As soon as Eztli left the room I jumped out of my hiding spot and ran towards Tim. I quickly took my pocket knife out and cut the ropes. I then looked at Tim. He obviously looked exhausted and in a great deal of pain but kind of happy he was alive, which I could really understand at this point. We then started looking around ourselves. 'Where are we?' I said that more to myself than to him but he still answered. 'We're in an abandoned mine.' he said while he warmed up his hands. I had to admit, it really was pretty cold in this room. Tim sat on the floor, which was expected, since he was tazered multiple times just a few minutes ago. I spotted a few crates in the corner of the room and pushed them below the air raft I came through before and then stacked them. When I was finished, Tim looked a little bit better but still in a lot of pain. I then helped Tim climb in and we began moving down the raft while looking for an exit. We were crawling for quite some time and then we reached what seemed like the end of the raft. I turned to Tim with a questioning look on my face and he asked me for my pocket knife. I handed it to him and he unscrewed the screws on the corners of the air raft. The thing that we thought was a wall was actually just another exit out of the raft.
It fell off its hinges and we suddenly saw the most horrific views you could ever imagine. We entered a small room which was full of dead teenage girls. They were all dressed in black covered with fluorescent blankets and their faces were colored with purple circles. And not only was this one of the scariest things I've ever seen, the smell was horrible as well. I had absolutely no idea what to do and then I heard Tim behind me who started taking photos of the room of horror for evidence, in case we ever made it out of here alive of course. We again started looking for another exit, but then we heard steps again, which could only mean that Eztli was coming closer to the room we were in right now.
I quickly pulled Tim to a chest I have noticed while entering the room. It was painted red with hellfire-like flames decorating its sides. We both climbed into it and just then Eztli stepped into the room. I expected him to look closely in every corner, but he just gave the room a quick one-over and left. I guess he didn't think it would be possible for me and Tim to reach this room. Only when Eztli left I had noticed that I was holding Tims hand this whole time. I quickly let go of it and blushed, but since it was remotely dark, Tim didn't see it. Or at least I hoped so. We quietly climbed out of the chest and started to look for windows, unlocked doors, or anything that we could use to get out of this horrible place. As I was looking around myself I saw a wooden plank under one of the dead girls and I pointed it out to Tim. The last we wanted was to touch the girls, not even to talk about moving them around the room. But unfortunately we had no other choice and we quickly moved over to the dead girl that set over the wooden plank. She had chestnut colored hair and fair skin, which Eztli colored with yellow paint. She was dressed in black skinny jeans, a white and black crop top, leather jacket and black converse. She seemed familiar to me from somewhere but I didn't know from where. When I told Tim this, he nodded and told me her name was Charlotte Thomas and that she was kidnapped about 7 months ago. She was visiting the college in the nearby town. Her parents, friends and the police was looking for her for about 5 months but then the case became so called 'cold' and they stopped looking for her and told the public that Charlotte was dead. The truth however, I guess we'll never know it, but if maybe, just maybe they would have looked for her for just a little while longer, then they maybe would have found her. With that thought in my head I began thinking about what was going to happen to us. Were we ever going to get out of here? Was anybody even looking for us? Tim could only answer my second question and told me that the police was indeed looking for me.
Once we have moved Charlotte off the wooden plank we saw a small iron hoop on top of it which we pulled up and it revealed a tunnel going straight down, it seemed to go on forever from what we could see as well. Neither of us knew where the tunnel led or how to get down it for that matter but then Tim pointed out holes that seemed as if though the were dug into the walls and they looked as if they were used for holding and stepping support. He said he was gonna go down it first and I let him. He put the flashlight that we found in the chest between his teeth and began to descend down the tunnel.
In a way I was really scared of Eztli's hideout, which was of course completely normal, considering what I've been through and what I saw. Of course I was never gonna tell Tim that I was scared of it, partly because I didn't want him to look at me like I was a scared little girl and partly because how brave and strong he has been through this whole thing. Even though he had been tazered he wasn't complaining or anything but was just moving after me patiently all the way through the air raft.
While we were descending down the tunnel, I smelled something weird, like poppy. After a while we reached the bottom of the tunnel and on our right we could see a pretty big window made of iron bars and behind it we could see a cellar which had loads of tufts of poppy hanging from the ceiling and the floor was covered with some kind of a fabric which had the seeds of the poppy flowers collecting on it.
After that we arrived to another window made of iron bars on hinges. We opened the window and climbed into the warm room behind it. The room turned out to be a nicely furnished kitchen, which to me stood out, because of how cold and impersonal the rest of the mine was. We then started opening the cupboards, looking for some food, because we were both hungry. In one of the cupboards Tim found a packet of chocolate chip cookies and some dried fruit and in another one I found a syringe and a bowl full of colorless liquid. I didn't know what it could be. I showed the bowl to Tim and he looked me in the eyes and said a word that shook me to my core: 'morphine'. 'How do you know?' I asked him. 'The school I went to before, it was a boarding school in Australia, we worked in the nature and in the laboratory a lot and we learned about all kinds of acids, poisons and venoms. Including morphine.' he answered. 'This was probably how Eztli was able to kidnap those girls without them screaming or fighting back. If we take this bowl and the syringe with us, he won't be able to kidnap anymore girls with it and the syringe has got to have a few fingerprints on it as well. Which means we can use it as proof. As soon as we get out of this crazy maze, we are going straight to the police station and tell them what happened to us. If they'll believe us of course' he continued. So I put both items into a plastic bag I found on the kitchen island and wrapped them in it. 'Of course there's always the chance that Eztli is going to escape' I said. Tim didn't say anything to that, he just opened the packet of cookies and we both ate some, deciding to save most of them for later.
I put the food and the plastic bag inside of my jacket pockets, when we heard a voice. Two voices, to be exact. What the hell was going on in this mine? Was there somebody else helping Eztli? We looked for an escape route or a hideout but this time there was truly nowhere to go. We were trapped! Tim then whispered to me to hind the kitchen island and I did so. He then hid behind the door, the rolling pin held high in the air. I looked at him terrified, not knowing what he was going to do. The next moment the doors opened and in walked Eztli. 'Those little bastards escaped, if I could at least used the girl and stick the poison in her!'. He was angry and swearing. After him entered another person-a woman! She was about 1,80 metres tall, slim but muscular at the same time and her eyes looked sunk in. She had black hair and blue eyes that radiated anger as well as Eztli's. She was dressed in camo pants, black combat boots, green shirt with a black skull and a black leather jacket. Her arms and neck were covered in tattoos of fire breathing dragons and white skulls with fiery red eyes. 'Listen Ez' she began 'if the kids escaped, they must still be here. I mean this place in enormous; more than 50 rooms and halls, connected with stone passages, most of them don't even have lightning!'. 'I know Rachel, I'm gonna find them soon, I have a feeling they're close' Eztli agreed with her then he went to close the door and saw Tim standing behind it with a rolling pin in his hands. 'What the?' Eztli began, but he never got to finish his sentence, because in the next second Tim hit him in the head with the rolling pin. 'Ez? What happened?' the woman asked and in the next second she was lying on the floor as well, next to Eztli. 'Now what?' I asked Tim. 'You heard what the woman said, there's more than 50 rooms and halls in here, how the hell are we ever gonna get out of here?. Tim looked shaken up, but he just took my hand in his and pulled me towards the door that Eztli and the woman had come through before. At first I wanted to resist, but seeing as I had no better idea, I led him lead me down the passage.