[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/ytkwQgc.png[/img][/center] Leila didn't think twice about entering the dark hallway and Riley gave the girl a quizzical expression. Was there nothing she feared? Oh well, Leila's bravery was rather reassuring. If the girl could tough it out then she could too. After, propping up a few books at the entrance, they moved deeper and deeper into the dark hallway. The walls were covered in mold and everything smelled of old age, almost like the dinosaur section in the museum back home. The thought made her chuckle and with her jar of jellyfishes tucked underneath an arm, she braved onward. "You said you saw an answer, right?" Riley decided to break the silence. Things would be less unnerving if they talked, right? "So we're you going to take a really important test or something?" She grinned from ear to ear. "Or was it something more magical, like the answer to life and all that. Heh, your wish sounds so mysterious and cryptic. To think all I saw was my dream job." She made a face. They could no longer see the light from the entrance and jars were only strong enough to light up was directly in front of them. "Sooo, do you regret getting in the train?" Maybe Leila was the sort of person who kept to herself, the kind who didn't tell anyone about her personal life and maybe prying was rude, but Riley was curious. If she was going to be stuck with them for who knows how long then she wanted to make the most of it and become friends. "I mean, Nowhere's pretty cool. Kim, my roommate, would flip if she saw any of these. I bet she'd try to take one of those bunny guards back home too. I'm not too close with my family, but I miss them and I guess I want to go home too." You never really knew about what mattered until you lost it. "Sorry for rambling on so much. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm starting to feel really homesick and I was wondering if you were missing home too." She ran a hand up the stone wall, shivering a little at how cold it felt. The hallway continued on and on for who knew how long before eventually growing wider. Riley hopped forward so they would be walking side by side then paused when they eventually ran into an old door. It even came with a creepy door knob, oh joy. Her eyes flitted towards Leila before she leaned in to inspect it. The girl let out a low whistle, "whoever lived here had problems." She placed her hand on the doorknob, twisted it and pushed the door open, it creaked noisily all the way and sent puffs of dust flying all around. The girl batted away at the dust clouds and let out a sneeze. "Let's see what's behind the little door--GAH!" A giant rat ran out of the room, causing Riley to fall onto her backside. The girl remained on the floor for a few moments in an attempt to catch her breath. She seriously thought she was going to die, and that a monster would emerge from the shadows and gut the both of them then and there. "O-Oh, it was just a stupid rat." She shuddered at the thought of dying in some ancient hallway and made it a point to stick really close to Leila as they entered the dark room. It wasn't very spacious but it was filled with filing cabinets of all sizes and moldy notebooks and torn pages were scattered all across the room. She made a face at it all but began looking around. Eventually a few files caught her eyes. "How to summon the Midnight Man?" [hider=Instructions][center][IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/2ajygli.png[/IMG][/center][/hider] She peered at the piece of paper before motioning for Leila to have a look. "Hey, isn't he the witch hunter the guides have been talking about? The guy who killed a lot of witches." The piece of paper had turned a dark brown and the worlds were scrawled in a rushed and almost indecipherable handwriting. Whoever had written this was probably long gone by now, though it was hard to tell since Nowhere's time was very messed up. She didn't even know if time existed here. She jabbed a finger at the words 'midnight man', Riley looked absolutely serious. "He's the guy we need to find, I guess that means we'll all be playing the midnight game." The idea was a little frightening, but if they didn't ask him then there was a chance they'd be lost in this forest forever, right? "We should go show this to the others." As soon as they exited the room, a rumbling sound echoed throughout the room. It took a while to put two and two together but when she did, Riley cursed beneath her breath. "Fuuuudge, that sounded a lot like the bookshelf..." --- [center][img]http://i.imgur.com/tKFjLAr.png[/img][/center] [b] "But we will be the crazy psychos that go into the more dangerous parts of the place." [/b] Harper dusted himself off with a frown. "We?" He laughed a little in an attempt to diffuse the frightening atmosphere. "Don't you mean you? I'm thankful with being the extra who helps out here and there." Ace added in something about them being the ones who don't die and it sapped the energy right out of him. In the beginning there had been ten of them and they met more and more people as they ventured into Nowhere, but sadly they had lost more friends than they had kept along the way. Who was to say they wouldn't die? No one could tell. "I'm here, I've got your back." He mumbled it out in a weary voice, but it was the truth. Ace was one of the closest friends he had in this crazy world. He followed her down the steps into what looked like a small lab? He shone his flashlight around as Ace talked about the bunny guards and his eyes landed on the various tools and eventually the saw. "Yeah," he took in a deep breath. "It was probably paint, blood would smell wouldn't it?" He wasn't sure if he believed his own words but he hoped it would help keep the both of them calm even if Ace was handling herself really well at the moment. He shone the light in his friend's direction. "Why are there so many bunny guards? Don't they usually stay in the castle? Why would the queen send them here." Ace was reading something and he shuffled closer in an attempt to read whatever it was she had in her hands. Serena? The drowning in Yonder? None of it made sense. The door slid shut and he felt shivers throughout his body. He followed after Ace, thankful that her chatter was drowning out the silence. "Remember the kid we met by the lake, the one who told us Serena saw something she wasn't supposed to?" His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Then back at the cave, when she sang, you saw it too, right? Those hazy dreamlike images of her life. The hooded figures were there, it was a blur but they were in a few of her memories." The queen had helped them ever since the beginning and he didn't want to think ill of her but things were somehow falling into place. "Serena helped them out, didn't she? And the queen doesn't seem to like them." He shook his head. "This sure is a mess." He let out a sigh, "I don't know, the queen's been with us since the start. It sound a little silly and far-fetched, but the visions at Yonder and the kid's words, they kind of make sense if we put them together, but this is Nowhere, things don't really have to make sense. What do you think is going on?" The room wasn't very large and eventually he shined his light on what appeared to be a lever. He aimed his flashlight a little lower and the next thing he saw sent him into a panic. It was a skeleton. "Um, Ace, you might want to look at this." Was this the man who owned the house, or someone else? It looked like it had been here for ages. Oh god, had he accidentally gotten trapped in this room? Would he and Ace be next?! "Let's get out of here!" He grabbed onto the lever, hoping it would turn on the lights, but it did something even better. One of the bookshelves moved upward and streaks of moonlight shone into the dark room, it was a way out and into the garden. Harper let out a relieved sigh and made his way towards the exit with Ace. It led into a what appeared to be a maze, complete with tall skeleton like trees and rotting vines. Not too far away from the exit, they could see the mansion in the distance.