[Yuri]: Let’s hurry to get the tools. That took far longer than I thought it would.

[Lily]: I’ve never seen you be so urgent. Do you really think that with a crowbar that the [Ox] and the [Horse] can escape?

[Yuri]: No, it’s just…

The [Tiger] is weak. She has a slight frame, is a head shorter than anyone else present, and her fists are so small that someone might ward off her blows with a notebook. Yet she’s the one who frightens me the most. It’s the way she carries herself, cocky, violent, arrogantly - someone who would absolutely use force if it helped her.

[Lily]: Yuri, slow down! Your strides are so fast that I can’t keep up!

There are six doors for the players, and past them a broken ice-machine, and past that a shoddy entryway - and then there is a sign. This is the place I was looking for, the one I stumbled into in the morning.

MAINTENANCE.

[Yuri]: Right here.

[https://i.imgur.com/gcoaZum.png]

I crack open the door. Inside’s a mop, a bucket, a broom, then… nothing. I glance over the space again as if that would make the toolbox magically appear.

[Yuri]: I could have sworn that there was a crowbar here.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

[Lily]: Well, it’s gone now. What else was there?

[Yuri]: A crowbar, a wrench, a screwdriver, a hammer… oh, I don’t know! I can’t remember things that are already gone!

Part of my frustration is the quiet humiliation of offering a solution swiftly disproved. But the other half is a cold apprehension that touches me, as if the icy metal of one of the tools is pressed against me.

I had ignored the jumbled closet this morning because there was nothing useful for me there; just a collection of things to be used for MAINTENANCE after all.

But the box of tools is not a box of tools; it’s really a box of weapons. And someone got here first.

[Yuri]: We have to find that box.

[Lily]: Yuri…? It’s okay, if it was there before, it’ll turn up again.

[Yuri]: No, this is important. We have to find it.

I take the mop, and as I do so Lily gives me a look.

[Lily]: I mean, I guess we could give that to the [Ox] and [Horse] to use as a ram, but I think the handle would just break…

*clank* *thunk* *clunk*

From somewhere above us I hear barely-suppressed thuds.

I hit the button elevator call button. Click. Click-Click. I tap my foot twice and by the time Lily gets to me, the elevator is unresponsive. There’s no mechanical whir, just the rhythmic beatings that echo louder down towards the two of us.

[Lily]: Yuri, wait!

I shoulder the mop and move towards the stairs. Climbing them still one at a time but fast, I fight through my short-breaths at the stairwell’s top and whirl out into the upper hallway.

*clank* *clang* *clank*

The sounds become metallic and clear. I head towards their source; where the sounds are loudest is by the second floor set of elevator doors, which are half-open. I enter.

[Rat]: Now, what are you going to do with that?

[Yuri]: Nothing, really.

I drop the mop.