The blaring sound of the alarm jolt her awake causing her to almost fall of her desk, knocking off a pencil case. Era blinked every trace of sleep from her eyes as she quickly bent over to gather the pencils and placed them back on the table. She stood straight trying to process what was going on because the alarm was all over her building.
''Ma'am!''
Stephanie barged inside while running fast on her pencil heels with heavy breaths.
''We have another red one.''
Era sighed, pushing the strands of her hair back in frustration.
Another one?
The alarm kept ringing in the background as they both stared at each other in disbelief.
''Firstly turn off that alarm.''
Stephanie nodded, ''Yes, Ma'am.''
Era brought her hair together to hold it with a rubber band.
''We don't want everyone in the city to know a possibly demonically possessed human has escaped from base level.''
Her petite form was beside her boss as they moved out of the penthouse to ride the elevator straight to the first floor where the condemned citizen was allegedly seen trying to escape last. The wait in the elevator seemed the longest and the most intense. She could be penalized by the government for letting one of her patients to escape and roam the streets with high possibility of being a threat.
Here at Hell's paradise, they have three sections. The penthouse which was where she worked and sleep at. It was a house and office combined. Then the floor below the penthouse all the way to floor zero has the cells. Private rooms for each victim where they perform daily rounds of exorcism on each of them by her team. There is a secret floor directly above the floor below the penthouse where they take the clean souls for final examinations and administer the sigil of protection on them before they are then discharged from Hell's paradise.
The small ding from the elevator prompted her that she had reached the first floor. The golden metallic doors slid open and she walked out. Approaching Hell's paradise senior and junior executives, those in charged of the possessed at different levels seeming displaced and disorganized.
The alarms died down which meant Steph has successfully turned it down. This attracted a lot of attention from her displaced workers and noticing her presence as she neared them with a dead look.
They instantly gathered in groups, all fifty of them with their heads bent low at her in respect. Era stood before them with her arms crossed firm across her chest. A female worker of hers that had always admired her secretly raised her head a bit to stare at her.
A satisfied smile spread on her lips as she lowered her head. She has never been caught unprepared in emergencies like this. She must have come up with a solution on her way here. Furthermore, she is smart.
Era's eyes observed each one of them.
''Are all the exits to this building been switched to auto-locks?''
A woman joined a group, dressed neatly in one of their uniforms and bent her head low to stare at her bare feet.
''Yes, Ma'am!'' They chorused as loud as they can.
''What about all fire and emergency exists?''
''I locked them all by myself, Ma'am.'' Jude, the chief in charge of all groups and their representative answered with a strong voice.
''Are you sure you locked them all?''
He bobbed his head in firm assurance that he did. ''I doubled checked before I turned on the alarm.''
''How many seconds did it take you to activate the auto-locks and ensure all emergency exits are secured after one of our visitors is missing at their station?''
She had always been against the idea of calling them condemned, demonic, patients. Visitors seemed more polite and friendly. It would make the demons in them feel more at home. And the less agitated they are the more it's easy to get rid of them through the easy method.
A line of sweat dripped down the side of his face, his head remained bowed as he grew more uncomfortable before her stiff form. She had never once rewarded them with a smile but has always had this cold and disinterested look plastered on her face at all times and while they worked.
There was also more reasons why they called her the Ice boss.
He did a quick estimate of how many seconds it took him to run back and forth on the first floor to turn on the autolocks and disengaged every working elevator in the building apart from the one that went to the penthouse. To push the heavy iron doors of all twelve emergency exit on this floor alone with all his power and as quick as he could just to keep that little demon trapped in the building.
''It was around…'' Jude gulped as he prepared for the worst. ''…one thousand five hundred seconds…''
Era scoffed with a short laugh. ''That's more than enough time for them to escape and have a life out there!'' Era snapped in disappointment. ''How in the damn hell did we have another red one in less than forty-eight hours? Were you all sleeping when it happened? Which group oversees our visitors at the base level today?!''
Everyone shifted back to avoid being overwhelmed by frost bites. Her eyes flared red at each of them to talk.
''Group five, Ma'am.'' Jude answered for all of them and the members of group five bared the burn of Era's displeasure. She stared at each of them secluded from the rest of the four groups. She tilted her head a bit to the side, confused.
''Aren't you supposed to be ten in a group?''
Jude raised his head at her observation. Era's eyes connected with the one with scarred feet. Her long blonde hair fell like curtain over her face as she bent low in respect like the rest of them.
''You, over there.'' All eyes fell on the weirdo who decided to come to work without putting on shoes. Era controlled herself from freaking out by one of her employee daring to work with her today without any shoes on. ''What is your name?''
Jude tried to get a closer look at the girl because he had never seen any of the girls among them that had a blonde colored hair. She also didn't seem very familiar.
There was a brief second of silence before the girl giggled like a child and answered, ''Amelia.'' in a sing-song tone.
Era raised an eyebrow in alarm as she took a step closer, causing the rest to raise their heads up in horror.
''Why…'' Era paused to compose herself and keep it all together. She'd already understood what was happening but wanted to play along until they had her. ''…tell me dear why you aren't putting on your shoes? It's scarring your pretty feet walking around on the cold floors of this building.'' She signalled Jude to prepare himself.
The rest members of the team each had their hearts pounding in their chest when Amelia raised her head slowly to reveal her face. Era felt a chill ran down her smile at the grotesque look. Her eyes widening in disbelief at how this particular demon has manifested so much in this body enough to be able to reveal its face through her. Amelia snapped her head towards Era, flashing a pair of ugly teeth at her with a mocking smile on her face.
''Why don't you come find out why I am not wearing any shoes, bitch?!''
Everyone scattered around as they hurried after the demonic entity they've been looking for since the alarm was turned on.