Chapter 5
Hex found he was no longer in the pillared room. Gray dust, with a strange green tint, covered the floor in every direction he looked. In a few areas where it wasn't so thick he could just make out an elaborately carved stone floor with geometric shapes all over it. “Where in the world am I?” he asked out loud.
A shadow moved just outside of the range of his light. It was small and moved quickly. An uneasy feeling crept through him as it bounded closer until finally it revealed itself.
“Brimstone,” he said, the relief evident in his voice. The ferret excitedly scampered over to him and crawled onto his lap. It received an affectionate rub behind the ears as he curled up in his owner's arms.
“Hey Brimstone,” Hex said while wiping some of the dust off of his fur. “You're finally awake huh?”
Brimstone looked up into Hex's eyes and blinked at him. “I've been awake. You've been asleep for hours.”
“Who said that?” Hex asked as he spun his head around to look for the speaker. There was no movement around him. Just dust floating in the beam of his helmet light. “Who's there?”
“Nobody's there,” came the voice again. “I've already checked.”
This time Hex realized that he hadn't heard the voice. Not with his ears. He took anther look around in the darkness and then back at the ferret still sitting in his lap. Brimstone still stared up at him, his black eyes never blinking.
“I must be going crazy. Or I hit my head or something,” he said to his pet, staring back into his eyes. “I could almost swear that it was you who was talking to me.”
“It is me.”
“Aaahhh!” Hex yelped dropping the surprised rodent to the ground with a thump. He backed away quickly, kicking up a large cloud of dust as he went.
“What did you do that for?” he asked indignantly, holding a paw to his chest. “Is that the thanks that I get for guarding you the whole time you were asleep?” He dusted himself in a very human-like way, then bounded his way back over to him.
“Sorry,” Hex found himself replying, not sure of what else to say. He flinched when Brimstone climbed back up to his lap. He gave him a curious look before sitting himself squarely on his knee.
“Have you always been able to talk?” Hex asked hesitantly.
“No.” He said it like it was an absurd question. “I couldn't talk before. I couldn’t even string more than two words together before we got here.” He curled his long body around and began cleaning some of the dust and dirt from his coat. “Come to think of it, I'm not actually talking now am I.”
It was then that Hex realized that the ferret's mouth wasn't moving. That was why it seemed so strange. He was hearing his voice in his head.
At this point, Brimstone looked up and fixed his black eyes on him again. “What was all that before? I mean with the egg in that room? That woke me out of a really good sleep you know.”
“I don't know,” he replied truthfully. It had happened so fast and seemed so long ago that it had for the moment been wiped from his thoughts. Now it all came flooding back. The pillared room, the dragon statue. It all burned through his brain so hot that he felt like he was standing there now. He could see the egg. Feel himself being drawn to it again. The glowing.
“Hex?”
Startled out of his reverie, he quickly came back to the present and found Brimstone looking worriedly at him. “Are you okay?” he asked.
Hex released his hands, suddenly realizing that he had been rubbing his palms feverishly. They had become warm to the touch. “I'm fine,” he said placing them palm down on the cool stone floor. There was momentary relief from the heat but was surprised when they warmed back up again. “I'm fine,” he finally said again. Brimstone gave him a questioning look but let it drop.
“Where's everyone else?” Hex asked changing the subject.
“I told you before. There's no on else here. I've been sniffing around for a long time. There's nothing but dust and mold. A very strange smelling mold.”
“That can't be. They couldn't have just disappeared. Maybe they went to explore while we were asleep?”
“You mean when you were asleep? I'm telling you, they are not here. I even checked some of the rooms.”
“Rooms? What rooms?”
“This place is filled with rooms. And books. Come on I'll show you.” He stood up on his hind legs and gestured for him to follow. Then he leaped off his knee, kicking up dust as he bounded away.
Hex got up to follow him, grabbing his flashlight on the way. He followed the trail of dust that the ferret made past an old wooden bench. It was riddled with holes and looked as if it had been slowly decaying for centuries. Thick layers of the green-tinged dust lay heavily on it.
After a while, they came to the other side of the room where Brimstone stopped in front of a thick wooden door. “This way,” he said as he squeezed under it.
Hex tried the handle, and finding it unlocked, swung it open with an eerie creaking sound that reminded him of every horror movie he had ever watched. Brimstone climbed onto a short table and worked his way through a dusty old book that lay on it. With both paws, he flipped through the pages, which made a crackling sound, as if they were falling apart.
The room itself was small, about the size of one of the cramped classrooms at school. At one time or another tapestries and frames hung from the walls, but now all that was left of them were faded ruins. Shelves ran across the far wall that were filled with books of all different sizes and shapes.
Hex picked one up and jumped back as the shelf collapsed. Books spilled across the floor in an explosion of green and gray. The book in his hand began to crumble and fell through his fingers to join the others on the floor.
‘This place must have been abandoned for hundreds of years,’ he thought to himself.
“I think you’re right,” Brimstone said from his seat.
“Wait. You can hear my thoughts?”
Tilting his head for a moment as if thinking, he replied, “I guess I can.”
“What is this place?”
“I think you would call it a library. All the rooms I’ve checked out are like this. This is the cleanest one though.”
“And no sign of the others.” Hex felt a pang of fear. What was he going to do now?
“Maybe they're somewhere else in here. We can keep looking.” Suddenly he stood straight up tilting his head. Hex had seen him do this several times at home.
“What is it? What do you hear?”
“A door. Someone's here.”
Hex realized that he could hear it too. There was a loud creaking sound and then the splintering of wood. A loud crash followed, echoing dully off the stone walls.
“What was that?” they both asked, then stared at the door.
Grant awoke from a startling dream. He had been falling, and no matter what he did, he couldn't stop himself. Finally, he was able to get his eyes to open, only to realize that he truly was falling. He had just enough time to let out a yelp before slamming into the ground, issuing forth a mushroom cloud of dust.
He lay there for several minutes gasping and coughing, both trying to get air into his lungs and coughing the dust out before he was able to move. Slowly he rolled over intending to roll onto his knees but instead found himself rolling down a short flight of stairs, coming to rest in a pile at the bottom. This time he decided to sit up before moving anywhere. Somehow he had been able to hold onto his helmet and flashlight during his fall.
Looking around, he found himself sitting on a landing with nothing surrounding it but darkness. He peered over the edge but could only see a few feet down before the darkness swallowed the rest. Two choices lay before him. Go back up the stairs that he fell from, or down the stairs directly in front of him. Peering through the darkness, he caught the vague outline of a doorway at the bottom of the stairs. Looking up he was met with darkness.
'I'll take door number one,' he thought.
Getting to his feet he limped down the stairs, coming to a stop at a pair of massive wooden doors. They were riddled with small holes, like old furniture that had been sitting out in bad weather too long. One of them hung dangerously on its hinges, leaving Grant to wonder if it would even open. Even if it did manage to, it looked like it weighed about three or four hundred pounds. If it fell off, it would crush him.
He took another glance upstairs. Maybe he should try that way. That's when he noticed a faint glow from high above. It slowly descended in a circle as if on a spiral staircase. Faint voices carried down from above. Harsh guttural voices that didn't at all sound like English, and very uninviting.
"Yeah definitely door number one," he said decisively.
With a great heave, he pushed open the most stable looking of the two doors. It was heavier than he thought, and made much more noise than he would have liked. He winced and quickly crossed over into the room, taking a quick glance to see if he was being followed. He almost didn't have enough time to duck out of the way as the other door ripped from it's hinges and fell to the floor, the wood splintering and metal hinges clattering to the ground. It made an awful racket.
Grant quickly backed away and looked for a place to hide. He had walked into a large room filled with nothing but dust and some old rotting wooden furniture. There was nowhere to hide.
He moved to the side, pressing himself against the wall as flat as he could and slowly crept away from the doors. He waited a few minutes, and nothing happened. Whoever it was that was up there must have been scared off.
As quietly as he could, he pulled himself away from the wall and moved to the center of the room, careful to avoid large piles of various dust and debris. Shining his flashlight around, he realized that the larger piles were books covered in dust and gravel.
He picked one up letting the dust and gravel slide off. However, when he tried to open it, the cover crumbled in his hands. He flipped through a few pages and found most of them clumped together in big lumps of mold and mush. He dropped it in disgust though he wished he hadn't when a cloud of dust lifted making him sneeze repeatedly. He had just finished catching his breath when he felt a hand place itself on his shoulder.
Letting reflex take over he grabbed the wrist of his attacker and took a step back, letting his elbow fly until it impacted, and he heard a low grunt. With one last move, he pulled his weight forward and threw his mystery attacker over his shoulder, keeping a hold of their wrist as he fell to the floor with a dull thud.
"Don't move," he said pulling his fist back for a palm strike.
"Don't worry. I think you killed me already," came a small winded voice.
"Hex?" All his classmate could do was nod his head, having no more strength for speaking."Why did you sneak up on me?" Grant asked as he pulled him to his feet. “I could have hurt you.”
"It seemed like a good idea at the time." He held a hand to his chest where Grant's elbow had been a moment ago. "Did you have to hit me so hard?"
"Ten years of karate will do that. Besides, it seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied sarcastically.
"I tried to warn him. Didn't I warn you?"
Grant looked around for the disembodied voice and saw Hex's ferret bounding its way toward them."Who's there?” he asked as it came to stop on one of the piles.
"That was Brimstone. Grant you remember my ferret right?""So, we finally meet," said the ferret holding out its paw.
Grant just stared at it. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Well, it looks like you've been right all this time. He's not very nice," he said lowering his paw dejectedly.
Hex reached down and lifted the furry creature, draping him across his shoulders.
"How do you have a talking a ferret and manage to keep it secret?"
"He didn't start talking until a few minutes ago. When we landed here."
"Uh huh. And where exactly is here?"
"How should I know? I just woke up a few minutes ago over there. Did you come from outside?" he asked moving towards the door.
"We can't go that way," Grant said grabbing his arm.
Hex pulled away and gave a harsh look. "Why not?"
"There's something up there. I'm not sure what it was, but it didn't sound good."
Hex fixed him with a smug smile. "What are you scared?"
"Why shouldn't we be scared? Last thing we knew, we were all in a cave together. Now we're alone in a room made of stone, who knows where. I haven't seen the others, and I bet you haven't either. Gee. Being scared never even crossed my mind."
Hex simply shook his head not having anything to add to it.
"And on top of that, he's talking," he gesturing at Brimstone.
Brimstone gave him an indignant look. "You sound as if that's a bad thing."
Putting his hands behind his head Grant took a few slow steps backward. "You've got to admit that we should at least be a little nervous."
"Yeah well, I only have one thing to say to that. The only thing to fear is fear itself. And spiders." The three of them suppressed a shiver as a chill wind suddenly blew through the room.
"What was that?" they asked in unison.
"Why don't we continue exploring this room since you're so reluctant to leave it?" Brimstone asked looking to Grant.
"Maybe the rat's right." Brimstone shot him an indignant look."Let's head out."
Grant led the way with Hex following reluctantly behind. Together they wove their way through several piles of books and broken down tables, eventually stepping into a wide hallway.
Here the floor was clear of debris with the exception of the thick dust that seemed to be a constant factor. Sconces lined the walls on either side with thick candles that had long ago been burned down to a small stub.
Grant picked one up and rolled it around in his hand. “No electricity?” he asked. “How old do you think this place is?”
“Old enough to predate the concept of a maid, that's for sure,” Brimstone replied with a laugh. Grant couldn't help but smile as he put the candle back and continued on.
"What do you suppose this place is?" Grant asked not really expecting an answer.
"I think it's a library. One of the rooms had a bunch of books in it. Plus all the books on the floor...."
"That makes sense." As much as he hated to admit it, Hex might be right.
"What's that?" he heard Hex ask from behind him. "It looks a little like one of the symbols we saw in the cave."
Grant turned to see what he was talking about. High up on the wall was something smeared in red. Walking back over, he shined his flashlight to get a better look.
"It is similar to the cave. You've got a good eye." No response from Hex.
"It's one of the symbols that my tribe uses. That's the symbol for 'fear'. And it looks like it's written in blood."
"Well that doesn't sound ominous at all," Brimstone stated as they moved on. No sooner were the words said and Hex had passed under it than the writing began to glow red with an eerie luminescence.
"What in the world...?"
A scuttling noise sounded from all around them. Grant shined his beam up, searching for the source.
“What was that?” Hex asked, panic growing in his voice. “Something just jumped out of the way of the light.”
“I missed it. What’s that white stuff? Was that there before?”
“Hey fellas,” came the silent voice of Brimstone. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but this doesn’t smell right.”
“What do you mean?” Hex asked still keeping his eyes on the ceiling.
“There’s something here. Something else. It wasn’t here before. It just… appeared.”
“Well maybe we should just dissa…” Grant began but found his voice trailing off.He had stopped to look down at the ferret when he spotted movement behind him and Hex. Descending from the ceiling was the largest spider that any nightmare could ever produce. It was so dark in color that it seemed as if it had formed from the very shadows of the ceiling. Streaks of dark crimson glowed on its armor like carapace formed in the same symbol smeared on the wall.
It descended slowly, its long legs folded around its bulbous body, all but the last two. They silently let out a thick silk rope from the impossibly large creature, until almost reaching the floor. That's when it unfolded the rest. Six long legs reached out to Hex while venom dripped from its fangs.
Snapping out of his trance, he grabbed a surprised Hex, and nearly yanking him off of his feet, dragged him down the hall behind him.
“What are you doing? Get off of me,” he yelled struggling in Grant’s iron grip.
“Shut up and run,” he called behind him, not letting go.
“Aaahhh! Just do what he says,” Brimstone yelled while scrambling onto Hex's head.
Hex turned his head and saw why they were running. He quickly picked up the pace giving Grant the chance to let go. No longer burdened with dragging somebody else, he quickly began to outdistance his classmate.
“Wait!” Hex yelled, to no avail. Grant hesitated at a fork in the hallway, then quickly turned right and disappeared from view. Hex, not too far behind turned to go after him but was stopped by another spider descending from the ceiling. It stopped as if not sure which of them to go after. Hex decided not to wait to figure it out and took the other turn.
The way he had just come was now filled with spiders crawling on the floor, the walls and coming down from the ceiling. They crawled over each other to get to him. He had no idea how he was going to escape. Then up ahead in the gloom, he spotted a doorway. It was the only door he had seen since the spiders had shown up.
Desperately he pushed the latch handle. It gave grudgingly but with more effort the door opened just enough to squeeze his thin frame through.
One of the spiders had been right behind him and stuck a long thick leg through the doorway, trying to get a hold of him. Desperately Hex slammed his back against the door and heaved with all his might. Brimstone climbed down from his shoulder and bit the leg, bringing a blood-curdling screech from outside. The spider didn’t relent however but seemed more intent than ever to get at its prey.
Hex heaved with all his might and with a sickening crunch the door slid shut and he found himself dodging around a flailing disembodied leg. After a few moments, the leg stopped twitching and as the two watched it slowly fell apart into a pile of black and red sand.
They stared at each other in disbelief, and then collapsed on the floor, Hex sliding down with his back against the door while Brimstone flopped down on his back.
After a moment, Brimstone got up and moved to the door, pressing his ear against it. “I don’t hear anything out there. It’s like they all just went away.”
“Maybe they decided to go after Grant?”
“Do you think he’s okay?” he asked putting his ears back and looking concerned.
“Who cares! He left us behind back there.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah I do. He’s been a thorn in my side since middle school. Don’t give me that look.”
“He could have left us completely behind, and then those spiders would have been gnawing on our bones.”
“Yeah… I guess you’re right. Besides, he’s on the track team, and every other sport in school. I’m sure he can out run those things.”
Grant rounded the corner and found himself staring at a dead end. On either side of him stood a wide wooden door set deeply into the stone of the wall.
Without hesitation, he tried the door on the right. It didn’t budge even when he slammed a shoulder into it.
The clattering of spider legs drew closer as he flew across the hall to the other door, slamming his now aching shoulder into it. This one pushed in a few inches. The spiders rounded the corner and made a last desperate dash for him.
With as much strength as he had left, he slammed his shoulder against the door heaving it open with a loud creak. He fell into a dark room, getting up quickly and pushing the door shut behind him. Loud squeals of rage sounded from the hallway, and then there was silence. Peering across the room, he saw that there was another door. It sat slightly open and shadows could be seen moving around outside of it. He ran and slammed this one shut too peering through the murky window set into the decaying wood. He was just in time to see Hex and Brimstone duck inside a room across the hall with spiders hot on his heels. There were about a dozen of them. One caught its leg in the door before Hex could close it.
“Come on Hex, close it!” With a squeal of pain from the spider, its leg broke off, allowing the door to slam shut. In a frenzy of pain, the spider reeled back until it knocked against his door with such force that the wood cracked and knocked Grant back off of his feet. He quickly braced the door with as much strength as his hurt shoulder would let him, and listened.
There was nothing but silence. Dark black and red sand poured in from under the door as he collapsed on the floor, clutching his aching shoulder.
“Good. At least we’re safe… for now.” He scooped up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “This is crazy. What kind of world have come to?”
Looking around in the darkness, he found himself in a large room with tall shelves lining the walls, each packed overflowing with books, scrolls, and tall stacks of brittle looking brown, flaking papers. A staircase sat on either side of the room, leading up to a second level that was simply a ledge to walk around the perimeter. A causeway crossed the center, connecting either side. Great thick stone columns held it all up, lined in the center, all carved elaborately.
Giving one last glance at the door he pulled himself up and walked over to one of the shelves. These books seemed to be in much better condition and didn’t crumble as he ran his fingers down some of the spines. One book in particular caught his eye. Leather bound, and thicker than any school book he had ever received, he picked it up and took it to one of the staircases to look at it. It had a strange writing that he had never seen before on the cover and spine. One thing that he did recognize and what drew his eye was the telltale map drawn underneath the strange lettering. It was an Atlas, he realized.
As he flipped through the pages, elaborately hand drawn depictions of foreign lands, the like of which he had never seen before, began to appear as he flipped through the book. They were all drawn to great detail. One of the pages showed a mountaintop with a great wooden city rising from its clefts. The next page showed the inside of the mountain with a breakdown of the different levels within.
Turning to the next page and saw a picture of a snow-covered cliff with glowing lanterns leading up to a set of large doors. He turned to the next page. On the left was a picture of a circular well with two sets of stairs spiraling downwards. The page on the right showed a stone ledge with a carved wooden door set deeply into the wall.
“Now, this looks familiar. That’s the stairs I fell down… and that’s the door I came in.”
The next page showed the room that he had met back up with Hex. Lettering at the top of the page read in the same foreign language, but at the end showed a picture that was unmistakably an open book.
“Huh. Looks like the rat was right. I guess this a library.” He looked up from the book and glanced around the large room with it’s dusty shelves. “The question now, is if the library is still on Earth.”