Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Le Maree Della Guerra (The Tides of War) ❯ Trials ( Chapter 18 )

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Le Maree Della Guerra

The Tides of War

Movement 18: Trials

By: Revamp

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His vision lay upon what looked like a credit card that stuck out a little between the dusty, old spines of books that hadn't been opened in years. Hiroto blinked a little and further examined the object, taking it from its resting place.

“Oh? A card? For that camera maybe? Should I go back now?” The penguin tucked the card in his pants pocket and went back to the double doors that resided between the rows of stairs. They were still locked. He could still feel that sense of paranoia. The fact that it was dead silent and no one was around only unnerved him even more. It was a constant reminder that he had someone who was potentially watching over him.

“Something gonna happen?” He couldn't help but feel with each advancement that someone was waiting and watching for the right time to catch him off guard. They were probably anticipating him feeling comfortable with his advancement before axing him at the last moment and stealing his confidence away. “Nothing's happening and that's worrying me more than anything.”

He walked out into one of the hallways, a low, moaning noise sounded through the air and the penguin froze in place. Chills ran up his spine and he gritted his sharp teeth together. Hiroto didn't want to move. He didn't know what the hell that was, but he didn't want to find out.

“Shut up!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, not caring who heard him as he ran through the hall and opened the first door that he came across. “Shut up!” He yelled again before he paused as a moment of realization hit him in the face like a brick. “Wait…Where was that camera? I don't remember.” In his haste, he momentarily forgot that there was something that he was supposed to be doing. “Oh! It was in the basement! That's right! Oh, yeah!”

Hiroto went back into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “It was in the room on the right. I think. I don't remember,” as the penguin was thinking to himself, he heard the moaning noise again, which caused him to yell at it to shut up as he ran down the winding hallway that was lined with barrels. He continued to yell shut up multiple times before the sound stopped.

At this point it was obvious that he wasn't alone.

“Oh, it's over there,” the male stopped and glanced towards a door before going in and only being met with an empty room. He could have sworn that the camera was in this room. Hiroto thought that he had remembered it perfectly. “I don't remember!” He was beginning to get irritated with his forgetful mind as he ran across the hall and finally found the room he had been searching for.

“Ah-ha!” Hiroto ran over to the camera to see that there was a small panel on the wall. He stuck the card in, but nothing seemed to happen. “What did I do?” The penguin looked at the panel and scratched his head in confusion. “What the hell did that do? Did it do anything?” He paused a little and continued to scratch his head. Hiroto really didn't understand what was going on.

Up until he thought that he was getting somewhere, but now he wasn't quite sure. “Oh…alright,” Hiroto walked outside of the room, still steeped in confusion. He really didn't know what the hell was happening, but he definitely had the feeling that he wasn't alone now. He had to hurry up and get that camera wired, then get out of there as quick as he could. It was so easy to get lost in a house with so many doors and hallways.

“No, what did that do? What did it do? Maybe it did something to the doors,” Hiroto was very confused. He simply stuck the card inside of the panel and didn't get a noise, a beep or any kind of confirmation that the card even worked.

The penguin ventured though the long, dark hallway again, down to the white bricked hallway with all of the doors. He proceeded to go to each door and move the doorknob to see if it might have unlocked them, but they were all the same. “Nothing's happened. Oh-kay? What's the deal? What the hell did I do? There's no evidence of anything happening here. I can't tell if I'm doing anything right or wrong.” Hiroto really didn't see the point in that. Was this just another foolish endeavor that he had? Was it something that didn't actually work but he thought it did? What was going on?

“Let's just keep moving,” he didn't have much time to think on the subject and he knew it. Hiroto ventured back up the hall and came back through the door. “I just want to know if someone sees me. One will. One mind. One door,” he said the last phrase dramatically as he opened another door that led back down the winding hallway.

“Okay, that card didn't do anything down there. The cameras are still off,” he checked wherever he went, glancing at the walls to see if he could see even the minutest of change, but he was met with disappointment and more bewilderment as a result. “So maybe I did something here! Ha-ha! Nothing!” He shouted in frustration after he ventured down the long hallway only to find that trip unnecessary. “Nothing at all.”

“Those doors?” He questioned as he began to check to see if anything was different with the doors in the hallway, but they were still the same as they was before. It was driving him crazy. “I don't know what I did? I can't tell what I've done! Did that card even do anything? Was I supposed to put it in a different way? Maybe I should have checked.”

As he ranted and raved, Hiroto ventured up one of the flights of stairs. “Ugh…What am I doing?” He complained as he walked up the entire flight to find that the same door that was locked before was still locked. He tried out the door handle and it didn't budge. This only made the mixture of brewing feelings inside of him all the worse. “What's going on? Help me! I'm stuck in a building! With no idea of what I'm doing!”

He made his way back to the room he had found that contained the bookshelf. As he laid eyes on the shelf, a thought went through his head. “Something in the library maybe?” He found the card there, right? Was that some kind of subliminal hint that the card's insertion into that machine would reveal something in the library?

The penguin walked out of the room he was in and went across the hall only to find the empty room he was in before. “I'm just going in circles. Huh? Wait!” He glanced over his shoulder to see the fallen picture and frowned, “never mind.”

Darting out of the room, he began to check all of the doors he had checked before. Hiroto wanted something to have happened, anything. However, his efforts were turning out to be fruitless. He pulled the piece of paper he had acquired from his pocket and unfolded it, looking at the parchment as if it had some kind of answer for him. “Can I do anything with this? Nooo…Maybe it'll reveal a secret message when held up to something important. Maybe…”

As he walked out of another room he had been in, the penguin made his way into the hall only to be met with the same haunting noise he had encountered before. “Did I do something now?”

His hopes were up and he felt on edge as he made his way to the library. The penguin opened the doors and walked though it, checking the shelves for any signs of change. “Did I do something now? Did I actually do something?” After he had checked everything in the room there was to check, his excitement went back down and a frown plastered itself onto his visage. “That's what I thought. Nothing,” he shot sarcastically as he walked towards the double-doors and checked them.

They were still locked.

“Hooray for me,” Hiroto was getting sick of his efforts not doing anything. The penguin walked back down the hall in defeat. He was wearing down, both mentally and physically and at this point he wasn't sure if he screwed something up but he felt like he had in some mystical way. It was his luck that he did, given how shitty his luck was to begin with.

“Well, I tried every door,” he continued to walk as the moaning calmed down and everything faded into silence. The only thing he could hear was the click of a door he shut behind him. “So…what am I supposed to do? There's nothing for the keypad, so I can't turn on the cameras.”

He spoke to no one but himself as he headed back down to the set of doors that resided in the lower level of the catacombs beneath that abandoned house. “It's got to be down here. It was down here, so whatever it affects should be down here as well. I don't know,” Hiroto sighed in frustration. He continued to walk down the dark basement hall. “I don't often question these things. Huh…” He was so certain that it had done something. Why was his luck so bad?

“Let me just double check the camera,” he walked into the hall way and ventured back towards the room with the camera in it. When he opened the door, the camera was up in the corner of the room. It had moved up the corner of the wall. The penguin stared wide-eyed at the white, tubular machine.

“Oh, what the hell? How'd you move up the wall? You're not supposed to be up. You're supposed to be down. I can't do anything about it. I can't even reach it. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know! It's confusing!”

At least he thought what he did was right…maybe? Did the card move the camera up? Did it move on its own? Hiroto had no idea what was going on and at this point, he didn't know if he even wanted to think on it any more than he already had. At this point, he was shocked he hadn't started hallucinating again.

Despite that, the question gnawed on his brain, penetrating his thoughts and burrowing deep into his mind like a parasite. “I don't know. I don't know. Anything down this hallway? Oh-yeah? Nope! Screw you! Screw you and everything you care about!” Hiroto's frustration was only mounting as he stood before another door. “I don't know what I'm getting into but it looks diabolical and I don't like it.”

He continued to go through the door and walked back down another long hallway before the familiar moaning noise came back. It immediately sent shivers up his spine and reminded him that he couldn't quite wander around so freely…not that he had in the first place. “I'm sorry! Don't kill me!”

Farther and farther he went, descending into the depths of the catacombs. The noise continued to sound, continued to haunt him with each step that he took. His pace quickened as he continued to check all of the doors again, making sure that there was nothing that he missed. He jiggled each doorknob, making sure that they were the way they were before.

“He's not going to do anything. He's just a big, whiny baby,” Hiroto tried to convince himself of this to keep himself calmer and focused on the mission. Whatever was making that noise hadn't done anything to him but moan, so maybe it wasn't anything about it. Maybe it was just the old pipes of the building? He could only be so lucky.

Finally, he came to the last door on the end and found that it opened. It led back to the room with the keypad on it. “There's got to be something here! What's the code?” Hiroto walked to the keypad and stared it down, as if it was going to puke up a mystical code that would work it. “What's the code? I don't know. I'm at a bit of a loss here. Maybe there was something on a bookshelf in the library? I don't know. I don't know,” he was beginning to lose his mind. Hiroto could feel the anxiety building up again, because he just couldn't figure out what to do, no matter how much he thought about it. He checked everything, checked all of the doors, and everything he could think of to see if anything had changed. He even used the card, and nothing happened. Hiroto couldn't understand why nothing was changing despite what he had done.

“I mean, we've already covered that I'm an idiot. I can't solve any of these puzzles by myself. But…but…” He continued to make his way down the hallway, smoking another cigarette. “I don't know what to do? What am I doing? Uggghhhh….”

Suddenly, he paused. His body locked up and the force of his paranoia had finally sunk into his being. Hiroto didn't want to turn around, he felt something ominous looming behind him. Was it the thing that had been moaning? Was it nothing at all? He really didn't know, but he didn't want to find out. “There's something behind me, isn't there?”

After a few moments of gathering courage, he turned around to find nothing there. It turned out that his paranoia really had just been getting the better of him. In a way he was relieved, but at the same time he still felt as if there was something out there, stalking him and watching his every move. “Ah! Oh…okay….” He felt slightly stupid, but continued to walk until he came to a set of doors.

Hiroto went through the first door he found and ended up back in the room with the camera, looking at him through its cylindrical lens. The weight was on his shoulders and he could slowly feel what was left of his sanity chip away as he started to laugh in an unstable manner. “I don't know! I don't know!” He screamed as he ran back out into the hallway and grabbed the paper from his pocket, holding it up again.

“I have a letter! By the power of papyrus I-“ the penguin paused when he saw one of the barrels that were placed infrequently along the walls. He could have sworn that he saw something in there, and upon further inspection he found that there was a key lying at the bottom of it. He reached in and had to stand on his tippy toes just to get his fingers to brush against it.

Stretching his hand down farther, he managed to hook his fingers around it. He barely made it back out of the barrel after nearly falling in. That was worth a lot of trouble. He hoped that this key went to something. Turning around, he walked back to one of the locked doors and tried to open it with the key, but he had no luck in doing so.

“I-Aww….”He sighed before he turned away with a look of determination. There were many more locked doors to be discovered. He couldn't let this little set back ruin his mission. “Okay, so moving forward. I have a key!”

The penguin continued to walk down another hallway, the floor was slanted beneath his feet as he continued to advance down the hall. That key belonged to something, but the only question was what? As much as Hiroto hated constantly retracing his steps, he knew that he had to if he wanted to advance. As he continued walking, he could have sworn that he heard a second set of footsteps out of sync with his own. He paused for a moment to make sure that he wasn't just going crazy again, but then he heard them nearing him.

Red eyes with black pupils widened and his body tensed up again. He could have sworn that he felt the feathers on his back shoot straight up into the air before he took off running and screaming down the hall. “AH! WHAT IS THAT? WHAT IS THAT!? WHAT IS THAT?” He yelled with little regard for who could have been listening to him.

Hiroto ran up the set of stairs and still heard the footsteps gaining momentum and sounded closer and closer behind him, fueled by pure fright. He glanced over his shoulder, only to see a Deep Sea guard running after him. The guard was a shark dressed in a dark blue combat suit with white wave patterns and carrying a spear. The penguin screamed bloody murder as he stared into the visage of his opponent.

It turned out he wasn't the only one roaming around the catacombs at all. All of this time, this guy had been in there with him. Was he the one making the moaning noises? Was there more than one of them? At this point it didn't even matter.

Hiroto ran with all of his might up the stairs. He even skipped a few stairs to help him gain a bigger distance between the two of them. “Jesus Christ what is that?!” The penguin screamed and ran across to the other door at the top of the opposite staircase and shut it, hiding himself from the guard's sight.

“HOLY BALLS! WHERE AM I?” Hiroto turned around only to see that he was surrounded by brick walls. There was no way that he could even escape if the guard caught him. Outside of the door he heard the guard call out `hey, you' and slapped his hands over his mouth. The penguin retracted back into one of the corners as he heard the guard taking steps outside of the door. His heart slammed against his chest and his breath hitched in his throat. The penguin felt as if he was going to explode. Cold, emotionless cement looked down on him like it would crush him if taunted enough.

“Ahhh! Ah….Ah….” Hiroto took his hands from his mouth when he was sure that the guard had disappeared. “Holy crap! That was a guard! I thought no one was here! Oh man! I'm terrified. I shouldn't have looked back. I should not have looked back! I have a bad habit of doing that. Oh man! I'm going to rip my throat out if I keep screaming like that. Dear god. I guess I go out…there,” Hiroto hesitated. He didn't want to go out there at all. He wasn't even entirely sure that the guard was gone. Then again, if he was still around he would have heard him talking to himself, right?

The penguin looked up to only see darkness, then he glanced around him at the walls. The room was small, barely big enough for him to turn around in and he was pretty short. “This is a bad place to hide. There's literally no exit. I hear him walking out there. Is he out there? He's out there. I might be boned. Balls,” Hiroto cautiously opened the door very slowly and peeked out as the guard turned the corner and walked out of sight. He felt himself sigh in relief but he knew that it was only temporary.

“Now that I know I'm not alone, I'll never know when he'll come back and eat my face off. I'm gonna be careful in case something decides to spawn a guard out of nowhere. It's really, really quiet now for some strange reason,” he stepped out of the door and slowly shut it so the guard didn't catch onto the fact that he hid there. He might need that hiding place again, so it was best not to give it away.

Hiroto ran across towards the other door, where the guard was chasing him prior and ran down the stairs and back into the long, dark hallway he came from. “I hate this hallway. Why does it have to be so long and dark?” He complained and turned to the left, opening the door that led to hallway with the ramp. He traveled down the hallway and through another door, back to another hallway.

“Is anyone here? Is anyone gonna jump out and eat my face?” He glanced around. Who knew how many other guards were there, and if they were they might as well chase him, too. Hiroto was better off just finding all of them before they damned near gave him a heart attack like that last one.

“Ooh! Hello! Uhhh…” Hiroto glanced around and opened a door that led to an empty room. “Wait…there's nothing in here? There's nothing in here. Crap. This is a death trap,” thinking about that room only gave him flashbacks of the tiny room that he was in hiding from the guard. He didn't want to stay in that room too long all things considering. “If that guard was chasing me, he could have killed me easily.”

There was no room to fuck up like that.

Turning down the hallway, he found a door that he could open with the key. When the penguin opened it, there was a large, spacious room that had a map on the wall that contained a white ex. There was also a lantern that sat on the ground, and a stack of boxes in the corner that nearly reached the ceiling they were stacked so high.

“Ah-ha! What have we here? Hello. Map,” Hiroto walked up to the map and examined the white spot. It appeared to be just a standard world map that showcased the upper world. He had no idea what the white ex was or why it was in the spot that it was. It was nowhere near the arctic but the penguin wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad one. “What's that? I don't know.”

He figured that he shouldn't be thinking too hard on it and walked over to the lamp and examined it. “What's that? A lantern? I have this light bulb,” Hiroto pulled it out and screwed it into the lamp, but it didn't turn on.

“How do I turn it on? It appears to be missing a switch. There's gotta be something here,” the penguin attempted to climb on the pile of boxes. He wasn't sure if the switch would be there, but he was going to look for it regardless. Hiroto didn't want to say that he didn't leave a stone unturned. His hopes only turned to disappointment as he climbed back down. “I didn't see anything. There's gotta be some kinda thing to turn it on with.”

He walked towards another door on the other side of the room to check and see if he could go through the door, but it was locked. Just then he paused and looked as if a realization hit him. “Then, I gotta destroy that piece of paper! That's gotta be it! I can destroy the paper and-“ Hiroto ran back out of the room and up the hall with the slanted floor before he tried another door.

“Locked!” He jiggled the handle to make sure. A loud moan caressed his ears again and caused him to yell for a moment before he calmed down. “Oh, that's not footsteps, that's just that weird moaning.”

Hiroto wasn't sure that it was a good or a bad thing, but he knew that the moaning never really had anything accompanying it. The footsteps were the one that he was worried about. He walked down another hall and back through a door as he pondered to himself.

“There's gotta be something else I'm missing. The bottom doors on the first floor,” he made him back to the double doors that resided under the stairs and tried them, but they were locked still. “There's gotta be something I'm missing. I feel like there's gotta be something with these doors. They don't even move. I know I can get this eventually,” he turned back and continued walked, going up the stairs to the other door, only to find that it was locked as well.

“No! Still locked,” the penguin retreated back to the room with the pile of boxes and map that hung on the wall. He decided that he would double check it for any other clues. “There's gotta be something in here,” Hiroto walked over to the boxes and looked behind them, trying to find something. “Was there something hidden? I don't know,” Hiroto knew he was running out of time and it was only a time before he was caught by that guard.

He ventured back to the stairs and stared at the door to the room that he'd hidden in. The penguin darted back to the other door and managed to pry it open. After getting the door open while looking over his shoulder occasionally to check for that guard. He made his way into the darkened room only to fall straight down when he stepped foot into it. Letting out a scream, the penguin descended into darkness and landed on his back.

Hiroto's body jarred as he hit the ground. Pain shot through him as he looked up at the ceiling through the hold that he fell through. Sitting up, he rubbed his back and winced. The space that he fell in was just as small as that room he hid from the guard in. This time he was surrounded by dirty, dingy walls and an old, rotted wooden door.

“Oh wait…I fell…” Hiroto grumbled as he slowly got up and made his way to the door while holding his back. The pain still shot through his body and he barely made his way to the door before he opened it.

“Oh yeah, this is new,” he glanced around at his new surroundings and walked down a long hallway that looked as if it was constructed with wood. It was dark and the water felt frigid against him. Hiroto felt very isolated, more than before. Not only was he in the dark, but he couldn't see well enough to determine whether or not someone else was around him.

This was bad.

At the end of the hall was a door and upon opening it, he came to a room with a grand piano in it. This part of the catacombs looked even more decrepit than the last. The walls were made from rock and the room looked as if it had been left undisturbed for many years. He looked around the room, trying to see if he could find anything.

He walked over to the piano and moved the seat back. To his surprise, he could see a switch that was hidden. He also found a small flashlight. Hiroto picked up the small switch and placed it in his pocket before picking up the flashlight and turning it on. To his surprise, it worked and shone across room. At least he could see a little better now.

“Yes! I can do shit now! Hot-diggity! I'm the winner! I'm the winner!” The penguin celebrated his small victory before he came to another door.

However, his victory was short-lived as he opened the door to reveal a room of horror. There was blood everywhere, staining a long hallway that curved and along the path, there were severed heads that had spears rammed through the neck hole. Their dead eyes stared a hole through him as he stepped into the hallway. This unnerved him more than anything else he had seen. What kind of hellish hallway of nightmares was this?

“Well…hello. Hi little guys. Ew. Yeah. God, they're looking at me. Hi, Hi friends. Hello every-“ Hiroto spoke nervously as he heard a loud bang that nearly caused the penguin to jump straight out of his boots. “Yeah, shut up.”

He tried to make his way through the hallway the best he could without falling in the blood or bumping into one of those disturbing heads. Hiroto didn't know what happened there, but it looked like it had been some kind of ritual room or torture room. He didn't know which but he didn't want to find out, either. The faster he got away from it, the better off he'd be. The penguin hoped that he'd never run into that place again.

At the end of that hallway was another pitch black hallway. It was so dark that Hiroto couldn't see his hand in front of his face without his flashlight. He was glad that he found that thing; it was going to be his saving grace. “Alright, dark hallways! Love it. Love it!” He faked excitement as he shone the light around. “Anything on the ground here? I think I see something shiny?”

The penguin walked over to the area he thought he saw a glint from, but it was no longer there. Hiroto scratched his head in confusion. “Nope?” He shone his light around, revealing a few doors. “Doors? I see doors,” Hiroto decided to take the stairs, despite there being doors. He wasn't quite sure that he really wanted to truly risk opening the doors. There might be guards in there and he wasn't ready for that experience yet.

Traveling up the stairs, he was met with double doors that opened from the inside. When he stepped out of them, he turned to realize that they were the double doors that were placed between the staircases.

“Ah, okay! That makes a lot more sense. I fell down and looped back around,” Hiroto thought a little before he ascended the stairs again and ventured down the hallway that curved. “Man, this building. This building is messed up. Man, this building is beyond messed up. I do not like this place. So far there has been no guard. I'm liking this.”

If he only ever saw that man once, he would be far too lucky.

Hiroto traveled down two more hallways, through a door and back into the room that had the lantern in it. He stood in the room and glance around. “Nothing is happening and it's really quiet, and it's really creeping me out,” he was starting to get that same feeling that he got before he heard the guard following him. He didn't like it. “So, maybe the switch works the lantern, and there's still that paper and-“

The penguin turned and froze in place. His mouth dropped open and he stared down the guard that loomed in the doorway. He began screaming at the sight of the guard. There he was, in the middle of a room with a locked door and a guard inside. He was pinned. He was literally pinned between a rock and a hard place.

His eyes glanced wildly about and his first instinct was to climb the boxes. If anything he had the best advantage by doing it. Even if the guard climbed up it a couple of times, he could push him down a couple of times, and if all else failed he could throw the boxes at him and keep him down or knock him out for a little while so he could escape. He made his way to the top of a bookshelf when the guard climbed half way up the boxes.

“What the hell? Get out of here! Jesus Christ! Get out of here,” Hiroto scooted back on the bookshelf and his fingers scooted something across the surface of the shelf. Upon further inspection, Hiroto grabbed it and turned it over to see that there was a code scrawled on it. “Oh hey, I got a code. Okay, I just have to get away from him. I'm gonna go now.”

Hiroto took a leap from the bookshelf as the guard reached the top of the boxes. The Deep Sea guard turned around with an angry expression on his face. “Hey! Where are you going!?”

“Excuse me! Pardon me! Running away now! Running away!” The penguin ran out of the door as the guard jumped from the boxes and gave chase to him.

“Come back here!” The guard shouted as he pursued Hiroto down the hallway. The two ran for quite some time, the guard became more and more engulfed in darkness. Soon, he couldn't hear his footsteps anymore. He thanked whatever deities that resided in the sea that he lost him for now.

“Okay, I guess he's gone now,” Hiroto didn't count him out, however. They were running down a hallway with no doors. There was no way that he couldn't eventually find him. The penguin ran down the hallway and turned the corner. “Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good,” he kept repeating that word to himself as he continued to run. His breath became labored. “I can go down to the basement and I can finally activate the cameras,” he continued to run and there was no way he planned on stopping. Running through the winding hallway, through a door and down another hallway, he then went down the stairs, through another door and down another hallway, descending to the white brick hallway. He opened the door and pulled out his piece of paper and he found himself face to face with the keypad.

“Okay, 3571, okay,” he punched in the code and was met with silence in return. “Did that do something? There wasn't much confirmation. Okay, I can't punch it in again so I'm guessing it did something.” Hiroto didn't know why he had gotten his hopes up for that stupid machine.

Every time he thought he did something to further his progress it just seemed as if he was backing up more steps than he was taking. He thought that he would just check all of the doors in the hallway to make sure that he didn't do anything. It might not have done anything but he didn't want to overlook anything.

He walked down the hallway, checking several doors. There had to be some kind of door that was open. Surely he wasn't stuck down there with nothing. One of the doors finally opened and revealed more of this new, unexplored floor. After trying several doors and only getting locked ones in the process, he finally found an opened one and walked through it.

Traveling a little while, he soon saw a path with a fork in the road. Even with the small light of the flashlight, it was very dark. Hiroto felt as if something was going to jump out and grab him, pulling him into the darkness. This on edge feeling wouldn't leave, and he doubted if he was truly alone down there.

“Holy crap! Okay, it's dark down here. I can't see two feet in front of my face. This flashlight is terrible,” he shone the light down either path. He wanted to determine which path looked the most safe…well, safe in comparison to the other.

“Let's go…left,” he hoped that he didn't regret that decision, but he felt as if he might. Oh well, it was too late to turn back now. He continued to walk down the hallway, shining his light in every direction to check for anything he found of use or to see if anyone was going to pop out and scare him. As he advanced, he heard that familiar moaning sound and paused. He was in near complete darkness. He really didn't have time for this. “Do not like that sound!”

The first door that he found, he opened and walked inside. He found himself in an elongated room. It looked as if it was some type of old dining room, complete with a table that had three plates at it and an old lantern in the middle. He wondered if he could turn it on, and to his surprise it worked. A brilliant light illuminated the room and bathed him in orange light.

Now, he could clearly see the table and his surroundings. Behind the table in the corner of the room, there was another stack of boxes. On top of one of the boxes there was a white china plate. He picked the object up and looked at it in confusion.

“Okay, nice table setting…but why was there a plate up here? What was the point of that?” The penguin set the plate back down went back down the hallway until he ran into the fork in the road again. He decided to go down the other side this time to see what was down there.

Hiroto walked through the darkness and nearly ran into a locked door. The penguin placed his hands in front of him and felt the door. He tried to open it as well but it was locked.

“I have a plate. What do I do? Do I need to set another table?” He retreated back to the table and took the plate from the boxes and sat it in the empty spot it belonged. As he did that, he glanced up from his position to see the same guard staring back at him with eyes so cold it made his balls sink back into his body.

His blood ran cold.

“What are you doing in here?” The guard asked in a gruff voice.

Hiroto immediately screamed and began to climb up the boxes in the corner of the room. “HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT? HOOOLY BALLS! WHAT THE FUCK!? Is that a guard? What is that? Holy crap!” He waited until the guard began to climb up the boxes before he darted off and barely landed on his feet. He ran around the table and out of the room into the darkness. “Got to get out of here! Did the door unlock now? Oh! Oooooh!”

The penguin darted down the other path and came to the door, but it was still locked. He ran back into the room with the set table and noticed a hole in the wall. He darted through it while the guard was off looking for him. “Is there something in here?” Hiroto questioned as his foot hit something.

The object made a metallic noise as it slid across the floor. Red eyes with black pupils glanced down to see a key. He picked it up and placed it in his pocket. “That was hard to see, really hard.”

He heard a noise he hadn't recognized before, a noise that sounded like someone whispering in the darkness. “Ugggghhhhh! Go away! What is that? I don't recognize that noise. What is thaaattt?” The penguin darted back out of the darkness into the room he had been in. After looking around for the guard he crawled behind the pile of boxes and sat there with his knees bent, glancing around in paranoia.

“I'm okay! I'm okay!” He took a few ragged breaths and tried to calm down the fierce beating of his heart before he darted out into lit room and made it back into the hallway once more. “Carry on. I bet this key is this door,” taking the key out of his pocket, he held it out and tried to open the door again and it worked. He must have been shoving the key in the wrong way at first and that wasn't a shock considering how freaked out he was. The door made a satisfying click as it opened and revealed to him nothing but darkness.

“Oh great, more caverns. Love this,” he shone his light around. These catacombs were crudely made, merely looking like underground tunnels that were held up with the occasional wooden frame, opposed to being actual walls. He could hear a faint dripping from somewhere. He didn't want to know where from or from whom or what.

Just thinking about it gave him the creeps.

There was a half-decayed door that stood in his way. When he opened it, the frail wood broke off and the door nearly came off of its frame. He had to dodge out of the way of fallen wood and as he stepped to the side he nearly ran into the railing of a stair case that spiraled upwards. “Oh, spiral staircase. Where does this go? Where are you taking me?” The penguin asked himself as he advanced up the staircase. It took him to a familiar-looking dark hallway. “Oh, this looks familiar. This is the other area,” he had a slight idea that he knew where he was but he still wasn't sure. He just continued to walk and see where the path took him. “Probably another door I need a key for,” he grumbled to himself before he ran into the hallway. The rough rock tore into his skin as he stumbled back and nearly lost his footing.

“Hello!” He glanced up to see a long, rusted chain that swung back and forth in the water. “Whoa! What's that?” The penguin tugged the chain and pulled down a ladder that led up to a hole in the ceiling. He climbed it cautiously, unsure of where his destination would be, or who he'd run into. As he pulled himself up, he glanced around only to find that there were walls around him and a door that was closed, “Wait! Wait! Did I miss something? Or…Wait? Huh? He glanced around wildly, claustrophobia building inside of him as his heart began to race again. “Why? Why?”

Hiroto decided it was best that he go through the door and stop scaring himself. He opened the door and stepped out into more crudely made catacombs. He began to walk through them, shining his flashlight around before he heard footsteps. Glancing over his shoulder, he shone his flashlight on the Deep Sea guard, who pointed his spear at him.

“Found you!” His gruff voice proclaimed as he began to give chase.

Hiroto screamed and took off running. “Guard! Guard thingy! Jesus! Get outta here! Holy crap get outta here! Get outta here!” He took off, twisting and turning down a few paths before he realized the gravity of his situation. “Holy crap it's a maze! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! Oh god!” He screamed as he ran without any given direction, he only followed the twisting, turning paths with no set direction or plan.

He turned swiftly to evade the guard and slammed into a wall so hard that he could no longer keep consciousness. Slowly, he felt himself fall as his vision faded to black.

…To Be Continued