The ceiling was getting far too familiar.

Tyler didn't have anything in particular on her mind. When she first woke up in this place, she had used her stories to escape the room mentally. Anything to not be present in this place and to pass the time. Now she couldn't even turn to that. It felt like she had no words to even think with. She just stared at the ceiling, her mind blank. The light in the center of her room had an interesting sound to it. The light, or whatever powered it, gave off the kind of hum that comes from old fluorescent lights, with an increasing pitch before it clinked a little; then the hum reset in pitch, only to increase again. It was almost mesmerizing.

She had cried for a while after she woke up from the dream. The idea that Eris couldn't reach her terrified her. But now she just felt numb, her emotions all spent, just like her ability to tell herself stories. She tried to focus on the hum of the lights as she fought the despair that crept into her stomach. It felt cold.

The lock on the door clanked, and the door opened. She sat up on the bed and tried to blink away the ghost of the lights from her eyes enough to see who it was. The large man from earlier walked into the room, and Tyler could see that he was clearly upset. “Are you okay?” She asked as a reflex, but she kind of meant it too.

“What?” He replied. Her eyes were still adjusting, but she could at least tell that his expression turned from upset to shock.

“Are you okay?” She repeated. “You look… sad.”

The large man pinched the bridge of his nose. “We're holding you captive, and you’re asking me if I’m okay?”

Tyler shrugged.

“No. No, I’m not okay, in fact. I came here to ask if you were okay. Do you need anything? Literally anything at all.”

“I would absolutely love it if I could walk out of here.”

“I know. Meanwhile, is there anything I can get you?”

Tyler actually felt a little hope. He didn’t say “no”, anyway. “I’m dying for some coffee. The caffeine withdrawal isn’t doing the headaches from the bracelet any favors.”

The big man nodded, his face an unreadable expression. “Okay. My name is Andrew, by the way.”

Tyler tried to make her face into a friendly expression, but couldn't quite remember the right way to arrange her face to accomplish that. “Tyler.”

“I know.”

Andrew turned to leave, but before he could, the door opened again and Tyler nearly fell off the cot when the person who opened it stepped into the room. She managed to catch herself at the last possible moment.

“Ms. Knightly‽” She half shouted. “What are you doing here?” She asked before she could make heads or tails of the situation. Understanding quickly dawned on her as despair filled her veins. “You brought me here, didn’t you? Why?” She tried to stop it, but she was starting to cry. She couldn't understand anything, but she felt so hurt and betrayed. Andrew took that moment to rush out of the room, and Tyler spoke up when the person who entered the room didn't say anything. “How could you?” Ms. Knightly looked stern, and stood there in a basic cardigan and jeans like she had just gotten done with teaching. Tyler wondered if that's how she always dressed.

The woman still didn't say anything, at least not as quickly as Tyler would have liked. Tyler continued with questioning her. “Who are you?”

That seemed to be something she could answer, and she sighed before speaking. “My name is Marisa Deronda. I work for a man I only know as ‘Sir’.”

Tyler barely heard the information. Everything she knew was falling apart before her eyes. Was this really the same woman who kept her after class on Monday, just to make sure she was alright? The same person who then looked the other way when she didn’t focus on class, so she wouldn’t feel so embarrassed for being called out again? She realized that she hardly knew the woman, but what little she did know was a gentle person who cared. “Why?” It was the only question she had, and the only one she wouldn’t let her get away with not answering.

Abigail—. no, Marisa seemed to know that too. “I’m part of an organization tasked with finding and retrieving artifacts... er, magic items, and storing them safely. At the beginning of June, a team of ours found a very dangerous artifact disguised as a trophy in the hallways of your school. I was tasked on retrieving the artifact with while drawing the least amount of attention to the organization… which failed spectacularly when the fool I paid off to break the glass decided to use you as a hammer instead of just breaking school property like I told him to. I figured he was big enough of a bully that even if he did blab about everything about me, that he wouldn’t have enough information to lead back to the organization, or even have anyone believe him.” She paused for a few seconds, presumably to collect her thoughts and take a breath. Tyler waited patiently, too stunned to say anything. She was even responsible for the incident on Monday? “When I did get a chance to retrieve the trophy, I found that the artifact was completely void of any kind of magic, even residual traces. After that colossal failure, I was tasked with observing the school for any traces of what might have happened. That’s when you came back to class as… well, as you.” Tyler gulped. “When I drove past your house I found traces of magic, which made me look into you more closely, and confirm you were the reason the artifact was now just a cup of bronze.” She clenched her eyes and fists tightly. “That’s when I made the suggestion to take you in.”

The story made her head spin as she retraced the events of the entire last week. She had been the cause of it all. Every good and bad thing that happened to her was all her fault. She wanted to slap her for all the trouble and hurt, and hug her for basically giving her a sister and a best friend, for giving her the body to finally start living. And then punch her for taking it all away at the end.

“Tyler, I’m so sorry.”

Tyler surprised herself by laughing. She laughed hard, and probably a little too long, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe the cell was getting to her, and she was finally going crazy. “That’s rich. Do you have any idea what you put me through?”

“I know, and I’m—”

“Yes, you’re very sorry.” She said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “Too bad. You don’t get to be forgiven. No matter what happens, I will never forgive you.”

Marisa seemed genuinely upset about that, but schooled her expression quickly enough that Tyler didn’t think it bothered her all that much.

To break the silence, Tyler asked the only question she had left. “What happens now?”

“Now I take you to my boss. For what it’s worth, I’ll try to do whatever I can to get the magic out of you and get you back home. I’ll work my hardest to make that happen. For my sins, I swear it.”

Tyler didn’t know what to make of the promise. She wanted to believe her. Wanted it badly, in fact. But she refused to trust this so-called teacher standing in front of her, and she trusted her boss even less. Instead, she just stared, giving nothing back.

Eventually, Marisa turned to leave the room. Maybe she said another apology, but Tyler hadn’t been listening. Instead, she turned her thoughts inward and tried to reach Eris again. Wherever she was, she knew she could reach her in her dreams, and she had to get a hold of her before whatever Marisa and her crazy boss intended to do to her. She knew herself and her dreams well enough to know for certain that dream Eris was the real Eris. Maybe that was wishful thinking, and she’s a fool to assume that, but she didn’t care. It was the only lifeline she had left. The dream version of Eris felt too real, too warm, and gave her too much hope out of this situation that she decided that she would trust that it was Eris.

She adjusted her position on the cot so that her back was to the wall and picked up the sorry excuse for a pillow and put it behind her head and tried to meditate. She didn’t know whether it would work or not, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a long while, and, well, she had nothing else to do. So, she focused on her breathing, tried to feel around inside her mind the same way she felt the well that Eris said was a link to her home. She knew where the well was in her mind, she had used it unconsciously enough that it was a familiar place to her now, and thanks to the headaches the bracelet gave her she knew exactly how to avoid it.

Try as she might, she couldn’t find any feeling of her friend. Maybe she really did need to be asleep to see her.

She wondered if dream Eris might have been a dream after all. That thought was just as frightening as if she were real. If dream Eris was real, then she was trapped just like her, scared and afraid and caked in mud. If she was a figment of her imagination, then she might still have hope of being rescued by real Eris, hopefully soon, but it meant that right now she was truly alone for the first time in a week. The past week and a day felt like an entire year, and the thought of not having Eris, a literal part of her, cut off from who and where she was now was truly horrifying to her.

Thoughts of her friend made her too emotional to continue trying to meditate, so she decided to just wait for sleep to try. She placed the pillow back into it’s spot and tried to will herself back into sleep.

◊◊◊

Matthew was pressed as close to the outside wall of the complex as he dared go, ducking under windows just in case a passing car with overly bright lights was enough to illuminate a shadow onto the wrong room. He was glad the pain in his knee subsided the moment he got out of the car. He could imagine how the repetitive crouching he was currently doing would hurt in the morning.

The building itself was a rather large, almost house-like building made of aging red brick with ornate trimmings around the windows and a grand archway for an entrance. Matthew tried to avoid any cracks in the concrete for fear that the grass that broke through was dry enough to make a sound, though he was pretty sure the sound of loose gravel under his shoes would give him away anyway. An old swing set played with the wind and made that grating sound of rusty metal swaying in a breeze. There was a large entrance at the front of the building that he was absolutely not going to use if he could help it. He decided to go around the house in a clockwise motion, trying to make as little noise as possible.

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Matthew thought back to the car and the people in it. The people he was ultimately responsible for. It took a lot of convincing to keep the rest of them in the car while he went in to scout out the building. They argued to the point that he promised to keep his phone on and inside his front jacket pocket while the phone was in a call back to one of their cell phones, so everyone would know up down to the second what was happening. He didn’t know what he was walking into, and he wasn’t about to risk anyone’s life other than his more than he’d already done.

Speaking of risks, just how few doors were on this building? Isn’t this a fire hazard to only have one door? He was almost desperate when he rounded the third corner. There was a small red car parked in the grass just outside the line of sight from the driveway up to the building, and next to it was a small door. He once again said a silent prayer and found to his surprise that the door was ajar slightly, propped open by a small wooden block. He supposed that Abigail or whoever would have just assumed no one would break into an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. Too bad for them, he found he got more stubborn as he aged, not less.

The inside of the building could kindly be described as “nuclear fallout”. Everything was coated with dust and cobwebs, with decaying furniture to match. Matthew took note of the few dust trails that signaled that someone had been here recently and decided to follow the trail, careful to retrace the steps of the previous person who walked through here. Their shoe size was impressive, which Matthew took to mean that there was at least one extra person responsible for Tyler’s disappearance. He didn’t think Abigail wore sneakers this large, at least. The clinking sound of an old fluorescent bulb sounded down the hallway, and Matthew went completely still, wishing desperately for his heart to quiet down enough to hear someone approaching.

After what must have been a full minute of no sound or movement, Matthew continued following the trail as soon as his heart had decided to relocate away from his throat. He assumed that the sound was just a lightbulb settling into the new cold for the winter. He passed room after room, the doors thankfully already open, so he didn’t have to worry about making a sound when he looked inside for any traces of other people. He wanted to be sure, if Tyler was here in this awful place, that both of them would be able to run out of here without being blocked by anyone the minute an alarm was raised.

As he became more and more certain that no one was going to come down the way waiving a gun, he started to relax a little and listen a little better. He nervously thumbed at the pocket watch his old teacher had given him when he took over the responsibilities of guarding the trophy. He remembered the kind face of his teacher as he handed down the heirloom to him. “I don’t have any children to pass it onto, so it’s best if you take it.” He had said it as though it were just a matter of logic, but he could see the proud emotions behind the mask he normally wore. How he wished he could talk to him again and ask for his wisdom. Unfortunately, the old man passed some twenty years ago.

At the center of the main floor, he saw the doorway to his left and the grand archway just beyond. He didn’t like that he had essentially wasted thirty minutes going around the whole building, but he couldn’t be sure if there was an alarm on the front door or not. To his right, he saw a circular staircase leading both down and up. He had a decision to make, and he needed to make it quick. Deciding that it’d make the most sense for them to hide in the basement rather than one of the many floors above, he decided to descend the staircase carefully, keeping to the inside-most section to limit the number of creaks the stairs could make. The progress was painfully slow, and he found his heart hammering in his chest all over again. At the floor of the stairs, he could hear a door close, and he almost let out a yelp, but stopped himself as he quickly closed both hands over his mouth. Looking around, he noticed that the stairway had a little dark spot if you kept going around to where more stairs would be if the basement went on to another floor. He hoped that would be enough to hide his presence. The lights were actually on down here, and the shadows were harsh against the sharp light of the old bulbs. He hid under the stairs and tried his hardest to quiet his breathing. He counted the steps for something to mentally do to keep from panicking as the sounds came closer. Around the corner, an absolute giant of a man came into view. Matthew prayed that he didn’t look too closely at the spaces between the steps. Thankfully, he seemed to have other things on his mind than a possible intruder as he quickly climbed the stairs.

Matthew probably waited a full minute after the sound of the shoes completely went away before he felt okay enough to stand again. His legs felt like jelly and his heart just wouldn’t stop beating. He worried that he might have a heart attack if he didn’t have a proper retirement after all this excitement was over. He made his way on unsteady legs down the hall in the direction the giant came from and used the walls to steady himself. He noticed that the doors down here were all made of that heavy reinforced metal. If Tyler was in this building, he was sure she’d be somewhere down here, but he didn’t have time to check every door. The giant would probably be back down here any moment, and the adrenaline pushed him forward and steadied his legs. Matthew came to a 'T' intersection at the end of the hallway, and he looked down the hall in both directions, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. He was about to turn around and check the other wing when he spotted a small bit of extra light escape from under the doorway of one room at the far end. He fast walked as quickly as he dared and tried to open the door quietly, but it was heavy enough that his hand came away from the handle as if it were made of air. Trying again and putting a lot more strength into his grip, he opened the much-too-heavy door.

◊◊◊

Just a few minutes after Marisa had left to do whatever and Andrew went off to get her some coffee, the door opened again. She assumed it was Andrew, back with the coffee she asked for. She felt a small twinge of guilt that he basically made a useless coffee run, since she had just decided to try to sleep. The feeling quickly passed when she reminded herself that he was her captor. She debated making him run back for extra cream and sugar just to give the guy some more busywork for the trouble when someone much shorter than Andrew poked their head around the corner.

“Tyler?” Came a quiet whisper.

She recognized that voice! That was Mr. Johnson! She didn’t know how he had found her, and she didn’t care. She was off the cot in a flash and by the time the door fully opened she was already running towards her old teacher and plowed into his chest and gave him the biggest hug. She worried that he might be in on this whole thing too. If Marisa was, then anyone could be. But she quickly banished the thought. Matthew had been a teacher for forever. If anyone was safe, it was him. She buried her face fully into his chest as he returned the hug with a gentle version of his own. He had the door propped open with his foot, and he quickly glanced through it’s opening.

“We have to go.”

She only nodded and let him go.

Outside the cell, she took her first glance around the hallway of the building. It was an old sort of hospital-looking place, with lines on the floor and way-too-bright lights hanging from the ceiling in those large, aluminum cone shades. She didn’t know which way was which, so she just followed Matthew. Taking the cues from his body language, she crept as quietly as she could right behind him and had to hold a squeal in. She was getting out of here!

The hallway opened up a little in what must be the center of the building, and a spiral staircase led upwards. She assumed that was the way, but Matthew wasn’t making a move for it, instead standing as still as a statue. She was about to ask him what was wrong when she heard the sound of footfalls coming down the stairs. Quicker to react than her, Matthew turned around and grabbed her arm as he pulled her under the stairs in the opposite direction. Through the cracks of the stairway, she could see the faded blue jeans and sneakers of Andrew walking down the stairs. Cold sweat spread down her back as she realized he was carrying a coffee cup. She looked at Matthew in a panic, and he seemed to realize her frantic look as he started looking around the space for something. Recognition showed on his face as he stood up as soon as Andrew was fully around the corner. She looked over in the direction he was headed and saw a gray box on the wall. She didn’t know what it was until he opened it, and she saw a bunch of wires packed haphazardly into large metal squares with disks. She assumed it was some kind of old surge protector like the one she had in her bedroom, but this one didn’t have any switches inside it like hers did. Matthew seemed to realize this too, since he started looking around the box instead of inside it and found a second, much smaller panel right next to the bigger one. Opening it, he found a couple of switches and started pulling them all.

The lights on the entire floor went out with a loud clank that startled her badly. She hadn’t heard Andrew shout that she was missing yet, so she assumed he hadn’t made it to her cell to deliver the coffee. Her room was at the very far end of the hallway, and Andrew wasn't walking all that quickly. She prayed that Andrew didn’t know enough about the wiring of this old building to know where to look for the box.

She stood up and noticed that she couldn’t see anything at all now. The same harsh light that let them hide behind the stairs was the reason she couldn’t see in the dark now. She waited for her vision to clear before she moved, but before everything became clear, she felt a hand around her arm. She almost gave a shriek, thinking Andrew had already caught up to them and caught her again. Her fears abated when she heard Matthew make a shushing sound. He had felt her tense up at his touch. They made their way as quickly as they could up the stairs.

The main foyer was a slightly nicer replica of the basement, except with a door at the far end instead of a fuse box. Instead of moving to it, though, Matthew went in a different direction. She assumed he knew of a different way out that was safer. She could almost taste the cold winter night air. A door in front of them opened and the footfalls of what was probably Maria was coming down the hallway in the direction they were headed. Looking around quickly, Matthew pulled them both into one of the rooms on the main floor and hid behind the door instead of closing it. They stood in silence as the sound of her shoes softly landing on the concrete floors came and went, and she released a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

They didn't leave right away. After what felt like far too long of a wait, Matthew finally gestured for her to follow out of the room. "The way I came in is over there." He said in a hushed tone, pointing at the end of the hallway. He led both of them down the passage way, away from the direction the footsteps went.

Before she left the room, Tyler looked around quickly and noticed that it appeared to be a much nicer version of her cell downstairs. The door they hid behind was wooden instead of metal, and there was a window at the far end with metal bars on the outside.

Tyler was relieved as they started to almost run down the hallway, but she was worried they were making too much noise. Matthew slammed into a door, but instead of opening, he just bounced off the crash bar. She heard him curse under his breath as he tried the bar again, but the door refused to open. Fresh panic filled her veins as the sound of footsteps came from the direction they had just come from. Looking around, she found one door that was different from the rest, and she pulled the teacher through it. There were another set of stairs going both back down and upwards. She refused to go back down for more reasons than just the obvious, and would just have to hope that there’d be another way out from upstairs. They climbed the steps two at a time, ascending three floors before they finally came to a big metal door that looked like it led outside. She turned the handle and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge for her. Matthew took the door handle from her hand and bashed his shoulder into the door, and a loud rusting creak echoed down the stairs. If they didn’t know where they were before, they did now.

She tasted fresh night air, and it was a rare night where there was a gentle rain fell onto the roof around her. It froze her to the bone almost immediately, and she started looking around for a way off this building. She started to panic when she realized that the rooftop was surrounded by a metal fence, well over twelve feet high.

“There!” Matthew pointed at the corner of the bare rooftop. Off to the side was an extra pole next to the corner of the building that looked like a rooftop access door made from the same chain linked fence as the rest of the wall. They ran to it, and she wanted to scream when she realized it was locked with one of those big old-timey locks with the single round keyhole. On top of it being a large lock that kept them from escaping, it was rusted all to hell. Even if they did have the key, she doubted it would even open.

She looked around for anything she could use as a weapon, but the tarred rooftop was completely bare.

The sound of the rooftop door creaking open echoed through the chilling night air, and sound seemed to stop for her. A moment later, the sound of rain was back, sounding louder than ever on the rooftop. She looked at the imposing visage of Andrew. He looked angry.