[img]http://i.imgur.com/SsySWU5.png[/img]

[b]"Hey Leila, why did you get on the train?...C'mon, spill it.”[/b]

Riley grabbed Leila by the shoulders from behind and asked enthusiastically, while shoving her chin onto Leila’s shoulder and somehow managing to deliver a piercing stare into her eyes from that angle.

Leila’s mind went blank for a moment.

“I-um…”

[i]Why did she get on the train?[/i] Leila questioned herself, and almost came to suspecting that she herself didn’t know the answer to that question anymore. She tried hard to remember. Maybe she was just zoning out at the moment and accidentally stepped in. Perhaps it was one of those no-brain “why not” moments that she had every once in a while. Leila speculated, but she knew clearly that it was something else. Something...

...Why did she get on the train back then? Days...weeks ago? How long ago? What train? Where? Some questions she couldn’t find answers to and others, the questions themselves were pointless. She’s forgotten a lot since she ended up here. But of all that the one thing she wouldn’t forget...

...It was hard to think looking into Riley’s anticipating expression. Leila shifted her eyes to avoid eye contact. When Riley’s followed, she would turn to look in another direction, in a way that would remind one of someone who did wrong and was struggling to lie in the face of an interrogator. 

Eventually, the little lapses of time of not being under the thought-halting stress were collectively sufficient for her to compose a coherent response:

“I - I saw … an … an answer.”

She uttered as her sight dropped to the floor and stayed there for a while. And then, silence.

Coherent? Probably, just barely. Informative? Questionable. It seemed enough to satisfy Riley’s curiosity at least temporarily, though.

Leila allowed her heart rate and breath to restore themselves to their normal state - having Riley so eagerly look at her for those few seconds happened to somehow be more frightening an experience than the surprise she pulled earlier when approaching her.

The two of them then resumed examining their surroundings. With Riley as a companion and her jar as an additional light source, the area around them was lit up more clearly, they could see further out, and the atmosphere suddenly became much less intimidating.

Still, she had no clue what to do now. In fact she had not thought about it thoroughly until now - being too absorbed in the atmosphere of an ancient library didn’t leave much time for that. So once again they split up to look for clues in this mansion...but where to start? Extracting any traces of information they were looking for from the amount of data this library contained must be centuries of processing work. Certain things can be prioritized and others can be ruled out to increase the efficiency of such a search, but still the feasibility -

[b]"That looks interesting,"[/b] Riley noted as she proceeded to pull one of the books out from its place on the shelves.

Before Leila could bring her attention back to what Riley was doing, she heard the click and the sound of machinery. The entire floor rumbled as the bookshelf, with all its weight and its height reaching near the ceiling, moved. The two girls made way as the shelf pushed itself forward, rows of books wobbling and dust projected into the air around it as the shelf vibrated, until it had enough space to start sliding sideways. When the shelf came to a halt and Leila was done coughing from the tickles sent up her nose by the particles in the air, the area behind where the shelf once stood was revealed to be a gateway, opening into a staircase downwards into another impenetrable darkness.

[b]"Should we take a look? It could lead us to some clues..."[/b]

[center]*	*	*	*[/center]

The two of them descended, glows from the jars illuminating the path. The hallway was tall, but was only wide enough for one person to go through at once. Leila walked in front, not having thought about it much when she walked through the entrance first when Riley suggested they do so. The two of them did, as an afterthought, went back up after going down just a bit, and shoved a volume of one particularly large encyclopedia at the entrance, and another behind the tilted book on the shelf; in hope that those would keep the gate open and leave a way out, lest the shelf decides to fall back into its place, by the time of which it would probably be too late if they realized they couldn’t find a switch from the inside.

Locked from behind them. In a dark, restricted space like this one. One end sealed and the other leading to who knows where, and how long it’ll take to reach -

- Leila preferred not to think about it.

She wrapped her arms around the glowing jar as she stepped carefully down the stairs. The air inside the passage was stale and very dry, which made Leila quite uncomfortable. It was also slightly chilly in there. Leila looked like she was hugging the jar to try to warm herself, even though the jar didn’t emit heat as it did light. The actual reason she was doing that, though, was probably her intention to protect the jar in the case of her slipping and falling even at the cost of cushioning the impact with her own body, for they couldn’t afford to lose their source of light in a scenario like this.

And so they walked. Once in a while Leila would turn around just to make sure Riley was still there, although she dared not do it for too long, in the fear of situations suddenly arising in front of them.

To be honest Leila felt the urge to just drop the light and cling to Riley and do nothing until something happens or someone gets them out of there. But then that is utterly unproductive, so she resisted.

She counted the steps as they walked, perhaps only to provide an indication of distance because time was unreliable, and there was no distancing entrance to look back towards for there was no light source back there once they left - and the other end of the staircase, where it led to, was still nowhere in sight.

Leila also pondered about Riley, and how she managed to identify the book that was the trigger to that entrance. How did she know? [i]Did[/i] she know? The odds suggested - wait, flawed premise. Who knew how probability worked in Nowhere? But then - the question turned into gauging the possibility of a different mathematics against that of just accidentally hitting that one book - Leila still decided she had strong enough evidence to believe that Riley knew something - no, that Riley knew [i]much more[/i] that she didn’t, and that she must ask her about it when she had the chance.

Eighty five, eighty six...