"They didn't come back today," Mia spoke, looking out the window of the cafeteria, into the dark stormy weather outside, "It's already dinner time, you said to wait and we've waited." She started, sitting down by her brother's, "Well what do you want us to do? March into the labs screaming 'we want our friends back'?" Chicago snapped at her, but Mia stood her ground, "Well we have to do something!"
"Why do you even care? It's not like they're your friends, just stop, Mia, there's nothing we can do..." Chicago continued to belittle his sister, resting his head in his hands.
Mia stared at him almost shocked yet angrily, she knew there was nothing she could do, but the fact that her brother cared so little and made absolutely no effort in showing sympathy just pissed her off. So she got up and stormed off to Soren and his friends table.
"Theories?" She asked, sandwiching herself between Andrew and Soren, "That youre crazy and weird?" Andrew spat out, barely even looking at her, "Look, I know we don't generally get along but I think we can all agree that we want Dante back, now can you please just be serious?"
"Ha, all we know is that he was scared to leave, because of you." Andrew's words were laced with passive aggression and anger, she looked down thinking deeply, suddenly getting up and leaving there as well.
She went and sat on Dante's bed in the boys room, she could basically feel his fear radiating off of the white covers. She sat there for who knows how long just thinking, thinking of a possible answer, or an explanation, or a way out of this whole mess. And when they still didn't get back by the time the guards came to get the next pair, she jumped into action and decided to pull the same trick with the lock.
The two boys that were chosen were scared, and so were the girls as nobody gave them answers, and as Mia snuck out she saw nothing out of the ordinary, she looked all over the labs for any trace of evidence without getting caught but there was nothing, she couldn't even find a single hair. It's like they never existed, she defeatedly went back to the dorm but heard noises coming from the other side, whispering.
She knew she couldn't go back just yet because she would be caught and all hell would break lose if anyone found out about the door lock trick, so she went to hide in the bathrooms and simply carried on with routine when she heard the girls. Nobody had realized she was gone and after a bit she simply turned on the shower and the girls hadn't even noticed she didn't come in with them.
That day during lunch she finally managed a moment alone with Soren as she dragged him deep into the woods, and I mean that both literally and figuratively, "Mia, what do you want? The woods doesn't seem like a very good place to fuck." Soren said, following Mia without a single hint of resistance, "Okey... Okey, I'm gonna tell you something and I need you to promise you'll keep it a secret. The whole reason I choose you was because you're good at keeping secrets but this one I swear is imperatively important."
Mia spoke with a hint of panic as she wasn't sure wether or not she was making the right choice, and by even getting this far she knew there was no turning back, "What is it, Mia, I don't have time for your games." Sorens spoke with annoyance, not caring at all for Mia's little secret, "I figured out a way to open the doors at night." She suddenly blurted, and Soren quickly jumped and covered her mouth, looking around the woods and listening for any other children.
"Lower... Your voice," He said, holding her tightly against his body as he swung his head around, "Do you have any what chaos that would cause?" Soren said, nearly warning her not to spill to anyone else, Mia pushed him off and scoffed, "Do you? I know exactly what it would do, that's why I haven't told anyone."
"Then why are you telling me?" Soren asked, "Because I need your help, Soren. You're the only one I can trust with this, are you willing to hear me out?" Soren remained silent for a few seconds, he wasnt sure if he wanted to get himself involved with whatever Mia had planned, but thinking back to Dante, he didn't have a choice but to say, "Yes, just do it quickly before someone catches on."
"I need you to sneak out with me tonight, I went last night but I didn't find anything, but there were many things I missed. I knew I did but if I'm being honest I was scared, I need someone's help. Will you come with me?" Mia wasn't being convincing, but Soren still agreed and listened to her plan, and that night he stayed awake and waited for Mia, he jumped slightly feeling her cold hands on his naked back, he got up and snuck out with her.
She used him as a torch, a 'help me reach that' and everything you might need a big strong man for, but the main thing was helping her into a ventilator shaft so she could crawl threw to locked areas she hadn't been able to before, however being too top heavy Soren had to stay behind seeing as he didn't fit into the shaft.
And she returned soon after having not found anything at all, "Its a dead end.." she whispered, and soon heard voices approaching them, she crawled back into the ventilator shaft and Soren hung onto it for dear life, holding onto the bottom of the vent with his hands and lifting his legs so they don't hang. It was quite easy for him but his heart was racing like never before.
"Yes, Akuma, I'm well aware, will you please just let me do my work in peace?!"
"No! If anything happens to any of those children their blood will be on your hands! I need those kids to be safe, do you understand that? No harm must come to them!"
"No more harm then we've already done, mistress, but nothings gonna get done at all if you keep me up like this!"
Hearing the two doctors fighting sent confusion into their minds, 'no harm'? How has PaperCut done anything but harm them? After they kept quiet and still for another good two minutes, Soren slowly let himself down, and held onto Mia's legs as she refused to jump down, "I-i cant, I'm too heavy you'll drop me." She whispered, she's been afraid of heights her whole life, however the time couldn't have been worse, Soren tried to gently calm her down but hearing slow, but loud heels clacking against the floor slowly approaching him he panicked.
So he grabbed her foot tightly and yanked it down causing her to fall on top of him, however he caught her perfectly, the result however being her voice raising an octave as she yelped, and alerted Miss Anami causing her to ditch her long midnight walk and quickly walk towards the two.
They both scaled the floors running back to the exit door, and Anami soon realized it was likely just one of the two girls in the labs right in front of her and thought nothing of it while Mia and Soren ran for their lives back to the dorms.
"Wait wait wait wait, she's not following us, she stopped at the labs already." Mia whispered to Soren after grabbing his arm, "And what now, Mia?! What else do you think we can do?" Though Sorens words were painfully laced with anger, they remained quiet and barely audible, "Let's just go back-" Mia barely even started her sentence before being shut down again, "Mia, I get you, and I admire you for your determination but you heard what Akuma said, they aren't trying to hurt us, they'll be back, Okey? For now let's rather worry about our own safety's and go back."
Mia didn't want to go back, she wanted to keep looking and find out what had happened to those four missing children, so she remained silent staring at Soren, "Hey..." Soren got closer to her, gently touching her waist and lifting her chin to look straight up to his eyes, "They will be Okey... We heard them with our own ears, let's not go back to the labs?"
"Okey... Let's go back." Mia gently nudged Soren forward as he opened the doors, closing them quietly as they both snuck back to their beds.
Over the next few days they were all worried sick especially considering that they still continued taking in four kids everyday, and Mia decided to come up with a plan, to escape this horrible nightmare. So once again she used her special little trick, Soren caught on immediately and waited for her to get him from his bed, but she never did. So after realizing her bed was empty well past 12 am he swung into action getting his shirt and tip tiptoeing out the door.
He looked and looked but could never find her as they both slowly creeped closer and closer to each other, their backs facing one another having no idea the other would suddenly bump into them. They both screamed momentarily and quickly piped down, quite literally, down. Ducking into the bushes as they weren't sure if any guards where nearby.
"Why didn't you get me?"
"I didn't think you'd want to!"
"Of course I don't want to."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I need to look after you, Mia."
"I can look after myself!"
"You couldnt even reach a vent to sneak into!"
"I'm average height!"
"Not the point, also not true-"
"It is too true."
"Mia, listen," As Soren and Mia hid closely to one another whispering each other arguments, Soren suddenly stopped and listened closely while he could hear slightly zapping nearby, "Electricity." He stated, looking around briefly before looking back at the girl laying next to him.
"How does that help us?"
"It's good to know just incase."
"Incase of what? Incase we ever need a makeshift power outage?!"
"Lower your voice!"
"We're speaking in the same tone dumbass," Mia slowly perked her head up, looking around for any guards, "We should be far beyond guards premises."
"Then why are we on the ground?"
"It seemed more sensible then taking the chance, now get up and help me." Mia got up and dusted herself, and so did Soren, "What am I helping with?" He asked, taking her hand and tightly squeezing as she moved around, "Don't," Mia said suddenly, she could hear Sorens finger snaps as he tried to start a fire but ultimately stopped, "We don't need to draw attention to ourselves, light most certainly draws attention."
"That doesn't answer my question, Mia." Soren nearly cussed out, ducking his back forward incase anybody could see his shadow, "We're looking for a way out of here." Mia answered briefly, looking threw bushes to find the gate once again having lost it, "And do what with that information? Run away and leave behind all of our friends?"
"No, obviously not."
"Then what? Mia, please, just tell me the full story and stop speaking in these freaking annoying riddles or whatever."
"Riddles are actually not-"
"Mia, please." Soren begged, if he was potentially risking his life he'd appreciate to at least know for what and why, "Fine, I want to find a way out of here before getting anyone's hopes up of leaving this place. I want to essentially manipulate them if we find whatever it is we're looking for."
"And what is that exactly?"
"We'll know it when we see it..." And they did, they did know it when they saw it, a long dangerous ditch near the tall walls with a noticeably shiny metal door at the bottom, they both went down and tugged and pulled and pushed and swayed in all directions, but it would not open. Until Soren had an idea.
"W-wait, back up I think I can melt the lock." He said, pushing Mia aside so he didn't burn her as he started concentrating the heat in his palms directly at the lock of the door.
It heated up noticeably and Soren could see the metal melting as the door suddenly snapped off its latch, Soren jumped but smiled nearly jumping up and down in the air, he went threw it but instructed Mia to stay behind, and within a minute he came back, "Well, Mia, looks like we did it." He held open the door and Mia was careful not to touch any of the hot metal as she went threw. Her eyes nearly teared up as she saw the dense forest on the other side, "This could be our ticket out of here..." She mumbled, though they had no time to waste, so she quickly went back inside and told Soren to melt the door back shut, "Are you crazy?"
"No, you can reopen it at any time but if anyone checks at all they're going to know, so we rather paste it back as if we failed so they don't know we were able to get threw." After hearing Mia's explanation Soren quickly did as she said, it made sense, and it was smart. Rather fool PaperCut into believing they can't get out then the door being removed.
"I wonder why it's here." Soren asked as he lifted Mia up from the ditch, "I bet they made it years ago as some kind of safe gate, it's slightly rusted too, so it's not knew." Soren was curious, he really was but Mia's explanation made enough sense for him to not care much at all, "So what do we do now? Go wake everyone up?" Soren asked, even he was grateful to see such a wonderful sight of potential freedom, but he was quickly shut down.
"No, we wait until morning and speak with everyone, but nobody must know that we have this."