Ethan and I were talking quietly when we suddenly heard screaming. It was Tim and if I had to guess someone had to be torturing him bad for him to be screaming this loud. Because he didn't say a word after Eztli tasered him. 'Tim! Tim! What's going on?' I screamed. 'There's no point in yelling you know.' Ethan said, 'It's not going to get you anywhere.' 'Ok, so now what?' I said, 'I can't just let Tim be tortured!' 'Well you don't have much choice now do you?' taunted Ethan and if I weren't tied up, I would gladly give him a black eye. How can he just give up like that? Then I heard the screaming again, but this time it was different, and it didn't sound like Tim at all. It sounded as if you combined the screams of thousands of people, that were all being tortured. 'What is that?' I screamed, 'Where is it coming from?' 'It's an Aztec whistle.' Ethan spoke, 'Whenever you blow into it, it produces a sound alike to the screams of tortured people. It's shaped like a head and specifically designed to produce voices like that. I think it was used in some Aztec sacrifice ceremonies as well.' I couldn't believe what I was hearing! Who could ever come up with an idea, to create a whistle that produces sounds like that! 'We have to escape, and we have to do it right now!' I said to Ethan. 'I already told you! It's impossible!' 'Nothing is impossible, come on Ethan!' But Ethan still wasn't giving in. I really couldn't believe how one person could just give up like that. I didn't even really know Ethan, but still. 'How can you just give up like that?' I screamed at him, not even caring if anybody heard me or not, I just wanted to get out of here. 'We can at least try! Or are you really to scared to even try to escape?' I asked, 'How dare you!' he screamed back, 'I have been in this mine for a month and believe me when I tell you that it is impossible to escape from it. If it wasn't, do you really think I would be sitting in this hellhole and talking to somebody like you?' I really didn't want to give up, but I had to admit that he was right. I leaned back on the wall when I felt something under the stone board that I was sitting on.
The whole room was out of stone boards, so it wasn't quite like the other ones. It seemed more human made but still incredibly old. The floor was made of smaller boards, some of which were cracked down the middle or around the edges and the walls were made of bigger stone boards, which were about 2 meters high and half a meter wide.
Anyways, I tried to move a little so I could move my hand under the stone board and figure out just what exactly was hiding under it. Once I managed my task I could under the stone board with my right hand and pulled out a small black notebook, with white flowers on the covers. Ethan came over to me and brought with him the candle that was previously standing in the middle of the room to shed a little bit of light onto the notebook that I was holding.
When I opened it, my breath got caught in my throat as I read who the notebook belonged to. In the bottom right corner, two words were neatly written: Charlotte Thomas. That was the dead girl that Tim and I had to move to be able to escape the room full of dead girls. 'Ethan look!' I pointed at the signature. 'Do you know her?' he asked me. 'No. Yes. Well, not really…' I then told him how I knew Charlotte and he nodded and turned the page. We saw that, just like Eztli's notebook, this was a diary as well, except instead of the dates, the pages were marked with the number of the days she was in the mine for. For example, one page was marked with the sixth day, the other as the hundredth and so on. Ethan and I started reading the diary and we found out that Charlotte's story actually wasn't all that different from mine, except for the fact that she was kidnapped when she was going back home from a party she was at with her friends. We found out that she was 23 years old and was indeed visiting the last year at the college in the neighbourhood town where she was studying modern literature. As it seemed Eztli first locked her in the cell that Ethan and I were sitting in right now. Eztli would bring her food and something to drink everyday and once a month he would bring her a bowl of water and a towel so that she could clean herself up at least a little bit.
Seeing as she was locked in the same cell for seven months, Eztli untied her for the same reason he untied Ethan- to show his power. While she was untied, she of course explored every inch of the place and tried to find a way to escape. When she was exploring it, she found something that she wrote down in her notebook about and when I read what that was, I felt something that I haven't felt for a really long time- I felt hope. Because on the page before last Charlotte wrote something about a secret passage that started right in this cell.
She guessed that it was made by the people that made the mine and actually used it for mining and the passage could be used as an easier way to transport the ore that they dug up here. According to Charlotte's notebook, in the passage, there were old, rusty rails, that could be used for an old trolley to push the ore around in.
I was guessing that Eztli either didn't know about the passage or he simply forgot about it. After all, the mine was gigantic and even if he did manage to find the passage, he has been here for more than 10 years and the human mind can only remember so much, especially if it's as messed up as Etli's was.
Now, to opening the passage. Charlotte wrote that you had to move the eight stone wall board from the right to the left and once you did that, the board would open up, apparently as if though it was on hinges, and behind the board there should be an iron lever. Once you pulled it, the fourth stone wall board would move aside and reveal the passage behind it. Considering how tall and how wide the stone walls were, the passage, as well as ore moving would be possible.
This data was written in the notebook a day before Ethan was locked up in here. From then on, there were no other information written in the diary of Charlotte Thomas. I could only assume what happened to her. She probably used the passage to try to escape, but while doing so, she rushed into Eztli, who probably took her to another cell and then killed her after he kidnapped me and then put her in the room with all the other girls, where Tim and I found her. That would make explain why she still looked so life like.
Which just left us with one tiny problem. I was still tied up and it seemed as if though Eztli has taken my pocketknife. When I mentioned this to Ethan, he pulled a porcelain shard out of his pocket and turned it around in the light of his candle. 'Why do you have that? And where did you get it?' I asked him. 'Well to answer your second question first.' he said, 'I got it when Eztli once brought me tea to drink and I threw it on the floor because I didn't want to drink it and then took the largest piece and saved it. As for why I have it…' he looked at the candle, 'There were times in this mine, when I felt like giving up and just ending it all. I felt like life would be so much easier if I just ended it. So, when I saved the shard, I saved it with the intention of cutting my veins with it and just ending my life there and then. But… I don't know, every time I came even close to actually doing so, I just couldn't do it. I guess I was just too scared of it, which is ironic, considering what I've been through in this mine. But now, it looks like it will finally have some use huh?' he looked at me with a bitter smile.
I felt really bad about what Ethan had to go through. His mother dying when he was only a child, his father killing himself, his brother abandoning him, his cousin drinking himself to death, being kidnapped by his brother and then thinking of suicide almost every day he was in here.
I offered him my hands and he started to cut through the ropes with the shard. It took some time, more than it would've taken than if I cut it with my pocketknife, but eventually I was free. I put the Charlotte's diary back where I found it, just in case me and Ethan wouldn't make it out alive and somebody else was locked up in here.
We then went to the eight stone board on the wall and moved it so that it opened. It really was on hinges and behind it was really an iron lever, just like Charlotte wrote. We pulled it and the fourth board on the wall moved aside and once Ethan lighted it up with the candle, we could see the old rails in the passage.
I couldn't believe we actually found the secret passage, our way out of here! Now we just had to find Tim and the exit, and we would be free. I knew that the task was way easier said than done, but I was willing to give it a shot. I would not give up when freedom was so close to me. Or as Robert Frost once said: Freedom lies in being bold. And in this moment, I absolutely agreed with the American poet. I had to be brave to get out of here. I had to save myself, and I had to save Tim and I had to save Ethan. But most of all I had to take care that no other person, neither girl nor boy nor anyone in between ever had to face the fate that I was facing right now.
Ethan took the candle with us, so we would have at least a little source of light with us. We then started our adventure down the secret passage. We walked and walked for what seemed like hours, but we were probably just walking for a couple of minutes. Our candle was also melting more and more during our walk and we both had a bad feeling that it would burn out soon. And just as we expected, the candle burned out and the dark swallowed us completely. Ethan then pulled a lighter out of his pocket and it was a good thing he did so too because soon we were faced with about ten stairs and if it weren't for the lighter, we would trip over them and fall straight on our faces.
After we got to the top of the stairs, we reached a door and we very quietly leaned against to try and hear if there was anyone else on the other side, but as we didn't hear anyone, we slowly opened it and we found a place in front of us that I was sadly already familiar with. It was also a room that I had hoped I would never have to see again. It was the room that had the operating tables in it and the freezers that Tim and I found while we were trying to find our way out of the mine.
Ethan and I opened the door and to our horror we saw a bloody body on the table, hooked up to some machines that seemed to help the person on the table breathe. As we got closer to the table, I thought that the face looked kind of familiar to me, even though it was covered in blood and cuts. Did I see this person at school before? Was it a family friend?
Only as I stepped right next to the person's face, did I realize who it was. And when I did, I felt as if though my whole world came crashing down on me, for the person on the table, all bloodied up and with a cut face was…