The floor of the bathroom is tiled in a black-and-white checker pattern, each tile is roughly the size of my palm. To the right, I see a large bathtub made of white porcine with black streaks running through it. Straight ahead of me is the white porcelain sink that has a single stem that sits on the ground and moves up to the wash basin. Behind the sink, I see the mirror. I look sickly in my reflection. My eyes are tired and my face looks thin.

As I lean in to take a closer look I see that my eyes are bloodshot and my lips are dry. My face is somewhat ashy, and I look like a mess. I’ve been walking around looking like this? I think to myself.

Turning around I close the door behind me and use the slide lock to lock the door. I start the water for a bath and I go back to the mirror. The design of the mirror catches my eye, the edge of the mirror is engraved with little depictions of people fighting monsters, most of which I don’t recognize. Someone fighting a Minotaur, sailors fighting mermaids, and a giant spider attacking a village.

The images are unsettling. I’ve never been a fan of monsters and magic, and now that I’m here it makes me even more uncomfortable.

I hear the lunch bell ring as I am taking my bath and I rush to get out. I throw my dress on and rush across the hall to the dining room. Almost everyone is here, everyone besides Frank and Landon. Taking a seat beside Jacqueline I say,

“Hey, how’s your day going?” Jacqueline’s hair is a bit out of place and her eyes are a bit bloodshot.

A few moments after I ask the question she looks back at me, “Hi Samantha,” She smiles. “I’ve had a good day.”

Her words are slower today. Before, especially when she was excited she talked at like one hundred miles a minute. Now it feels like she’s talking like the sloth from Zootopia. 

I am exaggerating a bit here but that’s what it felt like.

Jacqueline resumes eating and staring at her food.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine.” she says after a long pause, “I just am tired is all…” She grabs a chicken wing and takes a massive bite out of it.

“Okay, but if you need anything from me just let me know.”

“I’m fine,” she says with a mouth full of food spitting part of her chicken on my plate without noticing.

“You seem a little off.”

“I’m having some me time today.” With that, she takes her plate of food and walks out of the room passing Frand and Landon as they entered

I lean over to Landon, who takes the seat where Jacqueline was sitting, and whisper. “Is she okay?”

He whispers back, “She does this occasionally. We don’t usually worry about it unless it lasts more than a day.”

“What’s going on with her though?”

“I don’t know. We just let her ride these out,” he says as he picks up a sub from the table.

I look back at my plate, push it away from me, and sit there worrying about Jacqueline.

After Lunch Gage pats his hand on my shoulder and says, “You ready for round two?”

“Round two?” I ask.

Gage chuckles. “I mean, are you still shadowing us or have you found someone more interesting to hang around?”

I consider saying that I want to check on Jacqueline but I decide to leave her be for now. I shake my head and look at Gage saying, “I haven’t talked much to anyone else today so I guess I’ll continue to shadow you.”

Gage grasps at his chest and falls backwards to the floor and I reach out to try and catch him as he falls but I am nowhere near fast enough. He slams into the ground with a soft thud considering his size.

“GAGE!” I squeal, “ARE YOU OKAY!”

Gage erupts in laughter while spasming on the ground.

“Yes,” he says breathlessly between laughs. “I’m fine.” After he catches his breath he hops to his feet.

“What was that?!” I ask.

“I was pretending that you shot me with that comment and I guess I took it a little too far.”

“What comment?”

“That you are only hanging out with us because you couldn’t find anyone else to hang out with.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” He says with a smile. “I just felt like blowing it out of the water and I would say I did a mighty good job if I do say so myself.”

“You scared me half to death is what you did!” I yell.

“Then that’s another bonus,” Gage says as he walks to the door.

“What do you mean that’s another bonus? You find pleasure in making others feel worse.”

“It’s a bonus because you wouldn’t have been scared if you didn’t care about me.” With that he let the door close behind him leaving me alone in the dining room.

Looking around I realize that I have never been alone in this room. It’s quiet and still. I walk around and look at the different decorations. One of which was a disturbing poem called Ten Little Sailor Boys, which talked about ten little sailor boys that die in different ways. It ends with … and then there were none. No moral messaging, no twist of hope, just death.

Why in the world do they have this in here? This is messed up.

I head out of the dining room and head back to the Dojo to see Gage and Porter wrapped around each other and squirming on the floor. It looks really weird.

Porter flings himself behind Gage and wraps his arm around Gage’s neck. Gage struggles for a minute before he taps Porter’s arm and Porter lets Gage go.

“That was stupid,” Gage says while trying to get his breath.

“You… only…” Porter says while breathing very heavily, “say that… because you… lost”

“No, I’m saying that because… I had you.”

“Clearly you… didn’t.” Porter smirks at Gage and redirects his focus at me. “Enjoy the fight?”

Gage turns to look at me, “Ahh, so you did decide to join us.”

“Well,” I say, “I had better options but I figured I would continue to slum it with you.”

Gage begins applauding and looks at Porter. “She’s finally comfortable snapping back.” He looks at me, “You’re going to fit in here great.” He gets to his feet. “Now get on the mat.”

“Okay,” I grab a Gi from the closet and get changed. By the time I get back out Gage and Porter are stretching on the mat. “So what are we learning first?” I ask.

“We were talking about it and we do think Aikido would be the best for you to work on building your core strength. But before we teach you that you have to learn how to fall.”

“How to fall?” I ask.

“Yes, Aikido is full of throwing people and getting thrown so to do it safely you have to know how to fall and not break your neck.”

“Isn’t there something safer that we can start with?” I ask.

“It’s completely safe,” Porter says. “You won’t be thrown with any force for probably a year if you were to keep this up.”

“How am I supposed to practice getting thrown without you know, getting thrown?”

Gage stands up and says. “You practice rolling.” Then he jumps forward and positions his body into a round shape and rolls onto the ground only to return to standing after one rotation.

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Porter says, “He’s just showing off.” Porter gets on one knee and faces away from me. “The first thing you will learn is your basic roll.” He places his left hand on the ground and flips his whole body over his left shoulder landing back on one knee.

“That doesn’t look too hard,” I say.

Reader, I want you to know it was that hard.

My first attempt I ended up on my back flying out to the side somehow. My second attempt ended with me flipping the right way but I wouldn’t call it a roll. I would say I crashed into the ground and bounced into a semicircle on the floor. We spent the next twenty minutes or so doing this and I was so beaten and bruised that I don’t know If I will be able to get out of bed tomorrow. Well, that and what happened after dinner.

After our rolling session, I sat on the bench and watched them show me other moves. I can’t remember what most of them were at this point but it looked more like a dance than a martial art.

After that, we got cleaned up and went to dinner. No one was talking around the table. They just sat there quietly and ate their food. Jacqueline wasn’t at the table and at first I didn’t think much of it, but after about half an hour she still hadn’t shown up so I asked, “Where’s Jacqueline?”

“She does this occasionally,” Gage says. “If she’s not at breakfast then we’ll check on her.”

“But what if something happened to her?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gage says.

“But…” I start to say.

“Listen,” Gage interrupts placing his palm on the table with enough force that I could feel it. “She is a grown woman. She has not given us any reason to worry because she missed one meal. She’ll be okay. Now just shut up and let everyone eat.”

I look at everyone sitting a the table and most of them are staring at their plates, refusing to look me in the eye. Lanon and I make eye contact and he looks up at the ceiling.

“Well,” I exclaim, “I guess I’m the only one here that still has some human dignity.” I look Gage in the eyes and stare him down. “I’m going to go check on my friend and make sure she’s not dead.” I stand up so fast that my chair flies back and tips over slamming the back into the floor. Everyone’s eyes are on me now. I want to run and hide, but Jacqueline is out there and she might need my help.

Rushing into the hall I slam the door behind me. Crap, I don’t know where she is. I do remember that the Apothecary is on the second floor. So I guess that is as good of a place as any to start looking.

I walk down the hall and make a quick stop at the dojo first. Sliding open one of the closet/walls I see where they have the staff that we practiced with earlier and I grabbed one. I head down the hall and up the stairs to look for the not-so-familiar doors of the apothecary.

I plan to head towards the vestibule and use that as a gauge of when to stop before the west wing. Walking for a few minutes I pass some of the windows I saw when I first arrived. This one depicted an old man with a crown crying as he held a woman. There was so much detail in the stained glass. The king’s crown itself had different colors to depict the gemstones, but the woman was one solid golden panel. Running my fingers across the glass I see that she isn’t flat but carved to give the same level of detail without using more than one color of glass.

Looking through the window I can faintly see where the ground ends. It falls off into nothingness which sends a shiver down my back. These four walls are all that stand between us and death. I think to myself.

No, I shake my head. I can’t think about that.

I turn back down the hall and keep walking. I have to find Jacqueline.

After another minute I hear footsteps ahead of me and I call out, “Jacqueline!”.

I listen for her response and I hear her footsteps pick up the pace and start getting quieter.

“Jacqueline! I’m over here!” I shout.

The footsteps are getting even quieter, so I take a deep breath and start chasing after her.

I have to stop at the intersections for a few moments to listen and see where she is and I’m losing ground.

“Jacqueline!” I yell again. She’s fast.

Since I haven’t worked out in a while, and the Aikido training has taken most of my energy, I am out of breath pretty quickly and have to stop chasing her. Taking a moment to catch my breath I look around and my heart stops.

The bright wallpaper is faded, the carpet is torn to shreds, and I see a hole in the roof. The purple light from the void is shining. I can almost hear it whispering, calling my name. I pull my eyes off of it. I hear what sounds like breathing coming from the void. I gather all the strength I can and start to run.

The lights are flickering and my head is getting dizzy. I bash my hip against a side table and it falls apart as I fall to the ground and smash my head onto the floor. I blink a few times to try to get my vision back and I see a small pool of blood forming on the floor by my face.

I lift my head and see that the pool of blood is my own. My head starts spinning as I hear footsteps heading my way.

I know I lost consciousness for a bit because the next thing I knew I was being lifted off the ground by a figure in a white robe as it said, “Samantha, please say something.” I put my hand to my head and feel the dried blood that is stuck to my face.

I manage to say, “My head hurts.”

“No duh!” The voice says. “How did you end up here?”

“I was following Jacqueline,” I say as I manage to stand on my own. My vision clears up and I see the person in white robes is Gage.

“Jacqueline isn’t here in the west wing,” Gage says.

“Well someone was.”

“Someone?” Gage asks, “What did they look like?”

“I didn’t actually see anyone. I heard footsteps and since everyone else was at dinner I figured it was her.”

“Well, whatever it was, it wasn’t her. I think I know where she’s at. We will get you cleaned up and then check on her.”

We walk down the halls together without saying a word to each other. Gage usually has this joking, light air around him, but now he’s intense and a little scary. He stops by a room, opens the door for me, and asks, “Would you like help cleaning up or would you prefer me to wait out here?”

“Could you help me?”

“Of course.”

We walk into the bathroom and Gage wets one of the cloths by the sink and starts wiping away the blood from my face.

“You really did a number on yourself out there,” he says with a smile.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I snap back.

“Fair enough,” he says as he rinses the blood off the cloth. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He reaches back out to wipe away more blood.

I smack his hand away, “What’s that supposed to mean?” I take a step away from him.

“What’s wrong?” He asks.

“WHAT’S WRONG! How about you didn’t care in the slightest when Jacqueline disappeared, but when it’s little ole me you get all worried.”

“I wasn’t worried about her because she knows better than wandering out into the west wing, and I had a feeling I knew where she was.”

“Well, where is she then?”

“She’s probably in the garden.”

“Why not just tell me that then!”

“I wasn’t trying to insult you. I just wanted to give Jacqueline some space. Some people like to keep their secrets and we pretend not to notice.”

“Pretend not to notice what?”

“I’ll show you.” He hands me the rag. “Let’s go.”

We head back downstairs by the rooms I passed on the way here. But instead of making a right to the dojo, we make a left towards the west wing.

Gage stops in front of a door and says, “She is probably in here. I’ll wait out here.”

Walking into the room my heart skips a beat. I see the void and I turn to look away from it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Gage chuckle and say, “It’s stained glass.”

Looking back into the room I see the window frames and the different colors of stained glass that lead out into the void. There are also rows and rows of plants growing out of the ground. On the far left side of the room, I see massive trees that seem to be dead or asleep. They have no leaves and they look somewhat sickly.

The stained glass wall is more of a stained glass dome. It isn’t flat, rather it is arched and takes up over half of the room’s ceiling. In the center of the room on the footpath, Jacqueline is lying motionless on the floor. I drop the staff that I brought with me and rush over to her side. Her open eyes are bloodshot and heavily dilated.

“Jacqueline, “I say shaking her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says without removing her eyes from the void through the stained glass. “I just needed a day to myself. I haven’t had one of these in quite a while.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Just let me enjoy it while it lasts. Go enjoy your night.”

She still hadn’t taken her eyes off of the void. So I nodded and said, “Okay, I’ll leave you be.” I stand up and walk away. I look behind me several times as I make my way to the door. She is still and looks almost dead.

After the door closes I ask Gage, “What’s going on with her?”

“Don’t worry about it. If she wanted you to know she would have told you. Follow me, I’ll take you to the game room and we can play some pool.”

“If it’s okay I’m not going to take you up on that.”

“What would you like to do then?”

“I just want to go to bed.”

“I can walk you there.”

“I’d rather be alone.”

“I understand.”

I close my door and slide the bolt lock closed. Pressing my back against the door I slide down into a squat and wrap my arms around my knees. Today was a long day, I think to myself. I take a minute before I stand and head over to my desk to write this down.

On the desk is a letter with my name addressed on it. I open it and all it says is,

“Don’t Trust Alan”

Author’s Note:

I would like to apologise I am a few days late in posting this one. I have no excuse and I have made a better plan to post these chapters on time.