This was worse than the time I got me and my friends stuck under the Mtendere Mansion underground secret maze. It was specially made to be used as an escape route just in case the village was attacked and was made like a maze to confuse the enemies if they happen to be chasing us. But we barely used it during the attack since the attackers had come from there. People in the village suspected that the forest security had more odds of being penetrated than that of the mountain and the chances of an attack coming from the mountain was near zero.
The no escape problem was not the only problem there was in the room, the oxygen in the room was decreasing in fact their was a spoon of oxygen from the start. I had to find a way out before suffocating. The only way out that came into my mind was to utilize my own shadow to get away through it. I went to the corner and faced away from the lamps. Using my own shadow was not as easy as I had expected, when I tried to insert a hand or a leg, I moved a little and the lights got in the way and offset the shadow. I turned around to face the lights, I thought that way I could use my ambient shadow. The shadow was one or two millimeters smaller and I was not able to fit through.
I was running out of breath, I had less than two minutes to escape. I persisted on using my own shadow but everytime it was the same two things. I used the tools box's shadow to get anything helpful from outside the room. All I could reach were just tree branches, that only proved that I was still inside the forest.
I believed that I did not teleport myself there, the invaders must have found me in the forest and darted me before I could teleport then left me in a vault to die. That was the only possible scenario that really made sense in my head.
I could hear an invisible clock ticking, my breathing rate slowly decreasing and my confusion increasing. It was had to imagine that I was going to end that way without even getting the chance to at least confess to my little sister. Before falling to complete despair a bright idea approached me. I reach out into the tool box to find anything that would work as a nail, screw and a hammer. I found two screw drivers and a hammer not what I expected but it was still going to work. I put my shirt off and with one of the screw drivers and the hammer I pinned one corner of it to the rubber wall then the other corner. I rotated the box so that it's length could become a height and make it taller. I placed the unpinned corners on the top on the box and placed the hammer on them. This blocked the lights and casted a large shadow under the shirt. I did not waste time to jump into it to get back to the place I was before and reached there falling from a tree.
After making my last minute escape, I inhaled a lot of oxygen like I wanted to store the rest for future use. I still did not have an idea of what was the actual location of the room. My prediction then was that it was an underground laboratory which carried experiments that did not need oxygen. The rubber wall must have been the results of the experiments and the room was cut off from the rest of the laboratory.
I realized the mistake I had made while practicing to end up in a place I would never want to go in my entire life. My practice focused on how I pop out of the shadows but the location. I redid my practice which I nailed after a couple of trials. It was a lot harder than the first practice since I had to concentrate deeply to connect with the shadow I was gonna come out of. I did it another four times to ensure that I had the hang of it. I run out of Enerflux before I could do the fifth trial. I was so excited and kept going without relaxing until I run out of Enerflux. I sat down to relax, my body was burning and I could not properly feel some parts of my body, it was like they had already turned into ash.
I had to find food for myself inorder to replenish my energy. The important thing I had forgotten was to use my teleportation and get fruits from the trees. Now that was impossible to do and I could not climb them since they were very tall. I could not go to the village exhausted and weak that could have been offering myself as a sacrifice to the invaders. The remaining place that had food and was close to me was the QUALIMART. The market was given a special name appreciating the good raw ingredients that were found there. Ofcoarse the invaders could be there, so were the Hands. Since the establishment of the market, the fingers were coming everyday to get raw materials and to secure the area. They were working hand in hand with the Balanor to maintain order at the market.
The market was close to me that I could hear noises coming from there. With what was remaining of my stamina I begun a journey to the market. I reached the market when the sun was still setting, I took a lot of minutes to get to the market than I normally could, I was stopping a lot to sit down along the way and rest.
Activities at the market were going on as they always did. The village was attacked yet supplies were still coming to the market. I could have thought that I had really managed to get back to the village before the attack if I had not seen men who were dressing the dark grey Balanor uniform but with unfamiliar faces and the guns that belonged to the invaders. To be able to keep making the raw materials, the enemy must have had Floramancers of their own.
"What else do they have prepared."