Charlene felt the taxi driver’s small wave to her back, and felt his presence slowly back away, her sense of safeness farther and farther away.

No more hiding; danger was here.

Charlene looked at Aaron from the corner of her eye; he was staring at her too.

They both took a deep breath, trying to prepare themselves for what was coming next when their breath was caught short, for a familiar voice was approaching.

“How could you leave the damn gun in the CAR?” One of the two men whispered hoarsely, sighing impatiently before striding to their car with the other man trailing behind.

“I was nervous! You keep telling me that those two kids will be following us!”

“Shhhhhh!!!!! They might be here right now!” The first man said anxiously, looking around his shoulders instinctively.

Charlene and Aaron didn’t dare peek out from behind the oak tree as the two men continued to converse about how they wanted to beat the two of them up if the two groups were to meet again.

They seemed to relax as they thought that Charlene and Aaron had given up, and so, they moved on, drifting back to the house they had come out of.

But Charlene and Aaron were still worrying; now how were they supposed to get into the building now?

Light bulb suddenly going off, Aaron pulled Charlene into the little door at the oak tree, and they stuffed themselves into the secret passageway underneath the thick tree trunk.

“Hey!”

“THAT’S MY ARM!!! Aaron!”

“AND THAT’S MY FACE, CHARLENE!”

“GOD; DOESN’T MATTER! IT’S JUST YOUR FACE; THERE’S AN ACTUAL USE TO MY ARM!”             

“AHEM, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO USE TO ATTRACT MY FUTURE WIFE?”

“ARE WE SERIOUSLY HAVING THIS ARGUMENT?” Charlene whispered as loudly as she could, before feeling around with her arms in the darkness for the lighter in her pocket.

“Whew!” Charlene breathed out when she switched her lighter on, and Aaron’s face came into view, and true enough, it had been her that smashed her head against the side of his face by accident.

And his hand was now holding her hand.

Startled, the two jumped as far away from each other as barely meter in length cubicle. On each of the four walls surrounding them, a different sized door appeared, probably a trap they had set up to see who actually knew the way.

One of the doors had a key hole, another bore a lock, one other had a see hole and the fourth was no more than a knob and an open lock. If they opened this one, they would have to lock themselves in behind them.

“The oldest one,” Charlene muttered to herself, choosing the door with merely a knob and an open lock.

“The others are tricks aren’t they?” Aaron asked, looking out behind them as they entered the door. He took a look at the battered old oaken tree that held more cracks than it looked like it could afford.

He took the open key with him and locked the other side instantly; wondering if this would be the right decision, as now they had no source of exit.

He and Charlene knew this was for the best when they heard a suspicious growling from the other side of the door. The other three doors must have opened once they opened this fourth one.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Charlene said, feeling around the dark walls of the new room for any sort of exit. Luckily, now, they were in a larger room, so that Charlene and Aaron weren’t squashed together into one, small compartment.  

“So, now let’s see how we can get out of here,” Charlene muttered, tiptoeing around and peering at the walls, fearing that touching anything by accident may lead to unfortunate consequences.

“Charlene,” Aaron whispered, grasping for Charlene’s arm, which was in the way of a stream of light peering in from a small crack in the wall.

“Huh?” Charlene whispered confusedly, turning back to look at Aaron in the semi-darkness.

“We’re not underground! The taxi driver specifically told us it was an underground tunnel.” Aaron whispered, “Have we gone through the wrong door?” He was already walking back in the way of the door.

“Don’t open the door!” Charlene said instantly, “If we try to get out, they’ll just know we’re not supposed to be here. Alarms are probably set to go off if we open the door from inside. Wait; let us think it through…”

Charlene hoisted herself onto Aaron’s shoulder and peered into the crack, “Might as well see where we are positioned; if the wall’s thin enough, maybe we can try to break out and make a run from them” ‘Into the totally abandoned wilderness’ Charlene added quietly.

“Charlene; hurry up! I’m losing my grip on you!”

“Gosh, just hold on a little longer, sheesh! I’m not THAT heavy,” Charlene muttered, trying to stand on her tippy-toes on Aaron’s shoulder.

“OH MY GOD! I see it! I see it!” Charlene hyped, finding herself grinning, just as her feet slipped and she found herself falling to the ground.

“Hey,” Aaron grunted, reaching out to just in time to soften Charlene’s landing, so that she was to land directly onto him.

For a second, Aaron felt himself blush as Charlene head planted into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her waist upon instinct.

But Charlene hadn’t noticed anything as jumped up and started hopping in place in happiness. Aaron smiled as he sat up slowly; he didn’t know how, but seeing Charlene so happy made him happy.

“I knew it! I knew it!”

“What do you mean?” Aaron asked, tilting his head to look at Charlene try to hop up to peek once again at the crack.

“This is not above ground! There’s a mirror behind the crack. This was supposed to be a trick! The crack was made on purpose to let through the reflected light from a room on the other side with fluorescent light bulb shining on it; they wanted us the think we were above ground, then even if we have insider information, we would think we were in the wrong room.” Charlene pondered, walking around the room once again.

“Sometimes, Charlene, I wonder what I would do if you weren’t here,” Aaron muttered, checking the floor for trap doors.

“You would, for one, not be caught up in this mess.” Charlene sighed, her voice suddenly sad.

“It’s like when we were in middle school, yes, when did we not get yelled at for creating messes with paints? But then, come to think of it, those were one of the happiest times of my life. There are only certain, special people you are willing to create messes with.” Aaron smiled cheekily, when he saw Charlene hesitate and look up to avoid his eyes.

He knew she believed every word he just said. 

~

Sorry for grammatical errors! 

- ICEDCOFFEE