch!'

Without further warning she threw the book at Gilbert in a long, sweeping underarm. It was a strong throw with good aim and Gilbert barely needed to do anything aside from grasp at the book as it caught him squarely in the chest. As Gilbert made sure he had the ancient heavy tome secured, Erzsébet let herself slide to the bottom of the slope. Taking a deep breath, she took a few steps backwards then broke into a run, using the momentum to charge her way out of the lowest level of the library.

'What are you waiting for?' She snapped at Gilbert as she reached level ground. 'Move before the shelves collapse or the rest of the stairs do the same thing!'

They hadn't made it two paces before a familiar rustling sound reached their ears. Gilbert threw an alarmed glance at Erzsébet.

'Oh no, not again,' he said as a he began to slow down, beyond the rustling he thought he could hear the muffled noise of a fire alarm sounding off far above them.

'Just keep moving,' Erzsébet hissed, scanning the nearest shelves for something to use as a shield.

The vortex of paper flew out at them from beyond the next shelves, this time in small pointed slivers rather than entire sheets. The paper points seemed impossibly sharp and were directed straight at them.

'Umm, do you even have a plan?' Gilbert muttered.

'I said keep moving!' Erzsébet pulled a cartography book from the trembling shelf closest to her, and opened the thin, wide, thick-covered manuscript into a makeshift shield before running ahead of Gilbert. 'Don't let go of that book!'

They kept running, and despite how closely Gilbert tried to stay towards Erzsébet and the safety of the barrier she was holding, small pieces of razor sharp paper still manage to graze past his face and hands. He winced each they drew blood but made no complaint, for ahead of him, he could see that Erzsébet's hands were covered in fine criss-crosses of blood. The sound of the fire alarm grew louder as they reached the second flight of stairs – which, thankfully, had neither transformed nor disappeared. Erzsébet had once more taken the rear as the paper shards that had flown past them before had regrouped and were now in pursuit. A mechanical grinding of stone that could only have been made by the moving statues came from further behind the paper, and Gilbert shuddered before increasing his speed.

Then he noticed the shelves were not only shaking, but moving closer together.

'Erzsébet!' he called urgently.

'What?' Erzsébet's voice broke off into a hiss as yet another piece of paper sliced her hand.

'This room is getting smaller! Hurry!'

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Gilbert had to swerve to avoid running to a shelf. They could no longer move in a straight line, but were rather forced to zig-zag through the ever decreasing space between the shelves and the walls. Erzsébet dropped the cartography book, sprinting after Gilbert as the space in the basement became too small for the knife-like paper to effectively move. Squeezing past the last shelf just before it thudded into the wall, they ran up the final stairs and reached the entry level of the library gasping for breath.

The library was completely empty, having apparently been evacuated, the fire siren still blaring. Gilbert and Erzsébet glanced at each other, almost amazed that they'd survived, and slowly dragged themselves out of the library and into the open air. Outside, Gilbert was about to hand the book that had caused them so much trouble to Erzsébet when she pulled out her phone.

'It's text from Roderich!' she exclaimed to herself, her expression brightening as she unlocked the phone. 'He's watched the video you posted this morning and wants to know if we're alive.' She informed Gilbert before hurriedly typing a reply.

Moments later her phone buzzed and Erzsébet's expression flashed from hurt to fury.

'How dare he,' she growled, angrily swiping a tear from the corner of her eye. '"That's good to hear, there's no need to come bother me then". He leaves my texts on "read" for hours, then texts to ask if I'm alive, then decides to go right back to ignoring me. You know what, I going to go bother him right now!'

Without so much a glance at Gilbert or the book she'd insisted they had to retrieve, Erzsébet turned on her heel and strode towards the dorms. Deciding that it would be best to give her space before he too returned to the dorms, Gilbert found a nearby tree and sat down beneath it to inspect the book with its cryptic script. Most of the letters were unrecognisable, yet Gilbert had the feeling he might have seen them before; perhaps in a museum. Lines in what appeared to be Latin were interspersed between pages. Flipping through from cover to cover, Gilbert could make no sense of anything. He shut the book and stood up.

'Fat lot of help this is,' he muttered, but tucked the book securely under his arm anyway before he walked backed to his room.

There was no sign that Arthur had been back in the dorm and Gilbert tried not to think about it. He settled into his chair, booted up his laptop and considered the book once more.

'Time to put Google translate to the test then,' he said wryly.

A few hours later he was at a dead end; he had no way to translate the bulk of the text - written in what he suspected was a form of Ancient Greek – and the Latin excerpts either made no sense without context or were not translating properly.

'I'm starting to see why every single language teacher ever told us to never use Google translate,' Gilbert commented to himself. 'What the hell is "tragic branch valley" even supposed to mean?'

Frustrated with his lack of progress, Gilbert closed off his laptop and took a long, relaxing shower before he went to bed.

Of course he had to go and have another nightmare. He was in a dark cavern and somewhere beyond there was a shining light, bright and awful, too bright to be the sun, but Gilbert felt drawn to it like a moth to flame. A voice called to him, a female voice, terrible like an arid summer wind, stripped of all flesh and soul, like a voice of the damned.

'Do not go into the light,' the voice insisted. 'For the light is hungry.'

'Who are you?' Gilbert asked. 'What do you mean "the light is hungry"?' He had reached the centre of the cavern and looked up to see nothing but blinding light.

'I am warning you, the light is hungry. Do not go nearer, or you will be next.' The voice said, terrible as before, sending a shiver down Gilbert's spine.

Then blood began to seep from the walls of the cave and he could see her – the woman from his earliest nightmares; the woman in the white nightgown. Only now she was right before him, and he could see she had flaming red hair. Something jolted in Gilbert's memory then; he knew her somehow but he couldn't think where. The blood continued to rise, it reached his knees, then his waist, then his chest and neck. Gilbert kicked and struggled and tried to swim, to keep his head above the blood. The woman did nothing to try and save herself as the blood seeped into her gown, blooming across the white like a grotesque flower.

'Do not go into the light, for the light is hungry,' she repeated in a never ending chant, her vacant eyes staring beyond Gilbert, her expression never changing.

The blood reached her neck and she closed her eyes, letting the ocean of red flow over her, and then she was gone. But her voice continued – ringing in Gilbert's ears.

The blood now filled over half the cavern, pushing Gilbert towards the light he was not supposed to go into, blinding him. He had two choices; to drown or be consumed.

'No!' he cried desperately, futilely. 'No!'

'Hey, hey, Gilbert, Gilbert!" Someone was shaking him 'Wake up, you're fine, it's only a nightmare.' He held a voice say.

Gilbert opened his eyes, his reading light had been switched on and he could see Arthur looking down at him in concern.

'You're back,' Gilbert rasped, sitting up in his bed, his throat was dry and there was a foul taste in his mouth.

'Yes, I am,' Arthur agreed, letting go of Gilbert's arm.

'I had another nightmare… Does this mean I'm still marked by the vampires?' Gilbert asked.

'You shouldn't be,' Arthur replied. 'Not if you've been keeping that charm I gave you with you, it should've chased them away.'

'It didn't feel like it was the vampires,' Gilbert admitted. 'I was drowning in blood again, but this time there was this light that shone brighter than anything should… and… and there was a woman – a girl… in a white nightdress.' He frowned, trying to recall the details of the nightmare. 'She didn't even try to swim. I don't know why she didn't try to swim.' A though occurred to him; why something about her had seemed so familiar. 'It's her isn't it? It's Elle.'

Arthur said nothing for a while, standing to pace the room.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I've never seen her. The students we take talk about her sometimes – a girl with masses of red curls.' Arthur made a curling gesture beside his head, and sat down dejectedly on his own bed. 'For some reason she's never appeared to me; perhaps she blames me for her fate.'

'Or maybe she can only talk to people who aren't vampires,' Gilbert suggested gently.

'Maybe,' Arthur said, sounding unconvinced. 'But it doesn't matter – she's long dead.' He fiddled with his wristband for a moment, then stood again. 'Anyway, I heard someone set off the library fire alarms today.' He smiled knowingly as he walked back towards Gilbert.

'How do you know was me?' Gilbert asked, mock offended.

'Oh, just a hunch,' Arthur said in a nonchalant tone, tapping Gilbert on the nose. 'You've opened up one of the cuts on your face.' He murmured, reaching for a tissue from that bedside table and carefully wiped at Gilbert's cheek. 'There.' He sounded satisfied, but pulled his hand quickly away.

Gilbert felt a twinge of disappointed that Arthur might still be wary of him, but supposed he deserved it.

'You have kept the charm with you,' noted Arthur with a dry smile.

Gilbert nodded, remembering he'd tucked the rabbit's foot into his pyjama pocket before he went to bed. He felt a small wave of comfort as he realised that must have been why Arthur moved away so quickly.

'So what did you find in the library?' Arthur inquired.

'We found this book,' Gilbert replied, sliding out of his bed to retrieve the leather bound tome from his desk. 'Too bad I can't read any of it.' He handed the book to Arthur.

'Ancient Greek,' Arthur mused. 'Ionic, to be exact.' He opened the book to a random page and skimmed over it. 'With some lines in Archaic Latin... How interesting, this is exactly the kind of thing Pater would be working with.'

'You can read Ancient Greek?' Gilbert asked. 'That's pretty cool.'

'I was bored one summer and I decided I wanted to read the Iliad,' Arthur said casually, not taking his eyes off of the book. 'It just so happened to be written in almost the exact same form of Ancient Greek as thing.' He wandered back over to his bed and sat down, continuing to flip through the pages.

Gilbert took a seat beside him and peered over at the book.

'Anything helpful in there?' he asked hopefully.

'Well I'm going to need more to work off of than just "is hungry" and "eats people", because that basically just describes every single horror from beyond the dawn of time in here,'

Arthur continued to peruse the book, pausing every now and again to further scrutinise a paragraph.

'Surely, there's got to be something.' Gilbert reasoned.

'Well if you have to know,' Arthur flipped back through the pages he'd already read. 'Let's see… Chaos; primordial monster, feeds on the blood and souls of humans… Enceladus; one of the sons of Tartarus, must be sated by the blood of ten humans. The Ophiotaurus; will grant immortality, provided with human sacrifices, the more the better. Oh, how about this – the classic story of the Minotaur; feed with twelve Athenian youths until killed by Theseus. Though the Latin footnote for that entry says it might just be a misinterpretation of one of the other things in here.' He glanced over at Gilbert, who was feeling slightly queasy. 'Well?'

'I see your point,' Gilbert thought for a moment. 'Is there anything in there that talks about a light of any sort though?

'I'll keep a lookout for it,' Arthur assured and went back to reading.

'I'm really glad you're on our side now,' Gilbert confessed. 'We'd be completely stumped at this point without you.'

'Don't start expecting heroic vampire crap from me, Snowflake,' Arthur said warningly, setting down the book to glance sardonically at him. 'If I know better than to meddle with Pater, I definitely know better than to mess with something old enough to think it's a god.'

'But you do mess with your dad!' Gilbert argued.

'Only in small ways,' Arthur interjected.

'Besides,' Gilbert continued. 'If you didn't want me to have heroic notions about you, you probably shouldn't have saved my life.' He smiled impishly.

'But then whose muesli bars would I steal?' Arthur said with a tone of dead seriousness before his expression of cool detachment broke into a similarly playful smile.

Gilbert snorted, and moments later Arthur began to laugh as well. Something about this just felt so right; sitting next to Arthur in the dimly lit room and sharing a joke. With a jolt, Gilbert realised Erzsébet might have been right, but before he could ponder that thought any further, Roderich burst into the room.

'Where is she?' he demanded, as early morning light streamed in from the corridor. He looked more dishevelled than Gilbert had ever seen him and brandished a very crumpled card at them. 'Because I know we haven't been on good terms lately, but if she thinks this is a way to try and teach me a lesson, I'll let her know that this is incredibly bad taste.'

Roderich scanned the room as Gilbert and Arthur shared a baffled look, he opened the door to the bathroom and peered inside before closing it again.

'I know she's here somewhere,' Roderich insisted, but he sounded less than convinced.

'Who?' Gilbert asked. 'Erzsébet?'

'Well who else would I be asking about?' Roderich demanded.

'Erzsébet isn't here,' Gilbert informed him, still puzzled at why Roderich was so worked up.

Roderich faltered in his tirade, his expression becoming more panicked.

'No. She has to be here. This has to be a joke.' He maintained with adamantine desperation.

Gilbert shook his head.

'She's not here, I haven't seen her since she decided to go and try to talk to you yesterday afternoon…' Gilbert paused as Roderich blanched.

'She never came to talk to me,' Roderich spoke with horrified disbelief, shaking his head slowly. 'No. This is just some awful joke you're all in on, isn't it?'

'What are you talking about?' Gilbert asked with frustration. 'What joke?'

Roderich shoved the card he had been gripping into Gilbert's face. Gilbert leaned slightly away before taking it from Roderich's hands.

'I found this in her room,' Roderich explained. 'I went there earlier to return some things she'd left with me and her door was wide open and the room was a mess. This… this was on her bed.'

Gilbert smoothed out the card and read it aloud.

'"Dear student",' he began, and felt a dreadful sense of déjà vu. '"Your nosy little friend no longer attends Silas University because:

A) She meddled with things that were none of her business

B) Did you really think we wouldn't find out what you were up to?

C) We are ancient and terrible

D) None of you are safe – we'll take anyone we want".' If Gilbert had glanced up from the card at that moment, he would have seen Arthur look over at him in horror, but he kept reading. '"Exit procedures have commenced, no action on your part is required.".'

Gilbert felt sick to the stomach, he carefully set the card aside and looked up at Roderich.

'I'm sorry…' he said trailing off, at a loss for words.

'They've taken her,' Roderich finished flatly, his voice breaking at the end.

'She's probably with all the other missing students,' Arthur offered, finally breaking his silence. 'I guess they did need a replacement.'

'What do you mean "a replacement"?' Roderich's voice rose sharply, a flush of rage mottling his cheeks.

'Well I stopped them from taking Gilbert—,'

'And so they took Erzsébet instead,' Roderich sounded on the verge of hysterical tears. 'Why didn't you warn her? Why couldn't you have given her a charm as well—,'

'Whatever I do, they always just end up taking more,' Arthur interjected. 'I didn't think it would be one of your friends.' He added more to Gilbert than Roderich. 'I told you I'm not a hero.' He sighed as Gilbert looked disappointed.

'This is all your fault!' Roderich accused. 'The both of you!' He turned onto Gilbert. 'What were you thinking? Putting everything you do up online? For everyone to see?' He waited for his words to sink in then turned inwards, his voice dropping into a hoarse whisper. 'What if they're putting those things in her brain? What if the last thing she remembers about me was that we were fighting?'

A sob broke out from Roderich as he finished and he sank onto Gilbert's unoccupied bed, covered his face with his hands and broke down into uncontrollable crying.

I'm pretty sure that everyone's stopped reading by this point so I'm just going to say that I'm so glad a03 exists because if I was just posting this here, I would have given up writing a long time ago