Lockeroom's Pandemonium

Chapter Forty: Rooms of Nightmares

There was nothing, but of the color of white.

Silver Cassano had stepped his feet in a forward-moving position. He heard the echo of his own footstep. He also heard the footsteps of Alina, of Yohanna, and of Jiero.

He heard their, “Hello?” and, “where are you guys?” but he never saw where they can be exactly found.

For the place was all white.

He knew he was inside a room: in a white floor, with white walls, and ceiling. Even the small window which was supposed to be for air and ventilation (had the outer surrounding was real and grassy), was all filled with whiteness.

The outside, just like what was inside the room, is nothing but of white swirling and dancing right before his eyes.

“Silver, where are you?” he heard Alina asking.

“I am here,” Silver answered. “I can hear you. But I don't think we'll be able to see each other.”

“Wh-Why? What is happening to us?” It was then interfered by Yohanna.

“This could probably be the next level of task in this dungeon,” Alina replied back.

“What do you mean?”

“This place, the place that we were accidentally forced into, as I have said, is the Dungeon of Artemis,” again, answered Alina. “Therefore this is a place where we need to finish the tasks in certain different levels, so that we can get out of here,” Silver interrupted.

“Exactly.”

“S—So what is this place, then? This room where we are trapped in? What kind of task or problem this place would be going to give us?” asked Yohanna.

In her voice, the sound of panic and fear can be heard.

“I don't know,” Alina replied.

It was then when Silver interrupted. “Perhaps, what this room wants is to pull a trick. It wants us find each other,” he explained.

“But are we lost?” asked Alina.

“No. But we have no idea where each of us are, despite the fact that we can talk as if we're just beside each other, right?”

“S-So are we going to play H-Hide and Seek again?” Yohanna’s sound of fear and uncertainty was heavily obvious as she spoke. Recalling the Hide and Seek game they did on the Iron Dome was giving her enough chills. Enough fear, for she doesn't want that to happen ever again.

“No, we're done with that. What is happening is that we're not required to hide anymore,” said Silver, “but we need to find each other. Or else . . . we might get stuck in here. Forever.”

“T-Then we should not left each other here . . . please.” Yohanna begged.

“We will find a way, Yohanna. You don't have to worry.”

Silver, for the second time, scanned the whole surrounding. He tried rushing towards the window he saw earlier. He somehow thought that through the window, he could find answers to their questions. Or perhaps, he could find an escape route.

But he failed.

The window was just but a mere illusion.

It was just a sculpture that looks like a real kind of window because of the lighting and whiteness of the whole surrounding.

But how come they were trapped in this weird zone?

And how do this trick is happening?

After they managed to enter the portal from the back of the immortal Moonwraith, they discovered themselves standing in the white-filled place. Yet, they have no any further idea what they were about to do.

Silver looked above the room. He stared and observed the ceiling. He then caught something in his eyes. Something that makes him wonder if this place he is currently standing is but of a real, or ‘just a mere' kind of trickery.

He squinted his eyes to furtherly see what was going up above.

And then he hit a thought.

“Where is Jiero?” he asked. No one answered from his inquiry. All of them, they were expecting the kid to answer Silver's question.

Yet instead of the words, “I am here,” or, “I am fine,” from Jiero, Silver heard a sob.

He heard a cry in the tune of a tough child who tries to make himself stronger compared to what his current state was.

“Jiero? What is happening to you?” it was then when Alina interfered, and asked the question to the child.

“Go away!” Jiero shouted. “Me am not weird!” Silver froze. As he heard those words escaping at a child's mouth, he felt something different.

It wasn't because of what Jiero said, but because of the tone of his voice.

He was scared.

But his shouting had suddenly gave Silver a conclusion that this child were currently inside a problem. He was suffering. He was into an unexplainable hardship to the point that he was now being different.

His voice were sounding as if a diablo's growl.

His voice were at the lowest bass, even though he was shouting. Each words, it has an echoing and reverberating sound—as if there is an another entity that was speaking aside him.

As if a demon was inside him.

“Jiero!” Finally, Silver gathered his courage.

He was imagining that the child was currently shaking; crying as his eyes were now in the deepest pitch of black.

Silver panicked. He had no idea what was happening, but he was certain that if they were not standing on the same room, he wouldn't be able to save the child.

Their voice might have been linked to each other, giving themselves an availability to hear and communicate, but they were actually placed in different spaces—in different rooms.

Again, he looked above him. Swirls of gold, black and gray is what now swirling in the corners of the supposed to be edges of the roof and ceiling.

Now he can see three quadrangle-shaped structure up above him.

The whiteness that he thought was the ceiling of the room, were now gone.

It revealed a new picture.

He was fascinated, indeed, for the once white-coated ceiling, was now a portrayal of the universe—a wide, black space by which the quadrangle-shaped structure were floating randomly.

Yet, those quadrangle-shaped are of different colors: one is black, two is still in pure white.

“Alina,” called Silver, “what was the color of your surrounding right now?”

“I have white,” she answered.

‘It was same with me,’ he thought.

He believes that the floating rectangle is where Alina, Yohannna, and Jiero can be found.

And the state of each quadrangle-shaped room is somehow connected to its color.

Two of it is white-colored, one is black.

He suspects that the black room is where Jiero can be found.

Then he started to panic.

He can see how one of the white floating room suddenly changing its color—grayish.

“A-Alina?” Silver called.

“What is it?” she asked.

“What was the color of your room?”

“S-Still white. Why? What's happening?”

From across the room, he could still hear the sobs and cry of a young child—of Jiero.

Then he jolted from another realization.

“Yohanna!” he shouted.

“What is it?” a small, weak voice of a woman had answered him.

From that point, he knew something was wrong.

“What's happening to you? What is the color of your room?”

“Gray,” she answered.

Then silence.

Long, pressured silence.

“Mom? Dad? Why . . . why are you here?”

“Yohanna!” shouted Silver.

Then the once gray room were slowly eaten by the darkness. It was then when he heard Yohanna crying.

“I'm sorry, I am weak,” she said.

“Yohanna! Stay calm! You have to fight whatever you are experiencing! Come on!”

“S-Silver, what's happening?!” Alina then asked.

“Alina!” Silver’s panic had made Alina fasten her attention. “No matter what, please, you have to stay sane and fight whatever—or whoever—appear in your front!” Silver explained.

He was pressured. He have no certain idea what was the real thing that is happening.

But he knew he needs to save them as soon as possible. Or else there would be more dire consequences they would take . . . if he failed to save them.

“Avoid . . . like this person who once ruined my life?” Alina said.

Silver again froze. Alina's voice were coated in anger and disgust as she told those words.

With a widened eyes, he returned his stare at the floating rooms above.

The last remaining white-colored room was now in gray. And slowly, it was being eaten by the darkness.

He knew what that means.

“Damn it, Alina! Do not do that! Please, listen to me!”

He then heard a loud thump from the direction where Alina’s voice can be heard.

“Alina!”

Then, the once white room—that turned gray—was now eaten with darkness.

“Alina!”

“He wouldn't listen to you, brother.”

It was then when someone’s voice appeared in his back. A familiar voice.

As he look at it, his whole body shook in horror. The first thing he felt was fear. For he saw the person he loves the most—and the person that was haunting him in his dreams as well.

“Mary.”

It was his sister.

His only sister whom he failed to save.

His sister whom he let be killed by someone he never found out who.

His sister that haunts him every time he would have a good night sleep.

“I am, dear brother.”