"T-The Storage!" Tamitha shouted, panting as she jumped out of bed.
Tamitha exhaled harshly to catch her breath as she wiped bullets of sweat on her forehead. She scanned the place she's in, and noticed how familiar the place for her. She creased her forehead as she grasped why she's in her room right now.
"Thank heavens! You're awake!"
Castor announced and immediately sat beside Tamitha, who has a cryptic look on her face, contemplating what's going on.
"Why are we in my r-room?" Her voice sounded weak, probably because her head still throbbing and her entire body felt sore.
"You fainted," Pollux replied shortly as he lightly leaned against the cabinet, with his arms crossed and his stares fixated Tamitha. Relief reflected in his eyes even though his tone sounded cold. Tamitha returned the look for a moment, then glimpsed at Castor before she hanged her head low and close her eyes as she massaged her temples.
"W-What happened?"
"As Pollux stated, you fainted ― We brought you to a nearby hospital, but in the middle of our trip there... You suddenly woke up hysterical, talking gibberish, and asked us to just bring you home." Castor explained.
"How are you feeling? Are you alright now?"
Castor went near her and held her hands to calm her down because he noticed the lass kept fidgeting. In a flash, Tamitha got up from her bed and approached Pollux, leaving Castor in bed in shock.
"T-The Storage..." Tamitha started.
"I-I... I had a vision. There's a painting in the storage, named Raise it."
"A vision?" Castor asked, as he got up from Tamitha's bed and joined the two, Pollux, on the other hand, uncrossed his arms and stood up straight, anticipating Tamitha's response.
"Do you know the location of that Storage you're saying?" Pollux asked.
"W-Where is she?" Tamitha whispered, being cautious to reveal crucial information to the wrong person. "She insisted to buy you something to eat." She nodded before revealing what she knew.
"It is an old storage at the back of the university. T-That painting... That painting might be the answer to the message I received. I need to check it out." Her voice full of determination. She didn't waste any second, Tamitha rapidly grabbed her puffer jacket and bag she wore earlier. She shoved the boys out of her way and proceeded out of the room however, Pollux quickly grabbed her arms and stopped her tracks.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Let me go, Pollux. I need to go there, I have to look for Pearl. She doesn't have enough time anymore." Tamitha persisted.
"Tamitha, we can't be reckless, we need to think this through. Pearl's life is at stake here. We need to come up with a plan."
"There's no time, C. We're already running out of time. I can't wait any longer, it kills me not to do anything for my best friend. Please, just let me do this."
The twins became silent as they looked at Tamitha's pleading eyes filled with tears. They looked at each other and sighed in defeat.
"Alright, let's check it out."
Tamitha genuinely smiled at them before jogging back to her closet to get her brown snow boot.
***
Before infiltrating the place, Pollux made the two promise that if things went south, they must run away from that place as fast as possible and never look back. Although the two hesitated at first, Pollux didn't give them much of a choice but to agree.
"You ready?" Pollux faced the two before entering the Storage room. They successfully arrived at the place which was just near Tamitha's laboratory room, so they didn't have any trouble entering the university since Tamitha would often work this late for her inventions.
Tamitha brought out an innocent-looking flashlight from her small bag, but later on, a shocking turn would happen the moment they see what this flashlight can do. They all put a serious look on their faces before entering the room.
Shockingly, Tamitha was right all along; the place looked exactly as she saw on her vision. The place enveloped darkness; she immediately opened her flashlight; bright enough to inspect the place. While the guys got their phones out to light their way. Dusty particles were all over the place, making it suffocating for them to breathe.
Castor tried to cover his nose. The whole place reeked, since no one has touched this place for a long time now. Tamitha quickly searched for the mysterious painting she saw in her vision.
As they scout the place, they noticed the walls cleanly cemented — the university didn't bother painting over it, some droplets of water were evident in the walls too. While the ground's made up of woods, making squeaky noises with every step they're making. The room's jam-packed with untouched furniture hidden in thick white linens and boxes scattered everywhere filled with kinds of stuff used in different events that happened in the university.
"Damn, this place is a mess," Castor complained as he swung his arm to remove spider webs sticking to him.
They searched the whole place for that painting Tamitha's talking about. The place was too huge for the three of them. The three flipped the place upside down just to look for that painting. The twin felt hot and decided to remove their puffer coat to move freely as they searched the place.
"Anika, have you found it?"
"No, NO! Where the hell is it?!" Tamitha's all worked up; the only answer she hoped to get from was missing. "Hey, calm down ― we'll find it, okay?" Pollux approached her and softly caress her head, and wiped the sweat in Tamitha forehead.
That didn't escape from Castor's sight. He cleared his throat loud enough to remind the two that he's with them. "Look, what I found..."
The two looked at each other, expecting that Castor might finally find what they were looking for. They quickly ran to Castor's spot to see what he has found.
There, a small door leading to God knows where revealed to them silently hiding from the old boxes, Castor made an effort to move aside.
"Well, what else are we waiting for?"
Tamitha didn't want to miss another minute and abruptly held the handle and harshly opened the door, which she successfully did.
"Tammy, hold on," Castor stopped her. "Let me check it out fi―"
"No, I'll go on first." Pollux didn't give Castor a chance to argue with him. He immediately crouched down and tried entering the small entry.
"Fuck." He cussed, as he struggles to fit himself, he laid in a supine lying position and carefully crawled into that small space. There was not enough room for him to move freely, so he slowly made his way towards the other side of this room. The two crouched down as well to examine the small opening and light Pollux's way.
"How you doing, bro?"
It took him five minutes to completely passed through that small opening. His mouth left agape when he got a glimpse of the room. "Holy―"
"Pollux! What's in there? I'm coming in!" Tamitha shouted; she tied her hair up, wiped the sweats on her face then finally crawled her way. It was a lot easier for Tamitha since she's more petite than the guys. When she successfully entered the additional room, she whiffed off the dust that got into her clothes.
"Oh, my gosh! What the hell is this place?!" Shock registered into Tamitha's eyes as she looked around this enormous room filled with big shelves containing more than a thousand books. All glued to their place, mouth hanged open mesmerized by how amazing the place was.
"Oh, shoot!" Castor panted when he finally entered the place. He brushed off all the dirt, got to him, then approached the two who were still speechless. "Hey," He snapped his finger at them, trying to catch their attention.
"I didn't know this place existed," Tamitha whispered, still amazed at what she's looking at, as a bookworm she would very much enjoy spending a lot of time here. She tried to snap out of it and focused on searching for the painting.
This room was the complete opposite of the other room they had been. This place's squeaky clean. Some person took their time to spruce the books, and the scent of freshly brewed coffee traveled the whole room. Although both rooms don't have lights on them, however, this round place has a window at the top of it, shedding just a hint of moonlight because of the snow residue blocking some parts of the window.
"There!" Tamitha shouted the moment her light landed at the lovely piece of painting they've been looking for.
"This is it! Finally!"
The three of them ran to the different corners of the room and approached the painting.
"Raise it..." Castor read out loud.
"What are we going to do now?" Pollux shifted his attention to Tamitha, who's busy thinking.
"Raise the flag... rescued friend," Tamitha whispered recalling the message she received. She carefully studies the painting.
The model of the painting was a pretty young lady; with curly brown hair, green eyes, and has asymmetric face shape, standing proudly dressed in a dirty white Victorian ball gown as she gripped the flag down. Her background was a bunch of people cheering for her. It was a beautiful masterpiece made by some unknown painter back in the day.
Tamitha's eyebrows furrowed, "Raise the flag... rescued friend." She repeated once more.
"Try touching the flag maybe there's a hidden button there," Castor suggested.
"No, there's no button. It's flat." Pollux stated as he surveyed the painting.
"What if..."
"Tamitha, what are you doing?!"
"Anika, NO!"
Tamitha approached the painting and turned it upside down as if the lady from the painting was now raising the flag. It stayed to that position when the twins stopped her from doing it, afraid that she might trigger traps, Pollux grabbed Tamitha away from the painting, hid her to his back, and shielded her.
Silence filled the room for a moment. All hearts pounding hard scared of what might happen to them.
Suddenly, a clanging sound of the cog gear wheels resounded the place, they noticed how a wall slowly made a gap revealing another opening. The painting's now absent from its original place, leaving the three taken aback. This time, the space revealed stairs leading them down.
"What the hell is this place? Why are there a lot of secret rooms?"
"This is dangerous. We should just head back." Pollux insisted.
"What? Are you kidding me?! We have already come this far. I will not leave this place without my best friend." Tamitha, clenched her fist and gave them a stern look as she firmly avowed.
Pollux and Tamitha looked at each other intensely, as if they're arguing at each other using those deadly stares.
"Pollux's right Tammy, this is too dangerous for us. We should just head back, for now, we need to plan this out first. Who knows, maybe we're walking into some kind of trap."
"Not you too, C? Please, Pearl might be in there."
"Anika, I'm just worried for your safety," Pollux uttered softly. She was completely astonished at how gentle that sounded, but she tried her best not to fall for it.
"I'm fine, Pollux. I can take care of myself."
Tamitha's pretty determined to save her best friend right there and then. It's just that her gut kept telling her that her best friend's here somewhere, and she doesn't want to ignore that gut anymore.
"Alright, fine. But remember what we talked about, okay? If something happens, Castor, I want you to drag Tamitha away from this place as fast as you can." Pollux surrendered, Castor on the other hand simply nodded at his brother.
She walked towards the opening and carefully examined the space first. She looked back at the twins, who looked worried for her. Tamitha let out a deep breath, then took a nervous step; waited for a while, checking if it's safe to continue. When nothing happened, she inhaled once more, firmly grabbed her flashlight before proceeding.
The twins abruptly followed Tamitha, It was wooden stairs, so they were very careful with every step they make, afraid that they might break it. Soon enough another room welcomed them... This time the room's empty and pretty spacious not like the previous rooms they've been through, a little crowded.
"Finally, took you some time to discover this place..." A familiar figure let out a mischievous smile.